I swim through seas of salty flesh looking for the best.
The waves of goosebumps crawling up the crest.
The crash that fills my chest.
I want to be carried to the shore
to make my rest.

If you were here
you'd be my anti-anxiety
instead of the leaf

my medication would be
a strawberry-blonde
head of hair
nuzzling my cheek

you gotta know
I won't sit forever,
waiting for your voice
to greet my ears
in the morning,
or for your lips
to grace my cheek

it began in the doorway
to a different time: where I itched
for someone whose brain worked
dissimilar to mine.

it ended on a suburban porch,
the gateway to the current day: where he
watched my taillights fade away
into an entirely separate place.

March twelfth of twenty-twelve,
when we decided to give it a try
and three years later,
it's long been left behind.

I gave it up when I said, "I don't care to be used"
and you responded with "Well-What do you think this is?"

Upon the words I realized the fire we'd started was smoldering
waiting to be doused.

The intimate way you'd look at me
was replaced with something else.

You'd become a ravenous tiger waiting to pounce.
You wanted my taste on your tongue. My blood on your teeth.

I gave one last sweet, innocent
kiss on your lips before finally walking out.

I changed  since the March
when I was eighteen looking for a thing

(Anything)

At the time
your problems became mine

My life's complacency
was overtaking me

This year around I

Decided I'd let the dusty ruins build up
in the palms of my hands far too long

and I blew them into the cold night air

It's the new found March
where I'll find out who I am

I can't decide who I was
when I let him take the worst of me,
and bring it out for everyone to see.
He had my soul, and threw it
into the icy waters of Lake Ontario.
It has never been found,
not on the shores of the South Carolina sea,
not in the open palms of the past charmed;
not in the pieces he left behind
for me to quarantine in
the darkest part of my mind.

I may never find that soul again.