When I was 5,
The world seemed like this big place.
I was little, with no clue how to navigate.
But then, by chance I met you.

You, with your dark brown hair,
And eyes that belonged to an old soul.
I found a friend in you.

When your little, you’re still growing into
Your own person.
So there is no differences to separate you.
We were little and innocent.
We became connected.

But..
We  blinked and suddenly we were no longer 5.
We were pre-teens in junior high,
With a little less innocence.

Always changing, always growing,
We still found a way to be inseparable.
We were best friends.

I found it easy to talk to you,
2 a.m. phone calls,
Telling you my secrets.
I never hid behind walls with you.
There was never a reason.
So I fell in love with you.

You, with your arms opened wide,
Making me feel safe.
Feeling like for once, I found my forever.
I found real love with you.

But...
People change, and grow.
People want different things,
They drift apart.
And found I wanted more,
Than the life we planned.

I found it easier to push you away,
Then to tell you the things in my life,
That became dark.
I pushed you away,
I rejected what you gave me,
Because I couldn’t trust anyone.
I didn’t think you’d understand.
So I hurt you.

You, with your calming demeanor,
And your happy life.
The way you walked on sunshine.
I couldn’t and wouldn’t darken that.

So...
Now we’re grown,
With children of our own.
We see their innocence,
We want some of ours back.

Because of the pain I put you through,
You locked me out of your life for 12 years.
So, now I’m letting you back in.
Letting you see the person I’ve become,
With the wall I’ve built to protect myself.
Letting you know the truth and see my scars.
Hoping that after all this time,
You can forgive me.

You, whom I hold on a pedestal.
The one friend I still love and respect,
And miss more than anyone else who has left.
You, who can still look at me,
And see something other than the darkness.

I don’t love you like a woman typically loves a man,
With mushy words and hearts and fireworks.
I love you like the ocean crashes onto the shore.
Or how Spring melts the snow with its warmth.

I love you in a way, that a child loves their childhood toy,
Unconditionally without cause, simply because I can.
My love for you isn’t black and white,
I love you more with shades of gray.

I love you with heartfelt immaturity, like a teenager
In love for the first time, finding any reason to fall head
Over heels again, and again,
Because you make me feel like I’m walking on clouds,
Feeling giddy about falling for you, everyday, over again
For the rest of my life.

I love you like paper soaks up ink from the pen,
Uncontrollable and hungry for more words to be,
Written of infatuation and adoration.
I love you, like the dots go above the i’s,
And the lines go through the t’s,
Or how a period at the end of strewn together words,
Somehow makes it a sentence.

I love you the way, the Sistine Chapel was painted,
With slow broad strokes, and the patience of a steady hand.

I paint you with words, the way Michaelangelo, Van Gough, and Picasso painted the world;
With beauty, undying love, devotion and truth.

And because I know of no other way to love you, than this,
You will always be a beautiful masterpiece,
That I was more than lucky enough to find,
Along the way through my journey of life.

And I promise to never repaint you,
Or tarnish your frame,
But to love you the way you were made,
Priceless Perfection...

I’m not ready to talk to you,
I’m not ready to hear what you have to say.
Everything that comes out of your mouth,
Is an unapologetic excuse,
Of how things need to be your way.

You’ve never approved of the person I am.
You’ve never given me the respect I’ve given you.
I’ve always had to apologize for everything,
But you never take responsibility for you.

Everything is a fight with you.
I have to fight to be heard,
I have to fight to be held,
I have to fight to be loved,
It’s depressing and sad.

What kind of a mother,
Would let her daughter beg for love and affection?
I came to you on bended knee,
Dying for your attention.

But I’ll never measure up,
To your golden child,
Your first born,
The only child you’d do anything for.

Around you, I turn into a person I don’t like.
I feel invisible,
I walk on eggshells,
I’m defensive all the time,
I cry myself to sleep,
Because inside, a part of me is dying.

I’m over this feeling I get,
The worthless feeling in me.
You use me to see your grandchild,
Do you ever just want to see me?

Is there anything you like about me at all?
You created a checklist of things,
All of which I keep inside my head,
I dress in t-shirts and baggy jeans,
“Just for once can you look like a girl please?”
I keep my hair short,
And that makes you steam.

There is only so much of me I can offer,
Before I am no longer a person.

The rejection and negativity,
I cannot handle,
You diminish the fire in my soul,
Like you blow out a candle.

I just want you to look at me,
And see all this love I have for you.
But most of my life I gave unconditional love
To a stranger...
So who am I to you?

