Mom makes you smile for a picture in front of the bus
on your very first day of school,
"You only have one first day of kindergarten!" she says.
But every time you hear the scratching of leather seats,
You are back to that day
When tears rolled off your tiny pink cheeks,
onto the front of your Lion King tee shirt
The first time you ever had to be afraid that you
would never see her again.

Brother tells you not to worry about the boy that bothered you,
the impact of a fist on his right eye is a warning
that guarantees he'll never disrespect a girl again.
But every time you step in the pebbles on a playground,
You're still struggling to run just slow enough not to slip
yet fast enough to keep from being caught and held captive
by the first boy to ever kiss you without permission.

Grandma tells you to "appreciate today" every day
because you'll never get it back.
But every time you hear the crash of waves against a shoreline,
You're there with her in your favorite place in the world.
And the sun is overhead with looks of never coming down,
But you'd be okay if it did because you swear these colors of
the sunset don't exist when you see it from anywhere else
And you never feel so close to God as you feel right here.

Dad is sad when you're growing up
because you'll only be little once.
But every time you get the surprising scent of metal and grease,
You're five years old again and dad is getting home from work
and he lifts you up in a hug and you bury your face in his shirt and breathe in,
And you're confident that he will carry you to bed later that night
on that same shoulder when you fall asleep on the couch.

You're told over and over to forgive
and your mother keeps trying, too.
But every time a green van passes by,
you're a vulnerable twelve-year-old with a record that says easy prey
and you're back at that police station and you're both still crying
and forgiveness still seems so far away.

Everyone tells you that "first love"
is something you only feel once.
But every time September rolls around,
You're still staring back into the first eyes to look at you in awe,
His palms feel sweaty in yours but you don't mind.
And you can still taste his lips and smell the sweet mint Stride on his breath
and you feel everything.

It’s strange how they promise that you can't turn back time,

yesterday is gone,

today will only happen once.

Because I go back all the time;
And I still feel everything.

When did it happen?
When did I stop being awake?
I don't know if I've ever really been awake.

What does it feel like
to want to do anything that you have to open your eyes for?
"Wake up," they say,
"You're going to sleep away your entire life."
But I see more with eyes closed
than I ever have with eyes open;
What really separates a dream from reality?
My dreams interrupt my reality all the time
and I can never be certain of anything I think is real.

All I know is that we're staring at the ceiling at 2am
just trying to figure each other out,
and suddenly I'm somewhere else
and you're someone else
and I'm saying things to you that don't make sense
and you're confused.

I'll come back from a dream just as confused as you are,
Not with eyes torn open, because they hadn't been shut,
but with nothing more than a shake of the head,
an embarrassed apology
and a disappointment in my inability to remain conscious
even for you.

I know it scares my mother to know
that I drove 62 miles to see her
but I can only remember 37 of them.
But I can't tell you how many poems I don't remember writing,
that contain words I've never used before
and a feeling I didn't know could be described.

When I was a little girl
all I wanted to do was sleep.
I dreamt of growing up to find a husband
and living in a beautiful house with him and our children,
and I'd be happy and have everything I could want.
I dreamt it.
And it felt real.

I decided then that if I could dream it, that was enough
because at least for the time that I slept, it would be real.
It's harder to make sense of real life
when you aren't required to be a part of it.

This brain will never have the control
to stop from slipping in and out of consciousness.
I may never fully wake up.
Any hour may have in store for me only
a dark fog of amnesia and a life that isn't mine,
ready to pull me in and drown me beneath the dangers of my own eyelids.

But that place is the place I know the best,
better than any place conscious minds have ever met.

Eyes closed.
Eyes open.
I don't know where I am,
but I am here.

