“I guess I’ll just have to forget about you,”
(You idiot…)
“That shouldn’t be hard,” you said, looking away
You patient angel, what did you endure?

Forgetting’s going well, just swell,
As I’m sure you can tell,
And my soul I would sell
To escape from this hell
Of living every day without you

I still have old photos of us,
Grinning on the beach,
I was a kid with my heart as big as my chest,
And you were wearing my necklace,
The one I gave you as a keepsake
To bridge the distance at least a little

It was 5 a.m. and you were on my mind as usual,
And I guess I’m just glad I kept the photos,
As these mementos are invaluable to me
Even if I was wont to burn everything once
When my world was collapsing
And the apocalypse felt nigh

Nostalgic melancholy gives way to pause
As I stare at us holding each other,
And I feel like I’m peering into a parallel universe,
One in which I never knew pain,
And only knew love,
Only knew you

Maybe this is my penance,
And if so, that’s fine,
I can write you poems
Until my ink runs dry
And my fingers break

I’ve many regrets, but chief among them
Is not writing you poetry sooner,
Sure, I sang to you,
Something I’ve not done with a soul since, 

But I wish I could have told you
How much you meant when it mattered,
When I wasn’t being strangled and tongue tied
With fear of being too open

You fell asleep in my arms to the sound of me reading books,
But I wish I could have written you lullabies,
So that instead you’d sleep
Wrapped in the warmth of my gentle hymns

It took this cataclysm for me to abandon my fears
And awaken a poet that had laid dormant for a lifetime
And I can at least thank you for that

I got to wondering the other day,
I wondered if you still have my t-shirts,
Do they still smell like me?
Do they smell like cologne, youth and regret?

I’ve gotten older, but clearly haven’t gotten smarter,
I clearly haven’t learned to avoid touching stoves
Or walking in traffic
Or poking beehives

**** your institutions,
**** your distance,
And **** your rules,
Because this heart couldn’t care less

The heart wants what the heart wants,
And what the heart wants is to **** me,
It wants to turn the clocks back,
It wants to be less of an *******,
It wants anything but this emptiness,
Anything at all but this…

There is a lifetime to hold this woe,
To process and reframe,
But never let go

And I'll visit whatever vestiges I've left,
Because you still hold my heart,
An inconceivable theft

A living burden,
Unpredictability,
Crave stability

Futures rest unknown,
Hiding love, tragedy,
Chances infinite

I miss your letters,
Once sent with regularity
On tiny cards bright green, orange, pink, blue

Every few days, I'd check the mail with a grin
And find your iconic cards,
Sometimes they'd even come two at a time

You'll never know what your letters meant,
Or how they'd make my day
As I ripped each open to devour

I kept every one of the blessed things,
They littered my desk, my bedside
Like tiny pockets of love

And then in one fell swoop,
They were ceremoniously discarded,
Along with every other memento
That scalded my skin, my mind,
And my bloodstained heart

I'd check the mailbox for months after,
Praying I'd find a tiny colored envelope,
Praying for medicine for my ailing spirit,
But none ever came.

I've never sent anyone else a letter since,
Your letters will remain but another hallmark
Of your unbelievable kindness and love,
The kind I'm sure I never deserved

Whisper me sweet nothings of time melting away these regrets
Or how time itself melted away all these months and years apart
Assure me that the years have dulled these memories, diluted their potency
Lie to me and tell me these memories have faded or that time heals all

Time, the biggest liar of all,
Taking memories and simply aging them in oak barrels to be sampled like a fine whiskey with a cigar or a side of regret

Time doesn't heal a **** thing,
It makes tragedy tolerable,
Like soldiers desensitized to the smell of death and rot

Time can't heal a story whose happy ending can never be written as intended,
It can only lend itself so that the story may be rewritten.

I want your poison so badly,
Every inch of me aches for you to infiltrate my bloodstream
And spread your disease,
Corrupt me on a cellular level
Until my veins collapse and
I bleed your toxic spirit from every pore

I can still remember your voice,
Fragmented as though refracted through a prism
I remember pressing delete on the last voicemail you ever sent me,
You called to thank me for the flowers,
You called me thoughtful, sweet,
You were tripping over your words with joy,
And I couldn't handle it after you left,
Because your voice reminds me of symphonies and plane crashes
And oh God, how it still echoes sometimes,
Like the sound of a child's laughter ringing across an abandoned playground,
Your voice resonated with the frequencies of my heart strings,
And now I fear it would only cause earthquakes

I can't stand ticking clocks;
They remind me of every second that
*you're not here

I am ill and have no salve nor tonic,
No solace for a heart worn by grief,
No reprieve for a soul crushed with regret,
I am but a plaything for Love,
A rag doll to be hurled around
By a petulant God,
Punishing Man for his hubris,
His gall to demand happiness,
An impudence unforgivable,
Punishable by a lifetime of
Emotional flagellation and damnation
Damnation, forsooth
**** this bottomless heart,
**** this burning blood it pumps,
**** this undying fire,
Burning for a dead icon,
Like a dog bringing sticks to his master’s grave,
This fire burns almost to prove a point
With no regard for life,
Until it razes this body clean to the ground

Serendipity begets bad luck,
In a loop with no meaning,
And nothing worth gleaning,
Leaving us all at the mercy,
Of careless Luck's whimsy

They say it's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all, but I question that adage. What if you can't enjoy a quiet moment without thinking about your love? What if every woman you've dated since simply brings a smile to your face but one glance at her still feels like your heart is being squeezed by a vice? What if you taste this loss every single day like a mouthful of ashes? What if you need to be distracted by a new woman just so your brain will shut the **** up for a minute? What if every song that even remotely hints at love makes you think about her and no one else? Is it still better? Is it better knowing that the only person you've ever given your heart to is spending the rest of her life with someone else? Is it better knowing that this could have been so much more?

