I hate that I can’t stop thinking about you.
It makes me feel like you’ve won twice.

Love comes out so easily sometimes it feels unintentional.
Like boiling water in a *** on the stove.
It just bubbles out of me.
You might think from these poems I’m a hopeless romantic.
One who tosses rocks and windows, says I love you first and does grand gestures.
I don’t.
I don’t share these poems.
I don’t breakdown to love songs.
Most people say I’m intimidating.
The love comes out in every small action.
Giving them the bigger bowl of pasta.
The piece of bread with more garlic.
Remembering their Tuesday plans.
Wanting to understand how they think.
Finding that perfect, thoughtful gift they never asked for but they love.
Really listening when they speak.
Giving an unsolicited head rub just because I’m really good at them - and I like to hear them sigh with relief as they melt into my legs.
Just like the bubbles in the ***, one by one, they boil out of me.
Often, to evaporate.

The months I felt the deepest I kept quiet.
I lay in bed and wonder if I’ll ever feel sure again.
If anyone will ever calm my waters that deeply.
Ignite me as much as he did.
How many I love you’s I didn’t say.
Even though I knew he felt it too.

It would have still ended in ruin.
Still here this October night searching for meaning.
I just wish I would have allowed myself to fully burst while it happened.
Right now I’m a malfunctioned firework.
Never truly went off to see beauty in the sky.
And yet, I am here. On the ground. Exploded.

Look, at the end of the day.
I’m just simply horrified,
That my married friends think it impressive,
That a woman sleeps with her husband 4x a week.
I’m too young to think that old.

i'm not sure how it works for normal people.
but i know how it worked for me.

it was june.
i was 21.

i got a call.
only a few months they said.
but i didnt understand, he's only 5.
how could this be.
how could god take something so new and special to me.

a few months ended up being 3.
he was buried in a kid-sized grave.
a family broken apart and a boy to never come of age.

before this loss i always thought there was a point.
a plan.
god must have things under control right?

but this made me think.
how could this little one suffer a short life and painful death of there was a loving god?

didnt seem loving to me.
didnt seem like it was real anymore.
didnt seem like there was a purpose anymore.

i dont think i comprehended death fully until that moment.
when i saw that little body lowered into the ground and realized it would never become big.
does it all just really stop?
is there no purpose?

frozen coke
family matters
sack swing
hugs

at 822 Pine Avenue

late nights
pillow forts
peach cobbler dessert

at 822 Pine Avenue

headstands and trampolines
laughs
a front porch swing

at 822 Pine Avenue

wives tales & mud pies

at 822 Pine Avenue

pecan tree
bench beneath
singing in her sleep

at 822 Pine Avenue

bird fountain and basketball net
a ball needing air
popsicle stains on shirts

at 822 Pine Avenue

mining for rocks down the alley
papa's roof was *****

at 822 Pine Avenue

birthday parties
coconut pies
drawing pictures in the front room

at 822 Pine Avenue

Geraldine stories
flash light animals
sleepovers with the twin beds pushed together

at 822 Pine Avenue

talking in her sleep
frying me bacon to eat
Sunday afternoon lunches

At 822 Pine Avenue

1 husband
3 kids
7 grandchildren
13 great grandchildren

at 822 Pine Avenue

I didn’t get it before.
After you -
The sad love song was no longer dramatic.
The broken poet’s words finally made sense.
The things I thought I was immune
Pierced my skin without warning or a fight.
My armor was no match for the blade of heartbreak.

I’ve found that in my adult life a lot of decisions you think are about forgiveness, and they’re not.
It’s always good to decide to forgive.
Especially for you.
The real decisions we make, the hard ones, is if you should try again.

It’s absurd how much I care about a ******* like.
The value subconsciously derived from a double tap.
Refreshing the page again and again.
You are valid, important, and loved... even if that picture you posted on Instagram recently performed like ****.

They say to be with the person you think
about at 2p.m. when you're busy.

