I think the longest game of tag I'll ever play
Is where I've been it and I'm still chasing you

You always tell me about my shortcomings
You have endless lists inside of your mind
Full of things that are wrong about mine
I'm never smart enough for you
I'm never kind enough to you
I'm just never enough

When I walk out of your life
Will that finally be enough?

I want to fill your every broken crack
With the most dazzling precious gold
So that you can see yourself the way I see you

Is it guilt that drives you?
Am I some sort of obligation?
My future that dangles on a tightrope
Balancing between credit cards and report cards
Feels like cheese in a mousetrap
What if I don't want this?
What if this is my only way to run away
To free myself from these chains used to drown me
If you want me to succeed
Then why after every step forwards
You force me to walk two steps back
Backing me against a wall of needles
Nowhere to turn or run but forward
But their selfish hands press my back against the wall
Through blood and tears I grit my teeth against the pain
Is this what unconditional love is like?
Is trust only built through hurt?

Yes, my cage has open doors
But the demons who lurk outside
Make the damask interior feel like safety

Everytime they told me I wasn't enough
I believed them
But now I'm full of all the things they wish they could tease
I have gold running through my veins and passion on my tongue

Words no longer cut me

A siren call beckoned me
Through waves of endless murky blues
And over crashes of distant storms
Sweet and deadly like belladonna in ambrosia

Milk and honey dripped from her lips
As she cried out to me for a reply
Soft like silk carved into marble stone,
Strong like magic from the aisle of Aeaea

I was tempted, nearly ensnared
By that beauty somewhere near
If I followed that voice out to sea
I knew she would be the last thing I'd see

How could I do that to my Penelope?

So the siren sang her enrapturing tune
And I tied myself to the body of the mast
I would not be lured to my doom
Elysium will have to wait, I'm coming home

We treat women who lie with our husbands like an army of Medusa's;
we blame the wrong person out of jealousy, envy, and heartbreak

It's not their fault they fell for the same lie as us
It's not their fault they are insecure or ignorant to the truth
It's not their fault our lovers didn't say no, that they couldn't resist and respect us

It's our fault for cursing the mistress
Damning her to turn everyone who looks her in the eyes into stone
Perpetually frozen in looks of horror and disgust
For something she didn't mean to do
For giving into desire

We are all Athena's
The ones who act on envy and rage
The ones who think we know it all
When all we know is the way to barbwire a heart

In the end, we are the ones to blame
For hurting someone already heartbroken
Penetrated by the same blade that stabbed us in the back
Only they were stabbed directly in the heart, the gut and the mind
They were forced to feel undeserved guilt and humiliation
For the faults of our own lovers

Don't blame the victims
Blame the cause
Blame the liars and the cheats
They are the real Medusa's in disguise; giving more to the temptations of beauty and desire rather than to the temples of love and respect

If I act as if the world is ending tomorrow it may as well end today
A stress filled day prepares me for a stress filled future
I will be my own undoing as I continue to pull my own strings
And cut the cords between working hard and working well
As they mold together and I no longer know the difference
I forget that tomorrow is not today as both become one and the same

He is the five layers of blanket that cover me during the freezing winter
He’s the sixth coating of sunscreen I apply in the first five minutes of summer
He is the first book I cuddle up with as leaves fall and change around me in autumn
He’s the first flower to bloom in spring, the one that survives through all four seasons

When others talk
behind your back
misplace your trust
and turn your hope
into scattered dust

While you dwell
on broken promises
heartbreaks and losses
as every bone trembles
looking for some solace

Know when times were rough
and hope was not enough
you were my white knight
and in my life you will always
be the boy with all my love

We've truly done it
We've sold our future
for the useless millisecond
that is the present

We've gift wrapped our dreams
and sent them off to space
in hopes that one day
maybe they'll find their way back

We've sold our hearts
mass produced our compassion
and felt the void within our chests
we're heartless and we don't care

We've sold the future
to bathe in the pettiness of the now
the pathetic present
as putrid as it is

We've sold the future
like it was ours to begin with,
for something so worthless
even we don't want it-
                                        We've sold the future.

