Drown me in your embrace
Make me forget everything before you came along
Make me an addict for your flesh
Make me feel like you're the only place I belong

You came along to kiss away the boy in me,
To show me what happens when you love with no compromise,
You were the most painful and beautiful thing I've ever met

I tried fixing you instead of kissing every beautiful scar
Instead of caressing every jagged edge, on which I gladly would have sliced my hands if you'd let me

Had I realized what heartache does to people, I wouldn't have been so callous,
I wouldn't have lashed out, I would have thought twice
I'm sorry it cost two broken hearts for me to learn
I'm sorry I'm blind in everything but hindsight

I wish you could have met the man you made me,
And maybe we both could reflect on years gone by

Starved glutton
Hopeful pessimist
Cognizant ignoramus
Overeducated fool
I am a roiling sea of paradoxes

(n.)*: a generalized ache, radiating, pounding, reminding you of everything that's been missing for so long

Strawberry lips, capable, voluptuous
Shapely hips, body sumptuous
Vanilla cream skin, soft, inviting
Fingers squeezing, feeling, igniting
Tongue flicking, teeth biting
Blood pumping, flesh writhing
Tangled bodies, spirits, lives
Pleading, teasing, seducing eyes
Limbs reaching, groping, pleasing
Panting faster, shallow breathing
Oh God, don't stop!
Screams, gasps, ecstasy, pop

I'm still choking on the ashes of your disappointment,
And I'm still reenacting scenes from the grave,
And I wish I could take a step into your mind
To fathom what firing synapses are urging you to consider

What do you think about on late nights?
Do you think about airports and silent drives?
Do you think about beautiful lakes and perfect heartache?

I've been digging graves for every single "I love you"
And I'm running out of eulogies

I wonder what you saw in my eyes
that always made you smile
and look away

(n.): that nagging worry in the back of your mind that maybe you're not as happy as you could be, as you *should be, maybe this isn't enough

Silence is a language in itself,
It’s poignant, peaceful, deafening, soothing
Silence transcends trite words,
And its meaning is known by the way it settles in your bones
Whether it’s a silence shared by two lovers cradling each other in bed,
Oblivious to anything but their sacred bliss
Or a silence spanning years by lovers turned strangers,
Long entrenched in new lives and new souls

Silence wraps itself around time like ivy on gnarled roots
Intertwining itself with life
As time grows, it can intensify, become tangible like cream
When you are all alone, embrace silence,
Do not fear it,
For it can be your solace or your doom

I just want to hear the truth,
I want to hear your voice and see if it cracks when you look at me,
Ages ago, you said we'd meet again when we turned 50, on the same boat we first found each other,
No matter what, you said we'd meet
I wonder if those were just convenient words,
Convenient touches, convenient love
I'm sorry, that's unkind.
(Then again, much of this has been unkind)
Our love was not convenient,
It was difficult and effortless, expensive and priceless, painful and analgesic
It was volatile and tender, it was all I ever wanted

They say ghosts feel cold,
But your hand on my cheek,
Pale, ethereal, yet warm
Says otherwise,
They say ghosts feel cold,
But my memories could warm me forever,
So throw another log on the fire, love,
It's gonna be a cold winter

This is performance art of the worst kind,
And the artists are performing against their will,
Trapped in glass boxes, pounding on the walls,
Screaming at ghosts

They mime at passersby for help,
Anything to relieve the pain,
The interminable burden,
Strangers sadly shrug and walk on

And so these ****** souls
Toil away at their craft,
Scribbling nonsense on bits of scrap,
Trying to fill the void

(n.)*: the kind of truth that makes your voice crack, no matter how many times you say it aloud

warm blonde hair brushed my cheek as I stroked your arched back,
silken skin like porcelain and cream,
I inhaled your perfume down to my toes,
before realizing it was all a dream

(n.)*: the act of inevitably setting flame to every new city you build, because starting over is easier than maintaining

(n.)*: that body of water in your chest, violent waves slamming against a weathered ribcage, threatening to drown you from the inside

I imagine your lips,
I'm struck,
A kaleidoscope of memories

shower (n.): a place to practice the words you'll never say

absence (n.): that hole in your chest you ignore every day, the one that doctors just sadly shake their head at

lips (pl. n.): another word for home
*(see: familiarity, beauty)

appreciation (n): a bitterness tasted in retrospect

Sometimes I wonder if you’ve gone through what I have,
Dating other people as a narcotic to numb the pain of missing an extension of your heart,
We’re all creatures fixated on the now,
And short term memory and the immediacy of ******* prevail enough
So that Mrs. Right Now will do,
And maybe she’ll become Mrs. Right in time,
Maybe she’ll steal your heart,
Or maybe she never will
Maybe the heart can only be stolen in that first glance at feral eyes flashing with desire

All I do is explore mouths looking for answers,
Searching flesh for relief, however ephemeral
Oh how I hope you find this repugnant and foul,
How I hope you treasured each man like he was the last drop of water on Earth,
Of course I’m not naïve,
But I hope I meant as much as you made me believe

rain drops
  ripples ascending
    disturbing placidity and calm

Sorry for staring,
Your visage has simply stolen my words

I could craft volumes of poetry on your eyes alone,
I swear I see the souls of sapphires
In those bottomless pools of azure

But here, now, I am spellbound,
Bewitched by beauty,
Captivated by curves,
And I hope I can crack out a "Hello"

If we silently missed each other, a million worlds apart, would it matter?