Not 2 a.m. When you're lonely...

But you are both of those people.

And all both of you are wrong for me.

I think of all the things I plan on becoming.
They’re so much more interesting, exciting, and inspiring than being someone’s wife.
I can’t believe I almost made that trade.
I can’t believe I almost sacrificed my dreams on the altar.

I think the statement is true, if you stop loving someone you never did love them, and if you truly love someone you always will. I have people in my life that have hurt me, that I still deeply and passionately care about, whether they are aware of this or not. A part of loving is reserving a little spot of your heart to them, just them, and even if they decide not to take it, that they don't want it, or they've moved on, that spot always has their name on it. Always unconsciously waiting, reserved, just in case they ever want to return.

You are the boy
Who makes me forget
That any others exist

Like a wise woman once said, “Let us forget, with generosity, those who cannot love us.”

So I will try to forget you.
I will try to stop dreaming about you.
I will try to stop caring about you.
I will try to stop loving you.
I will try my hardest, to forget.

I think that all writing comes out of pain. Every remarkable work harnesses compassion or strain that begs you to empathize with the pain that someone-something, has felt. It is pain that has taken another form, it appears differently in plots and characters; pawns in a sense, that grace the game board of life. Nonetheless, pain is present. The Bible. A God's suffrage for grace of an undeserving people. Shakespeare's sonnets that brought us to our knees with the agony of lost love.-a lover's sorrow. In every classic there is a tugging on our heart strings that invokes a reply of our emotions.

                       In short, Pain is Poetry.

I can’t eat more than a few bites.
After 2 or 3 I feel stuffed.
It’s probably because my body is processing too many other things right now.
It’s full.

I know you don’t love me like you loved her.
And I know because I don’t love you like I loved him.
It’s the scorned that can see the pain in another.

I know you don’t love me like you loved her and don’t blame it on time.
You’ll say it was two years but you said you loved her after 3 dates.
We’ve been together for 3 months.

But it’s not about the words.
And I actually don’t want you to say them because then I’d feel like I’d need to say them back and I’d feel guilty that I meant them less this time.
If you said them tomorrow it wouldn’t change my opinion.
It’s not the lip service but a knowing.
A knowing of what it feels like when you are loved like that.

I make quick decisions about people.

I like you or I don’t and I know within the first few times meeting you.

I don’t understand when other people also don’t come to these quick decisions about me and others. I’ll ask questions to myself like “Can’t they tell I’m great?”

Once I’m in, I’m in- and I’ll love you more fiercely than you’ve ever been loved. But I won’t show as I’ll be afraid you won’t love me back or at least as much as I love you.

So I will conceal some of my love, give it to you in smaller pieces, mostly non-verbal because words are my love language and mean the most to me. I will see how you respond and reciprocate.

I assume people are good until they show me otherwise.

I am afraid that no one will ever love the full, raw version of me. I’m afraid I’ll always be too much for other people.

I want to open up, share, and know someone’s life story, and how their brain works- but I want them to do it first.

I want them to be vulnerable so I can be too.

I am scared to show people how I am really feeling.
I am scared to give someone control over my emotions.

I hate the idea of someone having power over my emotions.
That feels like a loss to me.
Even if that loss is to the best hands.

I am afraid to rely on anyone.
I want to be self-sufficient and singular.

But I also want to be so intertwined with someone under the sheets on a Saturday morning that even the smell of waffles and coffee doesn’t tempt me to move. I’ve lost track of what limbs are theirs and mine.

I want intimacy without the real ****.
Because the real **** scares me shitless.

You’re not my usual type.
You’re larger.
In multiple ways.
Physically, you played football and rugby and look like it.
Mentally, you have strong opinions and care deeply.
Emotionally, you don’t shy away from the hard conversations.
You’re not my usual type.
I wasn’t attracted to you by your jawline or abs.
I was attracted to you First because of your brain.
Second, for the way I felt around you.