How I adore your nerve
when you kissed me in your closet upon sheets made of legos
and all of your childhood dreams.
How easy I am for you to draw when you play on stage the song that you wrote me,
The one that feels like rock climbing by the river,
Like naps in the summer when I drool on your chest and you don't mind,
Like kissing you until the very last minute of my curfew,
only to break it for the miracle that is your lips.
How alluring is your breath on my neck,
Your voice in my ear when you told me that you loved me
and you didn't stop smiling,
even as the years went by and I did.
How I craved, longed, begged for time to be still
the time you took me to the highest hill you could drive to,
You called it my mountain.
"At first, you look at it and it's so small,
but once you notice it, it's all you can see," you said.
How my stomach floods with waves of nostalgia and a taste
of everything I've ever had to live without,
With complete and utter spell-binded devotion at the simple familiarity
of your smell.
How addicted I am to your laugh when you're happy and
the mastered impression you do of your mom.
How weak I am to your intellect and your appreciation of literature
and real music,
Your enthusiasm for art and the "name that note" game you force upon me
as you stumble onto the classical radio station.
How in love I am with your romance that is as childish as my attachment
to my baby blankie and my mother's childhood walrus that you never ceased to insult.
Our pajama day that we decided over our prom,
When we turned on John Mayer and slow danced in your room.
Your idea of a date consisted of fake wine and me.
How incredibly warm are the coldest of nights,
On the side of your dirt road as we lie in the snow that is too cold for comfort,
yet holds us there with the fear that one day will not look the same as this one
and I would bear any amount of cold winter to keep one more moment of yours.
How I cherish the way you latch my pinky with yours when we walk
And the face you don't know you make when you play guitar.
The rooftop where you kissed me for the very first time and the string rings
we wore to remind each other we were still there.
How incredibly and unfortunately devout I am to all that I remember of you.

The next time you go home,
don't let your palm linger on the doorknob on your way out.
Just throw out the old toothbrush she hasn't come to use in months
and take down the painting above your bed
coated in colors that reminded her of *****, grass-stained knees and dandelion bracelets;
and don't pretend that homesick
is something you could ever feel without her shoes at the door.

I can’t help but wonder if you still have tucked away all the letters and the notes and the list of reasons why I loved you.
I wonder where you left the guitar strings that I gave you for your wrist
I thought I saw them in a picture of you,
the one with the girl.
I could be wrong.

I think about the things I wrote to you and wonder if you’ve ever looked at them again
And felt the warm singe of pain when you read the words that we meant
when we were naïve enough to think that we were different.

I wonder if I still cross your mind when you scoop ice cream
Because you know how I hate skimpy scoopers.
Or when you find a hair on your arm that's freakishly longer than the rest,
if you wish I was there to pull it out.

Sometimes I think of your mom
And I wonder if she kept my picture, the one she kept on the mantle right beside yours.
What did she do with my Christmas stocking?
I can’t help but wonder if it’s been passed on to your new girl
And I don’t know if they’ll watch West Side Story together,
If she’ll enjoy it the way I did.

I imagine you never thought twice
When you came across a hair still on your pillow, or the faintest of my scent
Or my bobby pins on your bedroom floor.

I remember finding the bobby pins and hair binders of other lovers
when I came back to you for the last time.
They were scattered across your carpet like cruel reminders of all the other heads
that lied in the bed that was always mine.
I wonder if she ever finds mine and feels the same.
Probably not.

I imagine you’ll reread that book someday,
The one I got you in high school when you went through your philosophical phase.
And I wonder if you’ll notice the inside cover where I wrote “I love you”.
I’d always thought there was something special about a book with an inscription.

I remember sitting there for a long while, trying to think of something heartfelt
to say to you,
But all I could manage was “I love you”.
Maybe that’s because I knew that anything else I felt for you would have an expiration date
And I’d wonder if you’d read it when I was gone, and those words wouldn’t be true anymore.
Or not to you.
But I think of you reading it now and it won’t seem silly because it will
always be true.
For both of us, I think.

I think about the time when I first moved to your big city
And I got lost in your neighborhood and I saw you from my car.
You were walking right towards me.
I drove away as fast as I could and I couldn’t breathe or talk or smile.
Did you see me too?
I looked in my rearview mirror, and you never looked back as I drove.
I wanted so badly for you to move away.

I can’t help but wonder if you wonder
About your drawings and your notes and the music you showed me and if I still listen to it.
I do.
If I still wear my black pants that made you go crazy
or if I refuse to listen to The Joker, despite my favorite song lyric of all time,
because it reminds me of the time on your uncle's dock
When we decided we needed a song but we were both too drunk to think of anything sentimental.

I wonder if you imagine a bittersweet feeling coming over me
when I hear the Bee Gees and think of you singing in your Elmo voice,
Or if i ever find myself recalling one of your "facts of the day" and wondering where I learned it.

