White wine and blonde hair.
Thats all I saw for months
after the first night you kissed
me goodbye last spring.
You were the first thing
I loved after falling out of love.
One bench.
One river.
One bottle of wine.
Two people.
Eight months of pain
ahead of me
that I could have never imagined
would have ended the way it did.
But for the rest of my life I would
see white wine and blonde hair.

You were fire
but so was I.
When you didn't get your way
you got angry with me.
When I didn't get my way
I got angry with you.
And when we would get over it
I would let you call me
when you were drunk
and run my fingers through
your hair in the dead of the night.
I would read your grocery lists for you.
I would wear your clothes home.
I would let you kiss my shoulders.
I would breathe your toxins in
because you made my flame
a lot stronger.

You couldn't even cut the tension in
the air with a knife
because of how thick it was.
You and I have managed
to make the air around us concrete.
And here I was
trying to grow flowers
in the cracks,
even though me and you
really knew how to poison
those flowers
until they could grow no longer.

The snow fell that Sunday night
with ease and i thought
how can the sky let go so calmly
when it was just storming
a few hours ago.
Storming like the way you stormed
out of the room after watching me
dance and let go
even when she was sitting right
next to you.
And your eyes were fixed on me
like i was the best thing
you could have had.
Until you realized i would not
be in your bed that night.
I let go of you like the sky
let go in the dead of night
and never looked back.

I wonder how you feel getting your hands tangled in her long blonde hair as opposed to my raven black hair and if there was a difference between you telling her she was yours when you were drunk, as opposed to you taking me to have dinner with your family when you were sober. and I wonder if I sit outside your bedroom window and burn through enough cigarettes while you’re in there with her, it’ll burn your memory out of my mind. Maybe the cigarettes would **** me before you could.

i fall in love with every sunset.
i fall in love with hidden restaurants
that have lights stringing along
the ceiling.
i fell in love with the way i healed
my own heart after he left.
i fell in love with each time i broke
my own heart only to grow stronger.
i fell in love with the way he sat next to
me by the river.
i fell in love with the way he knew how
much i loved to be kissed, and then
i fell in love with how much he took
advantage of it when he was drunk.
i fell in love with the way he sat at
the kitchen table all night with me until
we fixed the problem.
i fell in love with the way he asked me
if i liked the new shirt his mom bought him.
i fell in love with the way he asked me to
read his grocery lists.
i fell out of love when his jealous mind
raged wars on me for months at a time.
i fell out of love when i heard him talking
about the other girls.
i fell out of love when i decided to love
someone new.
i did not love how sometimes i can still
feel his hands on my waist
and his lips on my shoulders.
i did not love how much i would think
about him day and night.
i did not love the fact that there
is no explanation for the way i feel
about him.
there is no reason i want to chase what
doesn't want me, only to leave behind
what would give me the world.
i fell in love with the way the
cigarette burns lined up on his
skin and then never looked back.