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

Arms clasped around the small of your back as you stared up at me in the elevator
My heart was ready to burst*

"You were the best thing that ever happened to me," I said. "And then the worst."

Another bubble rises
Another minute gone
Watch your ache evaporate
At least until the dawn
Drink down the bitterness
And taste your hollowness
Try in vain to flood the chasm
Your relief, just a phantasm

it's the car crash that nobody was around to see, nobody to call for help
it's the drop from the precipice that never ended
that sensation in your gut of sickening weightlessness
forever in perpetuity
it's this daily unanswered call
an echo unreturned
it's this constant hesitation
this wavering sensation of incompletion
a melody with no conclusion, unresolv-

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

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

"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

Let me write you poetry,
Let me plumb the depths of my heart,
To find the words,
To describe your elegance,
And your beauty,
Your poise,
Your humor,
And your strength,
Let me weave you soliloquies,
About the shape of your smile,
Or that shade of blue in your eyes,
That seemingly changes at your whim,
Let me pen you my memoirs,
And tell you it's ok,
Tell you that you were the best thing,
That ever happened to me.

We're taught to move on,
To be strong!
Shake it off, champ!
You'll get 'em next time!

Except this isn't a ******* baseball game is it?

These losses aren't ephemeral,
And loving the ghost of someone,
Is like dragging a cinder block
Tied around your neck

Your delicate skin chafes, tears and bleeds,
And as you gag,
Perhaps you wish you'd find yourself
In a lake with that cinder block

Gurgling, staring eyes wide
At the block to do something!
Haven't you loved it so?
Bubbles rise.

Fade to black and remember
Your thankless love,
Remember how you held this torch,
And became a martyr for no one

Let's make an effort to age this sadness for 16 years
Will it hold weight then?
Will it be a tangible thing that you can hold, and hug and touch?
Will it have a taste of metallic blood or simply smell like the musty wood of forgotten time?
Let's bottle it away
Give it time to mature
And maybe one day we can both sample the fruits of this labor

Could you graph the path of my wrathful masochism?
Where would you end?
See I tend to forget the beginnings of it all,
Just this gruesome conclusion
This heinous collusion of chance and demons
An occlusion of vision
This endless derision of what I continue to hold so dear

And what if they made a movie of my narrowminded delusion?
A myopic biopic starring yours truly,
And duly shown for all to see real lunacy

"Love's forever," I says to me and
Forever can be as long as you want it to be

The memories still flow freely
Like a cut that won't stop bleeding
Though you've been gone for years
And to ghosts I'm left pleading

When love was severed at the root
Like a limb discarded
I've since felt dull ache
Perpetually disregarded

Like phantom limb syndrome
This missing extension can be felt still
Though there's nothing there
Naught but the occasional chill

My life's a dichotomy
Pure business is what they see
Hair slicked back
Professional, hot ****
Smiling proud, *******
Look at my doctorate!

Charming sociopath
I'll grin like you've never seen before
"It was a pleasure talking to you," she'll tell me

And in my head, I'm ******* screaming
I'm dancing with devils and entertaining ghosts
Tempering and instigating demons with liquor in a paradox I've yet to understand
Engendering masochistic tendencies
Because I deserve no better

My grief was only ever her fault insofar as it was "her fault" for falling asleep in my arms.

I bite my hand every time I think of:
Water streaming down your body
Rivulets running from your neck
Tracing your delicate collarbones
Rolling off your soft *******

I bite my hand every time I think of:
Our limbs entwined
Connecting, exploring
Your eyes staring into mine
Analyzing, imploring

I bite my hand
A curious reflex developed
The pain perhaps to snap back to reality
Or perhaps to give my anguish life

All that's left of you and I,
Is the past tense.
You and I are
A handful of photographs,
Old emails,
A single boarding pass to Toronto and
Hazy memories,
Fraying at the edges
More and more every day.
I miss you.
I wish you and I could be any other tense.
I wish the thought of you and I mattered.

For every heart broken, a story is gained,
Every hypothetical forever I entertained,
Now merely an anecdote
Of how I used to dote
And I wrote, and I wrote
And I'm so sorry that all you are now
Is just another story I tell

An irrational fixation, an aberration of sense and reason, a heart committed to treason, betraying the self and the pursuit of peace

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

Two strangers grazing hands on a crowded train, neither saying a word nor pulling away, simply acknowledging each other's warmth

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?

Imagine loving someone with the diligence and care of a blind person reading Braille, fingers scanning bumps, tactile derivation of understanding

Keep your heart to yourself. Keep it under a glass display for others to look at, but never to hold. Tell them about the scars, tell them your stories, tell them how this is now just a museum for broken things. Be the cautionary tale for young people who look at each other and say, "That won't be us. Promise me that won't be us."

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 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.

"Don't give up on me," she wrote
As if that decision was ever mine to make

A love maternal
Is a love eternal

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 want to explore the sensual map that is your body,
My hands and mouth the tools of discovery,
Caressing, licking your precious land,
Until your sighs become moans

A network of nerve endings,
Electrified
Mapping your ecstasy
Until you're aglow

A body erupting with passion,
A land erupting volcanically,
Molten magma flowing,
Scorching euphoria

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

"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?"

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

A clear blue sky obstructed
By a periwinkle haze
Gently drifting, drifting
Impeded by naught
Driven by inertia

An infinite expanse
And so much hope