******, I hope you wonder.

All of a sudden you're on the floor with wet eyes and wet hands
and the only sound in your head is that of screaming
But maybe it's you
And you feel as if you're being eaten from the inside out by your own
malnourished heart
You can't actually breathe because your sobs won't allow it
and your entire body is trembling
and dark red,
fading to purple
You imagine someone holding a knife beside you
Someone who's willing to use it
and it doesn't scare you any more than death scares a ghost
You're sure you wouldn't feel it

So you sleep to fool your brain for a while
But you only dream of him
and things are alright and well and good
and you wake up and you wish you hadn't
Some people never know that your chest
can feel this empty
That your stomach and your throat and your head
can beg and beg and beg
and you can not know what for
And some people don't ever find out
that your heart's physical ache
is much too real
That one would prefer next to any amount of torture
if that heart were separate from his

I knew that only telling myself you never existed
would be as difficult as telling a drunk that he'd never tasted alcohol.
But you, my poisonous drug,
I've been sober of you for 388 days now
and if I let myself slip up,
if your name rolls off a tongue near by and I allow myself to react,
to absorb that name,
to taste that name,
to feel, to hold, to know that name,
I start counting my days all over again.

So now I'm just 1 day sober...
and I don't know anybody by that name.

I often wonder if there are ghosts
that watch me
as I reach out to the other side of the bed,
laugh,
and whisper things,
pretending you're still there

Sometimes I play a game in my head
where I hit the play button on my life
and you have no choice but to watch from wherever you are
as I surround myself with things
I know would make you miss me

Do you ever think that when you dream of someone,
they can feel it
and maybe they wake up remembering you somehow?

I doubt you could stand waking up
with my name in your mouth each morning
Not when you've earned the right to forget it

Love and hate are independent sentiments
but somehow with you they're interchangeable

I've read somewhere about the science behind our memories,
how they paint a pretty picture
of a person we can no longer have,
but underneath all the layers of thick paint are the realities;
the uncertainty,
the mean streaks,
the resentment,
all in ***** splashes of muddy brown and red

The problem is that
I've been scrubbing at your painting in my head
until my hands go numb
and I still only see all my favorite colors

You're too pretty to look so sad.

You're too young to feel so empty.

You laugh too heartily to be so numb.

I've loved you too much for your chest to hollow.

You'd loved me too much to to ever want to leave.

You'd disguised yourself too well for me to know better.

I wish I'd known.
I wish I'd known.

Her skeleton is not visible anymore
from under her skin,
and her legs no longer wobble like
those of a fawn learning to step
when she walks.

Her cheeks are filled back in
with the colors of his mother's garden,
and you'll never see the picture
her sister snapped
of the ghost that once drained
it from them.

She sleeps to rest, not to escape,
and you'd never suspect
that the glass on her nightstand
had been filled with whiskey
for seven months
to chase down the pain pills
she took every morning
for her father's bad back.
Now it's filled with water.

She dreams of more than death.
She dreams of life.
A life without him,
and a life without them,
and a life without hopelessness
and sorrow and regret.
A life free of the pain of his torches,
but not free of feeling.

"I can't live without you," she promised him
through drunken midnight tears.
But, hell, he wasn't the only one who
could break a promise.

I think I hate the cold because it always feels like the day you left. I feel myself dropping off your things and I see you light up the cigarette you just developed a habit for as you walk me to my car, as if we aren't now strangers. I prayed desperately that you'd change your mind at the sight of my face as you always would before, that you'd remember that you needed me to feel alive and to show you all the ways that you change the world just by staying. You were supposed to be as broken as I was, take shelter with me under the covers and lie with me, face to face, tell me through your tears how much you've missed me and how you made a mistake so that I can stare back at the face I've been dreaming of holding in my hands again, the face with eyebrows pressed and that look of I-can't-believe-how-much-I-love-you and why-haven't-you-given-up-on-me, and I can convince you to forgive yourself so that I can love you, because I'd already started and it was much too hard to stop now. I was supposed to show you the space between my ribs that you left wide open and the holes in my chest where all your butterflies escaped and the torn pieces of the wings that left too quickly, and you were supposed to show me the emptiness in your bones and your eyes that could only see in black and white and the glass far away where all the color hid itself from you. But that's not how it went and you didn't change your mind this time. You didn't need me to feel alive because you had your cigarettes and your new friends and your high. And you weren't as broken as I was and you had no tears and your face was a shade I didn't recognize and it didn't read at all how you loved me. My words drew no more expression from your face than a sorry for the hurt and you wouldn't forgive your own brother if he made me ache the way you did. I showed you all the things that broke when you left and all the things essential to my being that you stole away along with you, but you didn't show me your bones or your eyes and you didn't have to because I saw them anyway despite your efforts to shield them. Your bones were as empty as they'd always been and your eyes were empty, too, but you weren't going to let me wrap around you anymore when you're too brittle to stand and you weren't going to let me keep painting the world in colors you can see. You were all locked up and you wanted to be, and my fingers were always bleeding just trying to unlock you. And you weren't going to heal them with your lips and show me the secret anymore. You wanted me to shiver outside with my bleeding hands and frozen tears and unanswered prayers. And that's exactly how you left me. I think I hate the cold because it's much colder now. I hate the cold because every day feels like the day you left.

