I'd rather be blind
Than lose your smile
My iris for your grin
I'd feel it in my soul
Somehow, I'd know

I feel like a web of broken promises
like a sandcastle about to crumble
into a pile of nothing but remnants
of something once so beautiful, now
to be reclaimed by the pitiless waves

I don't think we'll ever get to keep
those promises we made at 16
you feel so far out of my reach
like a phantom limb, I still feel you
so close, like you're still an integral
part of what makes me feel whole

But our time is running out, I feel it
the futures and dreams we cherished
are nothing but whispers on the wind
of a time when we could be optimists
of the days before you'd forgotten

How to be a dreamer

If you were a candle
You'd be one with a wick
That was cut just a little too short
And I'll scrape the wax around
Just to keep you lit
But I always worry
That if I turn away at the wrong time
Your light will flicker out
And I won't be there to save it

Like Schrödinger's Cat
Love is too large
To quantify in contradictions
Like the cat in the box
In it's superposed zombie state
I too can't determine
If our love is alive or dead
And like the cat,
In reality it cannot be both
But I think I'll leave it
Forever in this zombie state
Of unknown perpetual mystery

For I cannot uncover
What I've already buried

You used to feel like sand in an hourglass
Forever on repeat of loving you and losing you
Now the sand is slipping through my fingers
And I don't dread the grains I cannot catch
The glass that shattered is cutting into my hands
But the sand still trickles down as our time runs out

When we were sixteen we made a promise
That when we turned twenty one
We would meet again
For a glass of orange juice
Because he doesn't drink
I never told him
That I'm allergic to citrus
But what is a drop of poison
In a chalice of love?

Last month he turned twenty one
And came close to breaking our promise
He sent me a letter
That nearly broke me
I couldn't read it
I dialed his number
And begged for an answer
Just like always, he did

But in those moments the world froze
The dial tone felt like a death knell
It was void, it was empty
As if it were already a world without him
As if it was a warning of what might be

And now I'm thirsty
So very thirsty
For that glass of orange juice

It's crazy how much we change
In days, weeks, months
And years building on years
I look back on who I was
The ways I used to feel
Preserved in all my poetry
And it's just not me anymore

It isn't a bad thing—
It's growth
I used to feel as if I couldn't speak
As if I were mute, invisible and unseen
Now my words fill silence
My presence isn't a black hole
And it makes me feel better when I'm sad
When I'm losing hope I look back
At who I used to be when it was bad
And how I've changed

It gives me hope within my chrysalis
That I can still metamorphosize