How lucky we are that we can be so ugly

So imperfect and ugly

I can hardly remember a day when my love for you was not so flawed, so messy, so cruel, and unfinished

you returned the favor so

I endured it and I hated it

How could I love so much that it burned me inside, that I should be subjected to a fire that only love could ever make me feel,
I never understood it until I did.

Love is so ugly.

And Love is everything we wish it weren't, painful
scorching
sorrowful
scary.

Love stands beyond the tree line, begging for nutrients that take a toll on the soul

It promises a tree, the only promise that is guaranteed

And what an absolutely ugly tree that that tree will be

To grow beyond the tree line,
what a lucky ugly deed indeed.

Sometimes it feels like you're not real

And I think that's the best thing about you

I feel the touch of your hand and it is scarily foreign

You are made of dirt as am I, still you scare me

I feel you when you hold me, and pray you won't let go

I'm scared of losing you more than I am of not knowing you

For even as a stranger, you are more me when I know you less and less

So please be the stranger that I know you to be

But please don't leave

I don't believe in love

the way that others might

color me a cynic
I won't put up a fight

I fear affection
the touch of another is so foreign

to be held with meaning
with intent

I fear wanting to let more in

But I've never wanted anything

I thought it to be selfish, almost weak

to want something, anything at all

nothing has even been for me

But then I look into your eyes to see myself

and in your eyes is where I want to stay

and I think that is okay,
and in fact, that is when I feel strong

So I think for just a moment,
that maybe I am wrong

Still, I don't believe in love

not the way that others might

but when you sit near me

and we watch the sun set into the night

you unknowingly protest my beliefs

and at that moment,

I believe that you are right

I hold in my hands the last of you I'll ever know

You seep through my fingers tips

And with the wind, you go

And as you go to join the fray

Of lovers lost

I wonder,
what was I to you

A liberator

A traitor
Or a friend

You're all so different
But all the same

In the end.

A bush had wished to be a beautiful tree
to be tall, tower above others, and see
see heights that none other could

but alas it was born a bush

but it wished to be a tree

for there is always a pain felt when a tree is cut down

when its leaves and branches fail themselves

yet no one winces when a bush is trimmed, nor torn from its roots

when a tree grows into what it is meant to be, it is admired upon

when a bush tries to do the same, it is adjusted into something it is not

and yet it is only when no one cares for the bush any longer does it begin to thicken

a thickening bush is what this bush wishes to be

aside from perhaps a beautiful tree

What was I to you

Other than to teach you something new.

Never to be your something old

yet another story only to be told

never a story kept

oh and I wept

all I've learned;
there are those who leave

and those who know how to be  left

Do you remember 3 years ago, when you told me that you loved me

I was scared
And I didn't really understand

That's when we had something.

Do you remember 3 months ago,

When you said congratulations

I was happy and assured
That our voices could still be heard

Do you remember three days ago,

When I told you congratulations

You said thanks and we spoke

I don't know how you had felt

But likely not the same as I

Of course, I understood why

I remember three minutes ago when you crossed my mind again

You will never know this

You will never know this

I will never forget

Though you are only just a friend