I teeter on the line of friend and more,
Tight-rope walking with arms out to balance me,
As if that gives me any stability in what I want from you.

I walk the fine line of your friend and more
Because I don't know where you stand about me-
Do you tight-rope walk the way I do?

Or do you stake claim in the friend side?
Do you wait for me, hoping for more?
Are you watching to see which way I fall?

I've already fallen for your eyes
And I'm sure you could catch me too.
Would you hold me though?

Would you let me sink into that embrace,
And maybe find a place in your arms
Wherein I fit perfectly?

Or do you balance me as quickly as I fall,
Making sure I stand sturdy
Without your aid?

I teeter the line of friend and more,
Hoping you'll cross it before me.
I want to cross my fingers behind my back

Every time I say you're just a friend,
Because I know it's a lie,
And a line I want to cross so badly.

I touched skin I used to know and tasted lips I used to crave.

Little did I know that letting you back in simply meant my backbone had caved.

Come around midnight,
When the moon light is all you have to guide you
Around my want when it's at it's absolute height-

When I most want to be entangled in legs and hair
And arms and your soft-spoken words- like birds, they flew
As whispers into the night air.

Come around and lay beside my slowly closing eyes,
Settle into my frame and stay awhile, see the sky blue
As we wait for the sun to illuminate the sleepy skies.

It's okay that you broke my heart,
It's okay that the pieces are still tucked behind pillows and underneath my bed.
It's okay I haven't figured out how each piece fits back together-
I've stopped feeling so puzzled as to why I can't let you go.

I stopped searching so **** hard for why you still get under my skin,
And pondering ways it could still work.

It's okay that you found a way into my journals and poems and scrawls upon scraps of paper.
It's okay that I let you so far in that you still haven't found your way out.

It's okay that I write this now because I stopped shaming myself for writing you, about you, even shamelessly writing to you.

It's okay because the most beautiful thing about heartbreak is all I've made out of it, the art of it all.

It's okay because these words outshine anything you could have been for me.

It's okay because even if from the outside looking in I'm holding onto a ghost of someone, I know the gossamere you I once knew is accounted for in these poems.

It's okay because I wouldn't have embraced the humility of not only missing you, but the general humility of life if not for having my heart broken by you, someone who is a good person but not a good person for me.

It's okay because I found out that genuinely loving you didn't take what I could make to new heights the way embracing the humility of continuing to love you has.

I fell stories when falling for you and these words that only could have been created through heartbreak brought me back up.

So it's okay that you genuinely broke my heart,
And it's okay that I'm writing about it now.
It's okay if you read it and it's okay if you know.
It's okay because I stopped letting the ghost of you haunt my every thought.

The past is behind you,
Where it ought to be;
Don't let it's façade of good times
Lure you back into the warm arms of nostalgia and memories.

The past has passed,
So accept it and move on with life;
Don't let it latch onto your ankles
And chain you down to your old strifes.

The past is what was,
What used to be;
Let it stay that way,
Let the past be something you only see

When the past is teaching you how
To grow, molding into yourself, making a better fit;
Your past doesn't need you,
Nor do you need it.

The past is gone,
It'll only return in your dreams;
Sometimes that's hard and saddening,
But that's only as it seems-

See, the past is growing more
Each and every day;
Just let the past continue on,
And go your separate ways.

Sheepishly, pathetically still writing about you and it is just who I am.

I am the girl who clings until I see you clinging to someone else.

It was programmed into my DNA, my veins and skin to love you until I am assured you do not even think of me, not even by accident in your sleep.

It was programmed into my heart to pour out affection even if it meant spilling out like a full glass knocked off of a table, making a scene and a mess to clean up later.

I don't know any other way to move on than to write. I can't fathom making it out of this without pen and ink, sadly at your expense.

Ink is in my veins and you were once too.

I'll try bleeding you out on paper in hopes that some odd number of poems later, you'll be mere rhymes and word play.

Writing about you is all I have left and I hope it's all that is left of you in me.

I know you're far and can't be reached so I hope these poems and words are like pulling rocks out of my shoes and pockets so I don't feel weighted down by the thought that you've moved on and I haven't.

Don't mistake these words for an attempt to keep you around. I'm trying to get you out, one ink stain dripping out of a sliced vein at a time.