You once told me about a painting you drew,
You told me there was a painting underneath
But when I asked of what,
You wouldn't tell me;
It was too soon.

Everything about you felt like an enigma,
Even though you bared so much of your soul to me,
Your secrets, your fears, your burdens,
And much like that painting,
I felt that I could only scratch the surface of you

You beautiful, mysterious creature,
Enshrouded in secrets,
Wrapped in riddles

I still wonder about that painting,
And what I would have learned
But you were a tome that I'll never finish,
Your pages left to be read by another,
Who would drink in your rich stories
And savor them like a prized wine aged by time and effort

And though I am merely a footnote in your storied history,
I am grateful to be associated with your name,
To have touched your life,
And have been there for you as I have

I carry an ocean of regret and longing,
Things I never got to say,
Before you went away,
But these streams of poetry
Slowly drain waters roiling,
While thoughts of you are gently boiling,
And time ticks by with every exhalation,
But this love has no expiration,
And I have no explanation,
And no expectation,
And this awful want knows no reason,
Growing no less with each passing season,
Like a virulent plague spreading,
And a dire end most dreading

I carry an ocean of regret and longing,
Things I never got to say,
Before you went away,
But these streams of poetry
Slowly drain waters roiling,
While thoughts of you are gently boiling,
And time ticks by with every exhalation,
But this love has no expiration

A kiss dissected,
A gentle worship of your mouth,
That warm place my lips called home

This love is a pathology,
A mind clearly powerless over
A heart mired with longing

Go on and medicate me,
Quell these dopamine starved receptors
They want only your taste,
They want only you.

As the years stretch,
The prognosis grows more grim,
As I drink in your absence
And choke on its bitterness,
I tell myself, *"Finish your medicine"

One might call us star crossed,
Two lovers doomed by distance,
But that's a half truth

You and I were an exothermic reaction past its prime
You and I were a failed blend of oil and water

You and I were the product of the most passionate intersection of two souls
Two strangers willing to bare their secrets
And form a bond meant to stand the test of time,
But whose links simply rusted as though entropy was having a sick laugh

When our hands joined, there was an electricity,
It could power this city forever,
If only the plug wasn't pulled,
If only the lights had stayed on

We once danced to The Beatles,
Blaring through headphones as makeshift speakers,
Slowly circling on the balcony overlooking the ocean
And lost in each other,
I still remember your black and white polka dot dress,
Your charming fascinator,
And I remember wanting nothing more than to kiss you,
And envelop myself in your essence,
As tendrils of young love wrapped us tighter
Than the empty sheets I grasped this morning.
I guess it’s time to wake up.

Where was I two years ago?
Nuzzling your hair?
Kissing your cheek?
Or was I numb with pain by now?
Every word choked out like pulling teeth.

Did we take a shower together that day?
Where I swore your body
Begged me to stay?
Did I ask you yet your reasons why?
Did you tell me nothing in reply?
Did I ask you yet if this was just a break?
Did I go to bed, praying I’d never wake?

Her kiss flowed like ruby red wine,
Never have I known a sweeter narcotic,
Nor ever a deadlier poison

I wish you didn't occupy every idle thought,
I wish you weren't the meaning of absence
And I wish you didn't sound like silence

I wish you knew,
It wouldn't make a difference if you did,
But I wish it would

Drowning and on fire,
A hopeless love,
Torrid and dire

No matter what happens,
*******,
be kind to each other

We’re quick to blame those that break our hearts,
Railing against lovers for our misfortunes,
Consigning them to hell and so forth,

When in reality,
Our oft exhausted and defeated transgressors
Serve merely as the catalyst for the internal destruction that follows

For no one impacts your emotional wellbeing as much as you,
And you birth your demons, your pain,
After ‘us’ is no more,
There is just you and your head,
An entity far more dangerous than any borne of flesh and blood

Do not judge those that hurt you,
For they are as foolish and human as you,
And remember that though
Love may linger and torment,
It is a reminder of what your heart can do,
When it’s met its match

These poems are an extension of me,
A pressure valve to keep my mind from exploding,
These poems are sieves catching grotesqueries
To be turned into something palatable

Poetry somehow doesn't pop without pain,
Somehow inadequate without lurking demons
Fueling passion and longing and fury

These cataclysms are documented and catalogued,
These emotions and stories memorialized,
Their existence in the world a fossil record
Of memories too precious to lose

"It's going to get worse," you wrote,
Your disappointment drenched me like a cold rain

And all I could do was apologize,
Insist I didn't mean it,
Beg you for another chance

But saving this was like trying to resuscitate a man shot 56 times

We all lie in the beds we make,
But the worst part is wondering,
*"What if?"