I am but ashes
In your fire,
Consumed,
Until I stopped providing you oxygen
And fizzled you out.

I am queen of internet research,
Of "questions to ask on the first date"
And "when is it appropriate to 'make it official?'"
"How long should I wait to say 'I love you?'"  
I am queen of second guessing what my heart is telling me
Because I never learned the rules everyone else seems to know.
I never learned that there was a time frame
For missing the way you smell as if I am missing a star of the universe
Or the way your eyes are alight with excitement
At the mere mention of our winged and feathery brethren.
I never learned that there was a 'too soon'
To losing the mask I have reserved for so many
Or how it would feel like breathing not to wear it around you.
You asked me what I thought love meant.
I told you,
"Love is when you care about someone so much
You want them to be happy and healthy and full
Even if it doesn't serve you.
Even if it doesn't include you."
There is no beginning or expiration date
On wanting you to be happy and healthy and full.
There is no appropriate time to say
"Fasten your seatbelt!"
"Please drive safe!"
"Make sure you eat!"
"I hope you get some rest."
"Please be careful!"
"I really like you in one piece!"
"You are a good human with nothing to be ashamed of!"
To me, there is no appropriate time to say "I love you."
I've been saying it in more words,
In the way we talk about 'attack chickens' at 2am
Or bringing you a stuffed moose to prevent you petting a live one.
It is playing in snow in pajamas because I love how you glow
With childlike wonder.
It is dancing in the aisles of Target
And how much I enjoy simply buying laundry detergent with you.
My "I love you" is three words
And a million tiny ways I've been saying it otherwise
Because I had always been told that now was 'too soon.'
It isn't.
I am just in time to love you!

I am so tired
Of swinging from the vines
Of mismatched emotions
Until I,
Not unlike Tarzan,
Collide with the tree trunk
And remember why
I was not given wings in the first place.

I wish *** was as simple as your mouth on my skin,
As the mountains of knees and valleys of hips,
The friction of your body against mine.
I wish *** was as free as the movement of your hands
Strumming my body to this new and unalienable tune.
I wish that *** had only ever been how it was in that moment,
Raw and sweet,
Approaching the crescendo with the safety of your trust,
Teetering on the edge of the precipice,
****** feeling not like the destination but part of the journey.
I wish *** was not my haunted house,
That I did not have to work so hard to stay on the front lawn,
Leave the demons inside to be exorcised.
I wish my memories were all lamplit and rain on the windowpanes
Of the backseat of your car,
Huddled in the blanket fort you made,
Tenderness.
I wish I could say my previous partners all cared whether their beds felt like
Silk to my emotions,
Not sandpaper to my fight or flight,
Grating on the nerves as I tried desperately to lay still.
Shhh, little girl, anything that happens in your silence does not exist in the morning.
You will not exist in the morning.
That version of you, so young and naïve at 19, will no longer have a name when the sun rises,
Washed like the blood and sweat and his calling card from your skin,
Washed from your mouth like the taste of the alcohol from his breath
As it hangs above you with the realization he has driven with you drunk,
Lost like the innocence as his mouth woke you before he entered unwelcomed,
And you cannot say “no,”
The scream frozen to your lips like the snow on the ground that December,
Your psyche the balloon floating on the horizon,
Pain the only anchor to this moment,
Gone like the idea that you could ever be clean,
The bite marks faded but his hand prints still linger on my nightmares,
The way he used *** the same as the sword wedged between the box spring and mattress,
Weapon.
*** should be beautiful,
The symphony of your skin taste of you on my lips,
The sounds of your climbing ever higher.
I want *** to be the Garden of Eden,
So comfortable we have forgotten we are not clothed,
Lost in the pleasure of our existence,
But even the Garden of Eden has a snake.
I wish that *** was not my haunted house,
Not a list of landmines longer than my forearm,
And though I have spent a year now opening the curtains, clearing the dust, and airing out the closets,
Sometimes I still ask you to please, leave the light on when we sleep.
Sometimes I can still hear the door closing with no hand behind it and acidic “You’re one hot *****.”
But you have reminded me why I fell in love with *** in the first place,
As a thread sewn between two people,
A connection of beings,
A safe place of exploration and expression.
I don’t always have the words to tell you what it means to me
That you honor both my love of *** and the haunted parts of it,
Create safety for me in the sheets,
But as we lay in the darkness,
Skin to skin,
“Thank you” will have to be enough.

On the hard days,
The sad days,
The I miss you days,
Please come snuggle days,
On the days when emotions are more mountain and less mole hill,
More swing and less steady,
On the days when you gave your best and still felt short,
I am here,
Rooting for you!
You are always enough
Exactly as you are!

Sometimes dreaming is my escape,
But others
There is no escape from dreaming.

Emotions soak up my vocabulary
With their spongy fibers,
Porous and clinging to my syllables
As if they were not mine to possess in the first place.
Feelings are like dragons,
Hoarding my words like gold.
I am hyper-verbal and hyper-lexic,
So many sentiments and letters to call upon,
But they are always out of order when
I want to tell you "I Love You!"
I say, "Please let me know you got home safe,"
Instead.