Mmm wishin I was sleeping under the stars in someone's arms and living in the now, not in my math class or my empty bedroom or my part time job. I'm wishin I was driving down the coast where the ocean is as vast as the possibilities ahead of me. I'm hopin I'll wake up in a new city with a camera and suitable walking shoes so I can meander and document my days the way they should be. Really just hopin to break the cycle and find myself so engrossed with travel and bliss and love for what's happening in the moment and embracing it for what it is. I'm needin the sunshine and skinny dipping by moonlight and reading big books under trees and singing my favorite songs with a big, real smile on my face. I'm wishin the woods could be my home and the stars could be my map to happiness and your hands could teach me a thing or two. I want to kiss the sunsets and chase them down and wake up the next day to endless opportunities and sheer appreciation for what I'm afforded- a new, fresh day to experience and be present and learn, grow and understand this eccentric and ever-changing world that somehow stole my heart before anyone else could.

I feel like you're my baby blanket or the socks from when I was 3,
The children's book I loved when I was 6 or the jump rope from when I was 10.

You're the diary from middle school and the pressed flowers from bike rides through fields when I was 13,

You're the photo booth strips from the movie dates and all the wallets of my friends from senior year;

I always look back on you with a fondness and a melancholy, a nostalgia with heart and ache-

I want to go back but I know that time is gone and over, and it's for the best. I want to go back but I know it doesn't exist anymore, like us. I miss you but I know that I'm here now and you're there now so I keep going but like the flowers and socks and wallets, I'll always have a nostalgia, just for you.

I want a love so deep
That I lose sleep
Over the way you say my name;
You put those stars to shame

When your eyes ignite,
Come to be so bright
At the sound of your favorite song;
I could admire that all day long.

I want a love so vast
That it could endure, forever last
So long that you would just kiss me once more,
Because that's what lips are for.

I want a love so strong
That it couldn't go wrong;
A love so sturdy and true,
Enough to see everything through.

I want a love that's only yours,
That leaves me always wanting more-
I want a love that only you obtain,
I want a love like this to keep me sane.

Attempt to replace the way
I'd make you feel between the sheets,
Or the way I could feel you without
Even touching your skin.

Attempt to forget how
I'd cling to your body as
You made love to me
At 1 in the afternoon,

As we would attempt to make what we felt
Tangible by my hands gripping your thighs,
Your lips speckling my neck with kisses,
Our bodies intertwining to merge together.

Attempt to remember the way
I'd stare at you, getting dressed
And wondering how I could have
Let you leave bed in the first place.

I'd attempt to fight every urge
To pull you back into bed,
To trace your contours and curves-
I wanted to hang of your body like your clothing instead.

Attempt to find someone who
Will lay with you after and
Stroke the small of your back
While you catch your breath.

Attempt to love someone
Who will love you beyond
The bed sheets and closed doors-
I at least tried to.

I told myself I would write you out of me like ******* venom out of a vein-

With every letter upon the page it felt like I was pulling bits of you out of my bloodstream.

But then I wake up to streaked walls and I realized you're smeared everywhere-

You're a spilled ink bottle upon pages and pages of my life and you're bleeding into the rest of my book.

You're splattered across my walls and waking up to the stains within my room leaves me stained too-

I walk around seeing you in so much that I do.

My eyes are stained with the tint of your affection and I find it glimmering in every thing I see.

The splatters are still wet upon my walls, the ink hasn't dried upon my pages.

Everything I feel for you hasn't died yet.

How foolish was I to think that spilling my heart and ink about you would somehow get you to leave.

You're dripping from my eyes, from my pen and my veins.

I hoped this would get you out of me,

But every drip hits the ground and splatters out to the walls.

I haven't seen you in so long,

But I still see you stained upon my walls into what is a masterpiece of attempting to rid myself of you.

You're still in my ink, you're still in my veins.

You're now everywhere else too.

When can I escape you?

It's always alarming that I can
Smile and sing the whole way home,
Windows down, hair dancing in the night air
As I drive along the empty roads and streets,

And as soon as my hands
Turn the key out of the ignition,
My sadness creeps up, paying the fare from my subconscious to my heart,
Where it resides until tears slip down my cheeks.

I'm a little lonesome
And it's nothing new to me.
I've been lonesome before,
Thought it's not the way I want to be.

I'm a little lonely,
I have been for some time.
I'm missing someone now.
It's not okay, it's not fine.

I'm a little alone,
Stuck inside my own mind.
I'm surrounded by people,
Though there's no comfort in them I can find.

I'm a little lost
Without your guiding hand.
I'm okay on my own though,
I have two feet, I can stand.

I'm just a little sad
That I'm without you,
But that's a part of moving on,
That's just what I have to do.

