Dear J,
   I may be at a loss for words half the time, and the other half I might have too much to say, but I can almost always say this; I love you. I have felt fear and I have felt bravery and I have felt loss. I can look pictures of us and I can recall everything we did that day. I can listen to videos of you and I can tell what you felt. And I know that you didn't think I was paying attention, but I knew how you looked when you thought something was unfair. And I knew the look in your eyes when you saw the light just right in a sunset and you knew that nothing could ever be recreated quite like that. I felt the same way about you.
   Wherever you are, know that loving someone isn't a matter of feeling something or not feeling something. It's a matter of knowing what you're feeling and when you need to let go.
   I think that people know that letting go involves unfurling your fingers and watching something fall from a great height. It's the act of following that objects downward motion that gets to us. That once it meets the ground or whatever surface it is deemed to hit, it's gone. What was there is gone. And once you think about that you think of what could have been there. That one last touch, that one last feeling of bliss that comes with knowing that the moment you wake up the sun will be shining in rivulets through fingers that tangle in hair fresh off the pillow. It's sad to know that nothing like that will happen again.
   The sun won't shine the same way. Instead it may simply fall. It won't cascade, it won't flow over the edges of noses or smiling lips. It's the same way water may lose a stone from a riverbed and from there on after it doesn't run quite the same way. But another stone, another pebble will fall in place because replacement happens.
   I guess what I'm trying  to say, is that letting go is letting someone else take a spot. In order for something else to happen you have to let your joints move out of their grip and unfold from their hold on something that wasn't meant to be held by you anymore.
   Sometimes you have to let them land somewhere new.
I only hope that it's somewhere even more beautiful than before.
            Claire

18 minutes

And I have daydreamt of you
Each of the 1080 seconds passed,
Contemplating how I want to be
so much better than your last.
Come on
Lets get lost in each others eyes
While we forget the dark horrors of our past
Don't back track baby
Let's sit in this sunny moment and
Bask
Just like the sun
This burning desire won't go away
If you're with it, I am as well
You know I'm here to stay.

30 minutes

And I've come to realize that
I can't even stand to be away from you,
for 1800 seconds.

I do not like this phase of a heart break.

When you purposely avoid love songs,
Or sometimes you play them just to make yourself feel like your hearts still pounding.

When the person you loved and hid from every waking soul is brought into a conversation.
Or when he isn't.

When you see other lovers who have made it years without the cruel hand of fate ripping their love from them.
Or when you see they haven't.

When you notice him writing you smaller, casual messages when they use to be breathtaking and beautiful.
Or when he doesn't write at all.

When I ask you if I am pushing you away and you say no.

"Alright, happy birthday! Text me later tonight?"

"Will do"

When every hidden goodbye ends with those two words. And my broken, belittled heart.

(i. r.)

She was barely getting by;
He didn't even try;
Even the roaches knew
The shack painted blue
With no lights
Was on the chopping block

A butcher in a black tie
Rode by,
Greased hands dripping
The couple's blood

The roof leaked
Their pain,
Each drop of rain
Digging deeper

Wet, soul-crushing boots
With toes of steel
Kicked through the door
And the security of home

She was barely getting by;
He didn't even try;
Even the roaches knew
The shack painted blue
With no lights
Was on the chopping block

~ P
#ButcherInABlackTie
(9/16/15)

is it not strange
that the knowledge
of returning spring

helps little

in the here and now

to forget
the oncoming chilling gusts
of winter?

       * *

So soon, long gone...
Your time it was...
Nothing but the cold memory you left,
Nothing but empty sadness.
A lingering rain remains,
Not of the sky...
Wholely mine.
This sunny day parade,
wonderful if you had stayed.
Resolute with nothing...
I will keep walking...
One day, will I find?
Meaning to this flux of rain and shine.