Curiosity became synonymous with me,
I held a secret of the Gods in my mortal hands,
But I am only human, how could I resist?
Just a peek, a small quick glance–
An irreparable mistake.

I was given a box that weighed less than a feather,
Said to contain inconceivable things
From the hands of Olympians to me on my first day on earth
I knew no better than any other mortal woman–
But they say I should have been wiser.

I was made with curiosity in my nature,
And humanity forever scorned me for it.
I gave us terrible things, it's a truth,
One I can never change nor repent enough for–
But I gave us one gift we could not live without,
I gave us hope.

In every moment where the tables turn
Where the gods do not smile down upon us
But smite us with their might–
We still have hope.

You may blame me for many things,
But never forget I was forged by the gods
And it was they who placed that box
Into my eager hands.

Sometimes as writers I feel we are just spilling nonsense into the world hoping that someone will make sense of it

I'm trying so hard not to love him
But listening to all the songs he likes
Is making me fall in love harder and faster

I forget many things
But I have never forgotten
The intensity of your gaze

I am wiser now, more mature
Enough to realize
That you were never to blame

I am the one
Who twisted things

I am the one
Who called you names

I am the one
Who ruined everything

I forget many things
But I will never forget
How I have wronged you

I made you the demon of my past
The starting point of all my anxiety
But really, it all started with me

This is my apology

I am a woman– forced to say it like a curse
Because the moment we are discovered
Evil eyes of all sorts gaze upon us,
Questioning and curious.
        “Is her skin like porcelain?”
They refer to us as pithos, jars
Containers of the worst combinations
Of what Pandora released
Transporters of life and miasma
The toxic pollutant that comes
With giving and taking life.
        “Her virtue above all else– is she pure?”
We are *parthenos, with our coveted virginity
But once we are women we are spoiled
Once a jar has been opened and shattered
It can never become pristine and new again
Only lay in wait to crumble and expire.
        “Her hair, is it soft like satin?”
They who clamber out from our wombs,
Refer to us as stains of shame and burden
They call us impure and unclean when we bleed
A pollutant when we birth new life
Yet they are praised when they forsake ours.
        “Do her eyes shine like gems?”
We are like treasure, like silk and gold
When we are not yet broken, we are something desired
They say we are like pearls and gems; silk and gold
But these comparisons are not compliments– they are currencies
The closest they can get to shelving us, marketed to be sold
        “Is she beautiful?”
Be lovely like Aphrodite with unparalleled beauty
Be chaste as Athena and Artemis, a monarch like Hestia and Hera
Be obedient or become like Pandora and bring us to ruin
We are told to be and not be pieces of so many others,
That we can’t remember how to simply be ourselves.
        “Become unbreakable.”

.

Love lays dormant in cemeteries
Sometimes Love claws with bare hands
Out of the grave and back into our arms
Sometimes Love comes back
When the longing outweighs
The ****** hands and broken nails

But Love does not always return
Sometimes Love comes back an urn
The ash of the flame that burned so bright
That it burnt out
Love does not always make it
To cathedral's and wedding halls

Not all bells sound from chapel walls or venue halls
Sometimes the only ringing bells Love hears
Are the ones that bid farewell
The ones we hang with lingering hope
That with a pull of the string
Love will resurrect

But we never forget Love
No matter how small, quick or painful
Love's place in our chests never leaves
In our Mausoleum of Broken Hearts
Lay bouquets of black roses and forget-me-nots
While we wait for love to awake

You've gotten worse, dear

I thought perhaps if I ignored you
If I denied you
Then you simply wouldn't be

Alas it's not so easy to tear you away, dear

I've stayed up till 5am only to wake again at 10am then repeat
This cycle has lasted all month
You used to torment me from 2 to 11am

I see business is tough these days, dear

For 5 years I've pushed you away
I have denied you
I have punished myself in doing so

I apologize so please forgive me, dear

I've been irritable
I've been slow and depressed
My thoughts and focus have dispersed

What are you doing to me, dear?