Even if my memory is romanticized by time,
And the exact details fade like old photographs,
Know I hold the time we had close to heart and never far from mind
Because there was a time I lived within your proximity,
Alongside your being.
And even if you left scars instead of stars in my sky
I still look back in awe like I do upon a moonless night;
A billion of stars for the memories I maintain,
A sky as vast as what is to come.
The times I feel lost are the times I look up
To the stars of my past
In hopes that they might be able to guide me home.
I won't always be a light in life
And I won't always be a time well spent,
But I hope you look back and see me in a constellation
Connecting the pieces together into the bigger picture.
Life is not meant to be lived in the past,
Nor is it solely meant for looking at the stars.
Imagine all the times you have taken the time to do so though,
And how alive and thankful you probably felt.
Looking back at the past is the same in that
I'll always look back and remember you for who you were, no matter where you now are.

Some moments I miss you miserably and others I feel you slip away even more.
Most morning you're the first thing on my mind.
I wonder how far gone you are and how close to someone else you could be.
I wonder if rain on your window reminds you of that one kiss because I still think about it.
Hopefully writing about it doesn't make me too weird.
I promise I've tried to let go. You keep coming back though.
And maybe you're feeling the breeze on your neck and you notice the flowers blooming and you feel yourself become lighter with all this freedoms
Then again you're so practical. I assume you don't look at freedom like that.
But maybe you at least feel renewed and ready to be all you can be.
Maybe you feel a sense of yourself, maybe you feel like you can make the most of who you are.
If you're with her, all I'm hoping is that you don't use her. I'm not implying you won't move on, but being by yourself helps. Sometime it helps more than another pair of lips on yours.
If you find her's taste like mine, stop.
If not, I only hope they make you smile mid kiss.
This is a moment when I miss you miserably.
The rain is hitting the window and it makes me miss your embrace, your patience and your eyes.
I miss you a lot but I am trying very hard to give myself a fair shot at this.
I'm trying to be on my own.
But if I find I am doing all I can and I still wake up to thoughts of you,
And I find that the rain still makes me think of you,
And how comforters remind me of laying around in your arms,
And how everyone somehow ******* reminds me of you,
I should be stupid and crazy and come back and try my hardest to somehow convince you I'm worth it.
I don't expect you to wait. I respect that you could be so far gone that coming back would hurt too much.
But if you're waking up to thoughts of me too,
All I ought to think of are ways to find you in this mess I made.

If you're waking up to thoughts of me,
We ought to just wake up to each other instead.

I'd like to be flowers growing in the cracks of sidewalks because those are the flowers that fought and somehow saw the light, and grew that way until cracking through the pavement and thriving towards the sun, almost a proclamation brightly, lightly saying, "I made it."

The ink is dry and the pages are turned,
The words have been said, our candle has burned

Down to the bare wick, wax creating pools upon the floor-
Burning into the night until no more.

Burning fuel and fire until it was gone,
Continuing on until we realized it was wrong

To light a match to a candle that would soon cease,
One that wouldn't light us to a path of ease.

The candle blew out, the place became cold,
As did my hands when they had nothing to hold.

You blew out my flame, a fire in my eyes-
All you had to do was say your goodbyes.

Surely the sunrise is enough light for me to see,
But the nighttime leaves me blind as could be-

I am blinded by the "miss you's" and the forgotten calls
Of when I answered and began to fall.

Surely the sunrise is a sign of a new day,
Thought what isn't new is what I continue to say-

Of course I miss you, of course I care,
Yet telling you would elicit a blank stare.

I know what we are, I know where we stand,
Though I bet sometimes you miss the touch of my hands.

My hands don't matter though,
And coming up empty handed is how I show

That the feeling of you slipping through my fingers
Will be the only trace of you that will ever linger.

I just want to wake up where you are.

Time is of the essence,
Just waiting to teach the lesson
Of why good things don't last
And end up in the past.

Time is ticking on by,
Strapped to the wall, it's all going to fly
Right past us if we don't stop to think
That maybe we're on the brink

Of losing all the time we have to use.
Dear, we're just loose
Hands to a clock spinning without accord to
Where we're headed, just spinning through

The motions and wasting time trying
To make it work. We are defying
The laws of time and throwing it away,
Wasting another day.

Like the little and big hand,
We only land
Side by side, one over the other only so
many times, and this leads me to know

That I'm ticking one way,
And you're ticking astray.
So maybe we save some each other the time
And draw the line

*here.

Flower's petals fall,
Like the leaves of Autumn trees,
Like I did for you.

These things falling show
Us that losing your petals
And leaves is to die,

And falling for you
Felt like dying because you
Didn't fall with me.

It's so weird how seconds change what's been going on for years. The idea that people, relationships and circumstances are like sand in your cupped hands until you spread your fingers and ****! it all slips away in a matter or seconds. You can try to pick the sand back up but you'll never get the same sand. Once you let that kind of stuff slip everything changes, and it's so amazing and frightening that constants can subside in a matter of moments.