If 2 trees fell down 2,981 miles apart and no one was around to hear them, would they make a sound?

On the day that you drove home alone from the airport, did your tears run as silently as mine did on the morning I texted you, "I'm sorry for everything" before deleting your number for good?

I trawl the beaches of my mind,
Sifting through detritus for memories,
A single shiny bauble to add to my closet,
Overflowing with skeletons

These sands can never bury things forever,
The waves will come,
They will erode,
Nothing can stay hidden indefinitely

"I'm yours now. You can do whatever you want to me."
I didn't even know what to say,
I never did,
I was still shocked you could want anything to do with me

You said you had hopes for us,
But what hope was there?
We had no direction, no plans,
We just plodded forward hoping this foundation we built could brave the trials of winter

I've read that soulmates can come together and apart just as easily,
A tragic scenario to be certain,
And if that's the case,
What is a soulmate but a reminder that love is eternal agony?

I do still love you,
Love is,
It's become like breathing,
Autonomic

I can't even remember life before this,
What it was like to be absentminded,
The loveliness of ignorance,
Oh how I would gorge on its sweetbreads

But this is simply life now,
I live in flashbacks and moments,
I love ghosts and candied words,
And I drink the liquor of empty hopes

The heart is rich and expressive,
but one word it will never know:
*futility

I am thankful for:
Every beautiful woman I've ever met,
Every one who laid in my bed,
Every woman who let me care,
Every burden they let me bear,
I'm thankful for every lesson learned
Thankful for every scar earned
I'm thankful for my only love,
A divine happenstance from above,
Who helped realize a burgeoning poet,
Who, criminally, didn't even know it

You were love uncompromised, unadulterated,
You were the purest expression of the drug,
Before I tasted death on my tongue,
And before my heart learned despair,
Before inhibitions and walls were erected
Making love a feat as difficult as trying to go a day without flashbacks of us holding each other as if nothing else had ever made more sense than this moment right here

Why did you have to pull me in like this?
Why couldn't you be like every other girl?
Benign? Impermanent?

You were untraditional, unorthodox,
You became air where there was none,
Water where there was only dust

And then you told me that you were sick,
And nothing brings two people in like illness,
All of a sudden everything changed

I've never felt like much of a father figure,
But ******* you made me care like one,
Probably why it's still so agonizing

And I'm still tasked with laughable ideas
Like "letting go" and "moving on"
And I know that there's no alternative

There is no room for me in your life,
You've set sail for new waters,
And I'm simply left to drown

We're all made to pay for our mistakes,
And my heart spits out poetry,
Trying to repay this debt,
But some mistakes we never really stop paying for

I haven’t dreamt of you in ages,
Yet last night you crept in,
The product of some subconscious fever

I wish you’d have the courtesy to keep your distance,
Because although I miss you the way gasoline misses spark,
I still remember the impact,
Broken glass crunching underfoot
And sirens wheeling away my innocence

I remember colors bleeding away to grayscale,
Like a black and white film morosely painting a plot
Where the actors simply grimace at each other
Over grievances unbeknownst to the audience,
The denouement arrives to show us a lone chalk outline,
Roll credits.

What if I ran when you told me to?
What if I hadn’t said no?
What if I had left you the way you left me?

And what if you weren’t the first girl?
Would I have loved you the same?
Would I still be bound and chained by this addiction?

I grew closer to you than anyone,
I sang to you on the phone before your surgery,
I straightened your hair when you couldn’t lift your shoulder

How do you reconcile this?
How do you rationalize it?
Or discard it?

I couldn’t always be there for you,
But I always tried,
Despite the distance,
I always tried

This grip remains ever tight,
I’ve ended relationships because I refused to entertain long distance again,
I ended a toxic relationship with a flaxen beauty,
Because I refused to accept her brokenness,
Because I refused to try and fix anyone ever again

And I’m not alone because I haven’t had chances,
These were conscious sabotages,
Because I refused to settle for less than love

I will not settle for love that doesn’t throttle me,
Or drive me to ***** from anxiety,
I won’t settle for love that doesn’t set my skin on fire,
Or consume my thoughts like a pathology,
I won’t settle for love that I’m not terrified to lose,
Because I wouldn’t be able to breathe without it

I won’t settle for a love that I wouldn’t write poetry about until I’m ******* dead,
I won’t settle for a love that doesn’t make an addict out of me again,
I won’t settle for a love that doesn’t shove you away,
And I won’t settle for a love that doesn’t grip me as hard as your memory does

I won’t settle because nothing less will do,
Nothing less can rewire me,
Nothing less can fill this chasm in my heart,
And maybe I won’t ever stop loving you,
But I deserve nothing less than to love anew

She's in love,
So drenched in her bliss
And here you are clinging on,
With Tegan and Sara in the background

Life's not fair, maybe,
Maybe it didn't go as you liked,
Maybe you're drinking,
Maybe this is what you get.

And maybe you'll hold onto this hurt,
Maybe you won't abandon hope,
Maybe you won't ***** this flame,
Maybe you'll just quietly ache

Man has suffered worse than this,
Even if it's difficult to imagine,
Love is an agonizing fire,
It never stops burning

Beer still flows,
Wine still numbs,
Memories won't disappear,
What's another day?

What's another song?
What's another heart pang?
The heart's a surprising agony engine,
Capable of rekindling pain from ashes

And I'll keep entertaining new women,
Because new is still something,
It's no replacement,
But at least I'm occupied

At least there's potential,
At least love can be reborn,
At least I need not die,
At least I may live again