Hallucinations
Paranoia
When did this begin?

Dizziness
Nausea
When will this end?

I can't eat
I can't sleep
When will I say "I can" again?

Looking at the clock has become a challenge
Trying to catch it before another hour passes
12
1
2
3
4
5
Just how much longer can I survive
6
7
8
9
10
11
Right back to where I began and so it repeats
This cycle I'm stuck in like Groundhog Day I can't escape

There are many things I cannot do
More are there things I do not understand
Countless are the things I do not know
But what I can do, what is tangible for me
I imagine in the palm of my hand
And lock within my fist, it's bottomless cage
What I do understand, I wrap around me
Like a chrysalis, a sheild of safety
And it protects me, my ward against the world
However what I know, that I do not covet
I give that away to passerbys, to strangers and friends
Like a sage, a mentor or philosopher

Perhaps things like emotions escape me
As my heart abandons feelings
The ones that pass through my fingertips
From my pen to paper
But writing is what I hold within my fist
It is how I makes sense of the world
It is every one of my senses
I see, taste, touch, smell and hear
Through a world beyond words
Like a magic veil, I see into anothers conscience
All the things they hold dear, what they cannot live without
All the things they regret, what they wish would wash away
In even the faintest moment and smallest thing

I feel all those emotions of which I've never known
But more than that I feel one thing that I can call my own
The passion, I feel that tearing through my bones
I can feel it burning in my lungs and my heart becomes a hearth in a cabin of nothing
For a moment I am filled with warmth like no other
And that feeling is one I'd chase to the ends of the Earth
Into the darkest chasm and within the brightest light
For it is the only one thats real within my world

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

"I wonder what it feels like
To hold the world in your hands
And let it slip from your grasp"

Suppose I finally understand

I need to find someone else to love
I have oceans and oceans full for you
But you haven't got a single drop for me

Hurt isn't a selfish feeling
It's okay to feel bad
Just because someone else feels bad too
Doesn't mean you can't

Happiness is not a selfish feeling
It's okay to smile, to laugh
You wouldn't say to someone
That because you're happy they can't be

So why are my feelings of pain and joy not relevant to yours?
We all deserve happiness and sorrow
Too much or too little
Will tip the scales
And ruin our balance

Then we'll be left with nothing at all

My flower petals
Fell like empty shooting stars
With no wish to grant

Like a shooting star
You passed me quick and quiet
I forgot to wish

Now as spring leaves green
I wish on all that I see
Can you hear it now?

My summons for you
All my whispers on the wind
Calling you to me

There is no worse feeling than knowing you love someone more than they could ever possibly love you back

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

Sleep holds me in his warm embrace
His hands creep around my neck
The pressure keeping me awake

I was never able to stop loving you
And sometimes when I least expect it
I remember that and it tears me apart
I cry myself to sleep thinking of what we could have been

You taught me what it meant to be loved
How it felt
You taught me how to fall in love
And what it meant to lose it

But you never broke my heart,
I was never able to sever that sense of longing
If the competition of who loved who more
Ever named a victor,
It would be me

Because I wrote poetry about you as a friend
As I fell in love with you and the way I denied it
How I tried to push the feelings aside  
To be your ally when you needed me to be
How I conceded and realized
I was only lying to myself

I wrote about you as I fell in love,
As I fell deep and hard
I wrote when we were together
I wrote about my longing
About my desire and adoration,
About how I fell deeper and deeper
I wrote about futures and dreams

I also wrote about when it all ended,
About all the tears I shed in secret
About the pain I'd felt for the first time,
Of losing something I cherished so deeply

I wrote about how I couldn't stop loving you
No matter how hard I tried
About pushing my feelings aside
And sacrificing them to be your devoted friend,
About how that tore me up inside

I wrote about how no matter how many years passed,
I couldn't make the feelings dissipate any less
I realized in every letter I wrote,
That I would never be able to stop loving you,
And that it would have to be okay,
Even if it felt like it never would

I love you,
Even today
And while I may never call you mine again,
I will always be yours

I still remember how she looked at me
I said it didn't bother me
I know it shouldn't

Just knowing she is a spy to report my failures and insecurities back to you
Like some sort of trophy
For some sort of promotion to make you happy

It twists my insides
It makes me sick

I always thought that I was patient
I've learned from this unbearable longing
That it is only the extent of my impatience revealing itself
I've missed you longer than I've known you

I wonder when we'll meet?

