My history doesn't define me.  
I write my past presently.

We are weary of those who fall in love easily.

They only choose to see the best in us.

Even when we have forgotten.

I miss you doesn’t quite fill the gaps.
Holding onto something I never quite really had.
A break up before a relationships hurts more than the actual heartbreak.
The shattering of a love narrative I often wish I had.
I tend to break the glass before it falls.
A preempted move.
An unconscious notion to write a story before it happens.
It’s muscle movement of instincts to protect the fragile parts of myself.
The destruction of a relationship before it could blossom.
I thank myself for surviving this long;
But I have forgotten how to live in my after story.  
Trust.
Love.
Faith.
Hope.
Things I once could never afford.
I find myself in debt to those past experiences.
Never quite knowing how to presently spend myself.

I haven’t had a partner in so long that I’ve forgotten I am single.
The memory foam on the left side of my bed only knows left over books and plates.

The empty places replaced with the things I learned I loved.
Only open spaces here are for self-affirmations doused in lavender.
Most of which I loved was uncherished until I had room for it.
The parts of myself I could never find underneath the cover of someone else.

The sheets get wrapped between my legs and for a second, I am reminded of how untangled I am.
How free it feels to be in a place you didn’t wish you were somewhere else or someone else.
A brief recollection of finally not being lost in another.
Deep open breaths of I am finally here.

I am reminded how calm this place feels – the comfort of not missing anything. How the spaces in between are cultivated by a reflection of my love - not those I once loved.

Dropped my last quarter into the bottomless well.
All my secrets keep finding me at the surface.
My wishes must have too much weight.
I wait for the echo to let me know we reached rock bottom.
I’m a rising flower in the concrete cracks.
Life that continues to grow where it shouldn’t.

This night is painted in pastels.
The colors still stained on the tips of my fingers.
The blending of bodies still tattooed on my bed where you left.
You whispered to close your eyes.
But I have never been more awake.
You asked me if I ever practiced breath work.
Marrying your lips on the outline of mine.
Every move instinctual.
A love language we both have forgotten but is now muscle movement.
Your breath filled the places where all the love once abruptly left.
Turned the hollowed-out chest of mine into a room of butterfly’s.
I breathed a wish of a lifetime into once single breath.

To be seen for the first time;
Your palm pressed firmly against my cheek but I felt it radiate in my chest. Watching your eyes gazing the horizon of my pupil. Getting lost in the breathless moment of our desire escaping. I don't think there are enough thank you's to be said about that moment. By now I would have already created an extended fantasy of this night turning into a lifetime, but not this time. This moment shall be pressed like lilacs in between my journal just as is. This time I don't pray this road leads anywhere other than where it actually ends. I could have said I loved you in that moment but I waited till after you left & just told the universe thank you. Thank you for whatever this transforms or ceases to be.