"The Earth laughs in flowers."
-Ralph Waldo-Emerson*

Maybe that's why,
in my dreams,
we are always in a garden-

You could always make me laugh.
You left me with
Smiles blooming upon my lips.

I could love your soul until you're 90 and wrinkled.
I could kiss as your fingertips and plant stars in them, then watch you paint the sky.
I could find you crying alone and I'd still think you're cute, snot and everything.
I could show you my life and where I've been, what I've seen and who I've met.
I could take a walk on your side and see you past cracks and crevices where tribulations and heart ache made their marks.
I could dip my toe into your pool of affection, then dive right.
I could swim the sea of blankets and sighs until you're begging.
I could push your buttons and then undo them on your shirt once we make up.
I could learn the curves of your mind and the twists in your thoughts, and understand what's going on inside of your head.
I could make you laugh so hard, either at my expense or maybe your own, that you cry. I promise I'll at least try.
I could hold you when it's cold and when your heart plays along.
I could support you when and where you need it- $5, a shoulder to lean on, someone to drag you to bed when you're too drunk.
I could find you in a crowded room and still think you're as beautiful as ever compared to anyone I'll ever meet.

I could be that for you, I most definitely could.

I've decided that I will take a shot at 12 am on New Years, though I wouldn't mind your lips and tongue as a chaser after.

We should just kiss like real people do-*
It's fine if your lips are chapped from the cold ones before me,
And mine are a bit too tight from all the times I've tried to save face.
We might bump noses or hit teeth,
I might laugh and you might blush.
Maybe your hands might shake,
And maybe I'll be too nervous to keep your gaze.
There won't be fireworks or an orchestra to set the mood,
And that's all fine by me so long you just kiss me like real people do.

Waking up every morning with you on my mind weighs me down,
Anchors me to my bed and sheets
Because at this rate,
This is the only time we will ever meet.

I miss the way your hair felt
Between my fingers
And the way you kissed my neck;
Everything continues to linger.

Whether it be how your smile
Took up your face
Or how your hands always found mine,
You're impossible to replace.

I wake up with thoughts
Of your real laugh
Or how your hands knew my body
Without having ever looked at a map.

I wake up tangled
In sheets that cannot rival your embrace.
I wake up saddened
That I'm not waking up to your face.

I wake up tangled
In my mind because losing you
Was so much more than a hand to hold-
That I always knew.

Losing you meant
Losing sleep and time
To pondering over
How I let you slip from being mine.

The sun comes up,
As do my eyelids and chest-
I wish the thoughts of you
Didn't come also, and would rather rest.

I tell myself to go to bed
Just one more time.
But so far, inevitably,
You are still on my mind.

As a writer, meeting someone that left me at a loss for words says more about him than I ever could.

Some things remain-

Summer storms remind me of you,
And if I play the right music I fall in sync with the rhythm and let my heart dance to the tune of you and me, the songs my heartstrings would play when your fingers strummed them so.

I find myself pulled off to sides of roads
Either immersed in poetry for the ghost of us or immersed in my mind where your ghost resides and sometimes haunts me with the irrational notion that I lost the best.

I find the things I'd like to share with you
And find myself untyping the message to let you know because you'll read it but you won't read into it. In between the lines of it all, it simply says "I miss you."

I curse the way my heart curves
Around your figure and around what was, around what could've been and what was lost. I curse the way I find my heart still shamelessly open to yours.

Some things remain,
And I curse myself for merely wishing you had.

Now that I'm within your grasp, you would reach for anything else but me?

A year ago I would've killed to have you say "miss you",
But now you're too busy killing your liver to even remember our last conversation.

A year ago I could have listened to you talk for days,
But now I listen to your slurred speech and you covering the phone to answer someone else.

A year ago I would have taken every call from you,
But now I take them so I know you're simply still somehow alive.

A year ago I did miss you,
Now that's the person I still miss, if I even ever come close to actually feeling for you.

A year ago my grandma said you would someday miss me as she wiped tears from my eyes.
Now it's that someday she spoke of and I can only wonder how drunk you may be.

A year ago you missed me by not caring;
Now I'm returning the favor.

I need to know that
Things will be looking up for
Me, starting today

It's comforting to
Know that though you are far from
Me, literally,

Metaphorically,
We still reside under the
Same sky, the same stars.

It's all we have in
Common these days, and that's fine,
So long that you know

The stars are the ways
I miss you, the sky as vast
As holes in my heart.

The seasons are changing, am I allowed to change with them?
Can I bloom like the flowers do?
Or am I stuck in winter's shade where things cease to grow?
That's how it feels, trying to get over you.