Being a voice for the voiceless
Is not making a choice for them
It is teaching them to make a choice for themself
It is telling them that they are worthy
And giving them the empowerment
To advocate for themselves

Being a voice for the voiceless
Is not manipulating the broken, the lost or the weary
It is not deceiving the hurt, the trusting or the kind
It is outstretching your arms, opening your palms
And not slamming them shut when you've had enough
It is being humble, humane and compassionate
It can do more than save a life, it can change a life

Sometimes sweet things are better left a memory
Trying to turn back time
Trying to make things right
Sometimes only leaves a sour taste behind

Sometimes we don't need closure, we need the mystery

Where do I begin
To clean my heart of you?
Should I scrub each vessel
Douse my veins in bleach
To finally be rid of it all?

Every time I think I've moved on
You say just enough words
To pull me right back in
I want to know
Can I get clean again
Or will I forever be addicted
To a love that no longer exists?

My thoughts are so loud and needy
They always slip right out my mouth

The sky was clear that day
But I felt it anyway
The sun was shining
Ever bright
But still I knew
Something wasn't right

I couldn't stop
I couldn't hit the breaks
Blew past every sign
Down memory lane

All the places
All the streets
All the paths
I look for scraps
I try to find
Traces of you
Left behind
All the flowers bloomed in May
All have died and withered away

I fell in love with subtle things
And it's all those little things
That I can't live without
But now I'm trying to learn how
And when I hear your name
I try so hard to refrain
From going back down memory lane

If all it took was a look from you to take my breath away
Then I fear what power your words could hold over me

Each time I think I'm at my breaking point, I catch my breath
And then I'm hit again with the feeling that I don't fit in here
That my every breath is one too many

Why do I have to exist in a world of feeling
When all that's there is misery
What did I do in my past life that was so wrong
That it forced me to lead this life of loneliness?

Now that I'm pushed to suffocation
How do I hold on to this final straw?
All the rest are gone so what's the point of holding on?

heart to mind
mind to pen
pen to paper
the steps I take
to put what's mine
where it will shine

but sometimes
heart has different plans
it skips those steps
and instead lands
into your ready hands

Honey in my tea, dark and deep and sweet
With phantom eyes reflecting, rich and daunting
Through steam and aroma, they taunt me as the leaves steep
     Nostalgia tangles around my throat

Vines that climb, constrict and bind and thrive
Like hands encasing, cruel and menacing
Around my neck, those memories do obstruct
     They catch my breath, cloak my mind

Clouds so thick, foggy and blind and nebulous
With patchouli scent, lovely and alluring
Like ghostly fingers tracing along my memories
     Such pins and needles in my thoughts

Stevia leaves, as darkly green as roses leaves
Naturally sweet and desperately deceiving
Roses red, full of secrets hidden beneath ruby petals
     Echoing off those walls within

That’s the thing about poison, you never know it’s there
Till your cup is empty and your heart is heavy
Bittersweet are the sugarcoated words passed between vilified lips
     It was always as toxic as it was sweet

Love is like a bushel of berries, so alluring and safe at a glance
But once you get a taste that sweetness enraptures you so fast
That you have no chance to guess whether it is juniper or death
     It’s all over before you can react

We hide behind a web of wishes weaved within sweet nothings
Lovers words are filled to the brim with promises too burdensome to keep
You close your eyes and begin to blindly leap, but danger never ceases to creep
     And so you fall head first into loves abyss

