Don't you dare talk ill of them.
Not my girl.
Not my guy.
How dare you say those things.
How dare you have those thoughts.
How dare you tell me.

I love them and I will fight for them
Through every little thing.
So you want to tell me they are wrong?
You want to tell me they are bad?
You have the audacity to tell me they are no good?

Who the hell do you think you are.
Don't you ever talk about them that way.
Don't you ever talk about them again.
Unless you're crawling back to them
To apologize at their feet.
Don't you dare.

She tries to keep her smile hidden,
To hold it inside of her
For just a moment longer
Before letting it out
All at once.

You don't need to hide your joy from me
Don't keep it locked inside.
Set it free for all to see,
We could all use a little laughter.
We could all use a little sun.

You're so light,
I'll say it again.
You put the sun to shame.
There's no other way to say it.
No other words can express
The way you light up a room
Just by simply
Being in it.

She stretches out her arms
And lets out a sigh.
Before pulling her palms
Above her head.
She's tired.
It's time for the sun to get some rest.

Cue the moon.
He walks in after a long day at work.
He hates it.
He wants wants to quit.
He wants to leave.
But instead,
He kisses me.

You're so smooth,
So wise,
So calming.
You give me chills
The way you shimmer
In the middle of the night.

Your tender lips
Form a crescent
Against your face
As they turn upward
To greet me.

Sunshine can be nice
But I'll spend my nights
With the moon.
I'll see you in the morning
My dear light.

He told her she was pottery; a vase with grooves and cracks.
The patterns of the history she hid behind her back.

Within his words he layered in- like thread upon a loom-
The sweetest undercurrent to illuminate that gloom.

In certain cultures, he decreed, when pottery is cracked
They aggrandize them with gleaming gold to bring their splendor back

For they believe, with certainty, once damage has been wrought
Those tiny cracks, now filled with light, hold truths that can't be taught.

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.)

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