I come before you with not just words or promises. I come to you with a vision. A vision of our future.

A vision of our love, loyalty and the dedication we will share over our lifetime together. Of the roots we will plant, the home we will create and the family we will make. Of the blood sweat and tears we will sacrifice for each other, but that our laughter and joy will make them seem so very small.

This vision is something I never saw before you. And you have made me see it all so so clearly.

I will grow old with you.
I will go grey with you.
I will be with you for as long as this life allows me to be.

I am sure of you.

I vow to you that I will remember this vision of certainty in the hurt and sacrifices that are inevitable in life. Through the bad days, through the tough months through sickness and any obstacles.

I am sure of you.

The inward swarming of my thoughts is overwhelming many times to the point I feel like they are all going in the same direction but cannot find the destination or how to take off. Like bees trying guard their honey when a bear comes for their hive. I feel like the same victim when I compare myself with the ideal portrayed in society. desperately trying to protect something underneath but not being able to keep it together. They slip from their comb into paws. the bees swarm over vacant areas where their used to be sweet things. Where did it go? How do I find it? Can I make more? Is it lost forever? What's the point of comb without honey. Vacancy.

I want to know if you think about getting better for me.
I want to know if you think about me at all.

I have empires in my future.
You should have never been allowed over the threshold.

I think you were the love that gave me words.

But never bothered to teach me the language.

Someday, someone will speak to me until I’m fluent.

I slept in the bed last night we had *** in for the first time.
I laid in the same spot I was in when I woke up to see my hand interlaced in yours.
I felt both comforted and horribly anxious.
A brief smirk on my face-
Follow by an elephant on my chest.
Longing and loss seem to be the closest of friends.

We were made from exploding stars.
Parts of the universe from far away on a size of magnitude we can’t fathom.
So why do we feel sometimes like our circumstances are immovable?
We’re blueberry pie and deep space.
We’re atoms that formed a conscious being that can create, move, think and BE.
Let yourself be free to evolve.
Watch yourself manifest new versions of you.

How can I not love you?
Give me a **** reason.
I sure as hell cannot.
When I try they wash away with understanding.
With empathy.
With your perspective.
I am the most victimless victim there is.
I am in a cell pretending it is a rooftop.

When it happened I had so many things to say to you.
So much hurt to express.
So much anger to share.
I wanted to shove the intensity of my rejected love down your throat so you’d have to feel the whole of what you were turning away.
Like a large piece of steak being forced down.
I wanted your esophagus to ache with what you had to swallow.

I don’t have words now.
I know now you’ll never feel the entirety of my love.
You’ll never know the depth of my hurt.
No amount of words will make you feel the ache I do.

I admire people’s words when they feel so deeply, just not their actions.

I admire my actions when I choose logic, just not my words.

Let me cut them out.
Let me cut out all the good memories from our story.  
Let me paste them together.
Let me paste them into a collage that shows my happiness.
Happiness I only feel with you.
And hope.
Hope you create in me.

If the me of the past, present and future could sit me down for a cup of tea.
Oh god how interesting would that be. What would she tell me?
What parts of me are real and which ones are just phases?
How do I find my “true self” and does even that, go through changes?
Is there no right me except the one that can handle the now?
Or is there a best me, that is trying to break out?

I never thought I’d find a snore so comforting.

But it proves to me every moment you’re still laying beside me.

You’re not my cookie cutter guy.
You are rough around the edges.
Your ends refusing a mold.
I can’t put a bow on you.
I can’t make you a party trick at Christmas.
And I kind of love that.

Why is it the deepest, most real feelings are the hardest to write?

Why do I keep backspacing over the truth?