Belladonna in my tea, dark and deep and sweet
With phantom eyes reflecting, rich and daunting
Through steam and aroma, they taunt me as the leaves steep
     Love is deadly, like venom on your tongue

To love a flower is to love the cycle of death
For a seed will grow into a beautiful bud
That bud will bloom and flourish
Then wither and die
And isn’t it so cruel
The beauty is there for just a moment
And then it’s gone as if it never was

All the lovely fauna
The flowers that grow through concrete
Those dandelions you kick in fields
The trails of Sunflowers on roadsides
And pansies through your neighborhoods

Do you ever stop to wonder
If you ever see the same flower twice?
If the rose you stopped to smell
Is now an empty stem of thorns?

All that lives and dies looks the same
When looked at with a passing eye
When I catch your eye as just another passerby
I hope you think of forget-me-nots

Maybe then you'll keep me in your thoughts

When I was given life
I was born into this world all alone
There was no mother or father to greet my arrival
There were no smiles or cheers of joy
No warm welcomes into life

From my first breath of life I learned
That in this world my beauty is my worth
If I am not desirable, I am nothing
I am beautiful because I must be.

Before there was me the world was glimmerless
It hadn’t yet learned to shine
I knew someone had to teach it
To cherish,  adore and desire
To caress, feel and yearn
To love the beauty in between the little things

I always chased that feeling to hold as my own
And everybody has chastised me
I’m the harlot of your stories–
But all I’ve ever been is a lover of love
And I chose love and love again,
But love never chooses me back.

I used to wage wars over my body
They bathed themselves in blood to win me
But no one ever asked “Aphrodite, what is it you want?”
Instead they gave me away,
Like I was theirs to give.

I know love is violent
Perhaps I made that way
Because doesn’t blood look so pretty
When it is spilled for passion?
After all it was my blood
That painted all the roses red.

I have a bad habit of getting close to people quickly
So few people bother to notice or talk to me
Perhaps I crave the feeling of being real through their validation
It's unhealthy, but you try going through life made of cellophane like a ghost- even the psychics don't see me
I have a bad habit of allowing others to become important and irreplaceable too quickly
So when they leave it feels like nothing will ever be the same
It's unhealthy, but when your only friends are the ones you create in daydreams- you learn to latch on to the real ones
Real...
I suppose nothing is real
If walking away is so easy
Then there never was a realness to it
Maybe if you were just another creation of my imagination
I wouldn't feel so bad
I wouldn't go to sleep hungry and wake up feeling full
Maybe I wouldn't have to wipe my tears and pretend they never fell
Or maybe then you'd never walk away, because in my mind is the only place anyone ever truly stays

I tried love again
I put my best smile on
I pushed you from my thoughts
I let you go,
As if it was my choice

I turned off my anxiety
Pretended I'd be fine
Put a blind fold around my heart
Like the eight of swords
I lied to myself,
Like it were the right thing to do

I put on my favorite skirt
My favorite necklace and shirt
Did my makeup how I liked it
I dressed up my doubts
Looked in the mirror
And I felt pretty,
But I didn't feel me

I couldn't breathe
My heart took off it's blindfold
And begged for a second thought
When I had none to spare
I'd already decided
To leave my love for you
In the past where it belongs,
As if it was my choice

I cut off the cord that went
From me to you
That lifeline I held onto
Like a security blanket
I severed it,
Like it were the right thing to do

I went on that date despite myself
Smiled politely, talked sweetly
We shared stories
He was nice and he was kind
He called me pretty,
But I didn't feel me

I said before that I wanted
To fall in love again just to prove I can
Instead I learned just how hard it is
To sever my ties to you,
As if it was my choice

Because of him I've come to know what love is truly like
And it's not the way I've written it
Love is painful
Love is insecure
Love is questioning

I've always written that
Love was healing
Love was confidence
Love was knowing

While sometimes it may be all those things, it alternates
Love is bittersweet
Love is longing
Love is searching

Now that I know love, I've come to understand it even less
Love is having constant questions and having the answers just out of sight
Love is wanting to hold someone and them being just out of your reach
Love is desiring the sweetness in a romantic ballad while the sound is deafening

It is both everything I can't live without and everything I wish I could

I miss him
when he isn't gone
it makes me feel
as if my heart
is making peace
with losing him

How can I
convince him to stay
when I write
like he is already
gone?