We use to talk about this day,
the last time was five years ago.
You told me on the phone at 2
in the morning you were going
to chase that Californian sun.
You told me you were going to
chase something different, try
to be someone new, but back then
you wanted me to come with you.

Our infinitely epic two a.m. calls,
where our voices blended together
created a world only we could see.
We made a world fit for the two
Of us, and how we stood out from
The crowd.

I talked about the beach,
My bare toes in the sand,
Walking on the shore line,
With seashells in my hands.
I’d let my hair blow in the wind,
And my smile would be genuine,
I’d look up at the sky and watch the
Clouds roll by.

You talked about just sitting on the sand,
Watching me smile, as I picked up sea-
Shells in my hands.
You said you’d bring a camera,
So you could have that moment forever,
That my feet first touched the sand.
“ nothing could be more beautiful,
Then your smile in California,
Runaway with me.”

But that was five years ago.
So much has changed.
You’re in California,
Your toes are in the sand,
You get to watch the tide come and go,
You have seashells on your nightstand.

All that was brought to life,
Between you and me,
Will only ever be a bedtime story,
About my past history.

And our two a.m. calls are a part of the past.
I only ever dream about you and California,
On days like this I miss the simplicity of our,
History, our friendship and for a fleeting moment,
Our love.

But we’ll forever be each other’s long distance call.

My dreams have filtered you in again.
I thought for a second it was safe to sleep.
When I close my eyes, it’s always your face I see.

I open my eyes and stare into blue.
I see your mouth form the words,
“I love you.”

Like an idiot, I smile.
Like a fool, I believe.
Like a child, I trust.

When I wake up I am shaken,
Because I let you in.
I thought I got rid of these memories,
But you keep finding a way to break in.

These memories are painful,
You and me,
Skin on skin,
Tangled beneath the sheet.

Your lips on my neck,
My hands on your back,
Your breath on my skin,
My heart beating fast.

This is making my head spin.
I’m sliding down the wall.
I’m sitting here staring blankly,
As my heart relives it all.

I can’t stop my breath from catching.
I can’t stop the tears as they fall.
The good isn’t all that I see.
The bad won’t be stalled.

These memories are wrecking me,
Me and you,
Yelling and shouting,
Slamming separate doors.

My tears spilling into my hands,
Your form silhouetted in the hall,
My hands shaking,
You walking out that door.

My head is pounding,
I’m feeling very sick,
I’m sitting here on my knees
Heaving these memories,
To flush away.

Finally I am breathing,
The tears have gone,
The movie is over,
But I’m still alone.

There will always be a million “what if’s”.
There will always be a memory of you,
But if I can stand up after this?
I can get over you.

As I lay down in bed,
I’ll turn the light off,
I’ll take that deep breath,
And close my eyes again,
And let my mind wander with ease.

I had to walk away from you.
I was fearful of what you were offering,
perhaps because you offered it once before,
that this time, I could not make myself accept,
that there was a possibility that you had changed.

You came promenading into my life,
turning it upside down, condemning me to become
an ocean of every single emotion, that I had padlocked
away, promising me, that this love was unlike any other.

And it was. Jesus Christ! I fell so fast! In a blink of an eye, I had surrendered everything that was me, to you.

I found myself wading in the deep color of your eyes, sinking in the depths of what you gave me.
I let you pour your broken pieces on me like rain.
I let your broken promises seep into my skin.
I let your lies intoxicate me, until I was so drunk on you,
that I did not know who I was...

It wasn't enough for you. I gave you the parts of me so dark, that they tainted the remaining light in my body.
I bound my trauma and put it in your hands, because you said you could make it seem, like it had never touched my body, or soul.
I handed you my trust, my love, my ego and my selflessness, just to watch you put it on the shelf collecting dust, your ignorance and abandonment.

You left me on my knees in the dark, begging for scraps of you.
I became less of a person, waiting for you to love me.
I watched you, shut me out of your life, no glimmer of hope, with no return in sight.
You kept me locked in your shadows, hoping that I had not recognized that you, you simply found another.

The prison that I was trapped in, began to fill with water, and I couldn't bother to save myself, because I had thought, for only a split second that you would come back and save me.
You had the key in your hand. I watched from the bottom of the darkness as you tossed it away, and me along with it.

It was only when I kicked my way to the surface that I realized that you were never really there.
You were a figment of the pain that I sought to control but couldn't get ahead of.
You were my dark fantasies and secrets, flashing out in the open for all to see.

I created you, because I couldn't love me.
I sought you out because I couldn't control my pain.
I clung to you because you were made of the same dark material, as my soul.
In the end, it wasn't me that wasn't enough for you...
Your darkness was never enough to drown me.