"Your Mac battery is running dangerously low."
It made me laugh that they used the word dangerously.
Just how dangerous could a low computer battery be?
Stall your Netflix watching or your Pinterest spree.
But then I thought about skype calls cut off as a father overseas is watching his baby being born.
Or a start of the wedding march as the bride in white stands adorn.
I started to think about how something innocent can become the most dangerous thing in the world. How the usage of the medium decides the power it stores.
Like a Mac battery being dangerous, another thing which is not to toy.
Three words put together and said in one accord.
"I Love Pizza." is nothing to remark.
But
"I love you." can start a dangerous.
Dangerous.
Spark.

Is this the good part of me that wants this? Is this the angel or devil on my shoulder?
Do I want it because I’m lazy, I’m spoiled?
Do I want it because I want to be my authentic self?
Or do I want it just because I want to seem like a person who is an authentic self?
Or do I want it to be the best version of me? The one I would have been before the world told me what to be?
Or do I just want to be different and this different isn’t different enough and I want to start over.

It feels different with you.
In ways I keep failing to articulate.
There are no new things, but somehow they are all different.

Grocery store shopping is different with you.
Watching TV on the sofa is different with you.
Embracing you in my arms at night is different.

It’s a peace I’ve never had before.
That’s the main “different.”

A peace that some might describe as a knowing.

I don’t know if I know he’s the one.

But- the line from 500 days of summer feels like it rings true. “I just knew - What I was never sure of with you.”

Shouldn’t feeling this deeply matter?
Shouldn’t all of this love count for something?
Is it really all going to go to waste?

Don’t call me when you miss me.
Don’t call me when you’re sad.
Don’t call me when you realize I was the best partner you ever had.
I didn’t call you when I was broken.
I didn’t call you when I sobbed.
I didn’t call you when I was hyperventilating on the bathroom floor from the love I still felt for you.

Do you want me to love you?
I mean do you actually want THIS love. THIS life.
Because if you want me to love you, truly.
It will be engulfing.
I will love you to depths you have never felt.
It will be perspective shifting.
It will change both of us.

And here’s the thing.
I don’t think you’ve ever been loved properly before.
And I’d like to do just that.

To hear the main reason you liked me so in the beginning was because I was the opposite of your ex wife.

You didn’t actually value the things you said you did about me.

You didn’t appreciate the things that made me unique.

Like a coat off the rack.
You were just trying me on for size.
To see how this felt.
There was nothing unique to you.

You didn’t see my embellished gold buttons.
My tailored fit.
My velvet interior.

You didn’t love me for any of the unique things I am.
Which make me so valuable to some.
You just liked me because I was different.

You were just playing dress up.

Is the perfect partner an illusion?
Similar to the Easter Bunny.
People talk about him.
Make eggs and decorate in preparation.
But he is not real.
He also, has nothing to do with the actual holiday he represents.

We are told over and over in life to find a partner.
To seek, to prep, to create pretty little things.
But that’s not what it’s about.
Just like the bunny has a much more shallow story than the resurrection of Christ for the Christian faith.

We are shorting ourselves in life hopping after a perfect partner when the true meaning and happiness of this world is derived from something much deeper.
Something bunnies and pastels will not and cannot fill.

My ex told me when I broke up with him:
You don’t love me like you think you love me. Because if you did you wouldn’t be leaving.

One day, you still meet someone, you love more than you could think possible. And you will plan a future with them. You’ll be so sure of it. And he will break your heart.

When that happens, you’ll know how I feel.
Because you don’t feel how I do right now, If you did, you would have never left.

And I now realize, five years later.
He was right. I would have never left.

I can’t help but romanticize every little bit of my life.
Give me heartbreak I’ll make it growth.
Give me a failure I’ll make it a lesson.
Give me a foe I’ll make them a friend.
Give me your heart I’ll keep it safe.

You cannot find what you are seeking in the arms of another.
You cannot cuddle or **** your way into peaceful oblivion.
You have to carve the chair in which you sit.
You have to make it comfortable.
To make it fit you.
Where your legs are not pressed and remain restless.
One where your back does not feel heavy with the weight of your head.
Only you can mold something to suit your bones.