An idea I don't have time to write
For thoughts I don't have time to think

A petal for the day we met
In the choir classroom of our middle school
11 years old
You were so much smaller than me
But your presence was so much larger
You filled my whole world the second we met
You filled every aching hole, every dark crevice
You made me laugh, you made me smile
You made me feel seen in a world I was hollow in my skin
We were young
We were children when we met
We were innocent
We talked about silly things
Of futures and dreams
Of impossibilities and fantasies
Of the intangible and odd
In the back of the choir classroom
Our world was small but we made it endless
In the back of the choir classroom
Our story began

A petal for when you called me for the first time
Years had gone bye since you'd left
It was maybe 8th grade perhaps
You invited me to a birthday party
But I still had my social anxiety
And I was too scared to ask to go
I look back and think how stupid
I should have taken every last opportunity to feel you
To experience you
That phone call came in a time when I was young and blind
When I didn't appreciate the importance
When I didn't know how to be an ally

A petal for when you called again the next week
For when you didn't give up
For when we talked for hours about useless things
That felt like everything
For the night you called and we shared scary stories and I couldn't sleep
For the times we talked and cried together
Laughed and smiled together

A petal for all the phone calls out of nowhere
That saved my life
In high school you started to call again
In a time when I went whole days without a word
To anyone, from anyone
A time when I was so invisible
That I felt that if I faded away, the world wouldn't blink
A phone call from you that saved my life
That made me feel seen
That made me feel needed
That made me remember how to live
I don't remember what you said
I don't remember what we talked about
All I remember was feeling whole again

A petal for those days we reconnected
When we talked every single day in high school
For all our stupid inside jokes
For all the little teases and jabs
For all the weight your words had
For the way you saved my life day by day
And the way you never knew

A petal for the day I fell in love with you
We were talking on the phone one day
I think it was over discord
It wasn't anything important at all
And there were silences and pauses
But every last moment felt so right
I realized against my will
That I loved you
More than I thought I was allowed to
I realized I'd fallen for every subtle thing there was to you
I'd fallen for those phone calls out of nowhere
For your laughs and the smiles in your voice
Your silly impressions and your humor
To the way you listened to me
The way you didn't judge or look down on me
For the way you felt, the way you made me feel
I'd fallen for so many little things
And I've never been able to fall out

A petal for the day I let myself be in love with you
When I realized I couldn't deny the way I felt
When I realized I didn't have to
I remember I was so mad at myself
I felt like I was betraying our friendship, betraying you
Feeling these feelings I wasn't meant to
So I didn't say a word
But I let myself love you
I felt my heart race when I thought of you
I'd check my phone every ten minutes for a notification
Praying that every time the screen lit up
That it would be you

A petal for the day you said you loved me
I remember reading the message
I froze, I malfunctioned, my heart blew up
I left you on read for an hour and i'll always feel bad
Thinking about the nerves you must have had
But when I read those words
I didn't believe them
I couldn't
How could it be real, how could someone like you
Love a person like me?
Did it mean your heart raced like mine
That your face lit up when you read my messages
That you waited for another moment?
Or was it just a joke?
Something cruel the universe wanted to play
Something to break me in a way I've never broken?
When you said that you loved me
I felt solar systems crash down
Stars exploded and I combusted too
Because how could there be a day
Where you said I love you?

A petal for that day
Because when I finally did respond
I felt so happy I could die
When I'd said the words
That I'd so longed to say
When you said you'd felt the same way

A petal for our young love
A petal for all 54 days
That never felt like they were enough
I have so many regrets when I look back
Why did I never call you love?
Why did I never say I loved you every day?
Why didn't I call you sweet nothings?
I hate the way I was so nervous
That I kept keeping it platonic
But I had never loved anyone
The way that I had loved you
I didn't know how to be someone's girlfriend
And I hate the way I thought you needed space
And I tried to give it to you
When what you wanted was someone to talk to
I read the signs wrong, I was a fool
I thought you needed less when you needed more
I didn't know how to show you my love
I didn't know that I could

And so, a petal for the day we broke up
I felt it coming before it did
I knew something was wrong
And I didn't know how to make it right
Even though I know it wasn't because we didn't love each other
I still blame myself for not being what you needed
How could I be a good girlfriend when I wasn't even a good friend?
I remember that day
Because I didn't know that your heart could break
That heartbreak was real
That it felt as painful as it had
That it was a pain that never really went away
My heart wasn't breaking because of you though
It broke for you
It broke for all the ways I felt I failed you
For all the ways I should have loved you

A petal for the day after
For when we were still friends
For when we didn't just end
A petal for how grateful I was
That I could keep you
Even if it was just as friends

A petal for the identity crisis I had
After we broke up
After high school
When I cut my hair and dyed it
When I learned how to do make up
Because maybe I wasn't pretty enough?
When I wanted to be anyone else
Than the me who let you down
For when I tried to like girls instead
Because no other boy could ever be you
For when I painted my nails and wore perfume
Hoping that it would distract me from missing you

A petal for the promises we made
Don't you remember the orange juice pact?
Where we'd have that common goal to live for
To reach for
That when we turned 21 we would meet again
That we'd go to a bar and have a drink
When you said you didn't drink
And I said it didn't have to be alcohol
So we settled on orange juice
Even though you didn't know
That I was allergic
But I'd take a little stomach pain
Just to sit and have a glass of orange juice with you
Any day

A petal for all the calls and messages we've had
For every deep talk
For every time we fell apart
And held one another together like a desperate glue
For all the times I was afraid I couldn't
For all the times you said I could
For all the times I thought I wasn't enough
And for all the times you made me think I was
For all the poems I wrote about you
For all the times I got drunk and thought of you
For the nights I cried wishing things were different for you

A petal for all the things I want to do with you
I want to take you to a concert
To stand in a crowd with you
To a band we maybe don't even know
To feel the rush of the music, the thrill of the night
I want to go on a picnic
Even though you think it'd be miserable
I want to show you how wrong you can be
I want to go to an arcade with you
Win you prizes and kick your *** at shuffleboard
I want to play mario kart with you
So you can see how much of a foul mouth I can have
So you can see the worst of me and love it anyway
I want to play guitar for you
Because I know that even if I play it bad
You'll still smile for me anyway
So I can sing you the songs I wrote
I want to go to conventions and amusement parks with you
So you can hold my hand on rollercoasters while I cry
And maybe laugh a little too
We could eat funnel cake and talk reminisce
We could talk about all the adrenaline
I'd love to go to carnivals too
Into the mirror fun houses
So we could watch each other run into the mirrors
And laugh it off
I could win you prizes
And we could feel the night breeze in our hair
You'd look so lovely under the stars
We could go to painting classes
I could teach you guitar
There are so many things I want to do with you
That I could never list them all

A petal for all the possibilities that we still have

And a petal for my fears
Of losing you
Of all these words
All these memories and dreams
Becoming petals on a grave
A petal for how much I love you
A petal for how I'd never heal
A petal for how much I think you shine
And for all the words I wish I had to make you stay
A petal for everything I would give up
Everything I would sacrifice to make you feel okay
A petal for all the things we haven't done

A petal for our story with no end in sight

I said that I'd been listening to Muse a lot lately
And you of course asked my favorite song
And like the universe's cruel humor, yours was the same
And now, it will never be the same
That song will always be your favorite when I play it
When I hear it, it will always remind me of you

And I'll think about you listening to it
And wonder if it makes your heart shake like mine
If you feel it explode through your soul
If it reminds you of me

And isn't that funny?
Isn't it just so cruel?
The way I can just feel
That our time is truly
Running out