I want to know what you were like as a child.
I want to look through all your toddler pictures
and read the notes you scribbled for your mom
when you were four.
Who was your best friend,
and were you afraid of the dark?

I want to know how old you were when you got rid of your legos,
and I want to hear about your first crush.
Did you write her love letters or did you call her names
and steal her things?
Would she ever know of your plans to marry her in your backyard?

I want to meet your mom.
I want to hear the things you talk with her about,
if you laugh and joke and if you watch your words too carefully when she's around.
I want to ask her questions you wouldn't know the answers to,
Like how to make you smile when you don't feel like it
and what it is you hide behind when you're scared.

I want to learn the differences in your sighs
and of which of your smiles is most sincere.
I want to separate your thinking face and your sad face
and I want to know where to stand when you're angry,
far away or do you still want me to hold your hand?

I want to know your deepest fears and I want to figure out why
you're afraid of anything at all.
I want to hear your favorite joke and listen to your favorite song.
I want to read your favorite book and I want to know everything that you love about it.
I want to hear the story of the best day of your life,
and of the worst.

I want to hear about everyone you've ever loved
and what you loved about them.
I want to discover which pieces of you grew
and which pieces turned cold with each break of your heart.
I want to know the last time something made you cry
and what it was
and whether or not it still makes you cringe.

I want to know your views on fate and free will,
and did you ever believe in God?
I want to hear of your hopes and your plans and your ultimate desires.
I want to hear about every time you've been hopeless
and whether or not you believe in soul mates.

I want to find the place where you stash away your insecurities.
I want to learn of the parts of you that you've grown to love,
When did you realize you had something to offer the world,
and do you ever let yourself forget it?

I want to examine your brain in all its entirety
and I want to read the libraries within,
The shelves that hold the stories of every
experience that made you
And the notebooks with the scribbled poems
before you ever tore them up.

We fall asleep to
       Strawberry Fields,
folding bodies to match an unfamiliar shape
and I must remember
   that certainly,
      you can't fall in love
  with every boy who gives you his hands
    and an irregular heartbeat
in exchange for the breath from your chest;
but sometimes
     
     I just forget.

Hey boy, are you a turtleneck
                                                 because you're pretty dorky to everyone else      
                                              but I think I like you
Boy, are you a penny
                                 because I would pick you up off the street when those  
                                  other hands didn't think it
                                   was worth it
Boy, are you a button
                                  because I lost you somewhere and I have lots of
                                   others but they just don't match
                                   no matter what color I paint them
Boy, are you a freckle
                                   *because my grandma calls them angel kisses and
                                  that's what I think you are

Dad’s got a mind like the machines he works on
His psoriasis-beaten hands, still tough as they’ve always had to be
I come home to, “How’s your car?” and, “Do you need money?”
His jackets smell of oil and metal shavings and sometimes they hide splinters
His laugh is contagious and it mostly ignites from one of his own slightly comical remarks,
and it makes his belly move up and down like a boat on a lake during a storm
It reminds me of when I used to curl up for a nap on that pillowy tummy
and I’d bob up and down as he breathed

Mom doesn’t stop taking care of people even once she’s left the hospital
She can tell something’s wrong before I know it, myself
Her blue scrubs are her superhero costume,
and her other clothes are just a disguise
Her hugs make me miss her, somehow,
even though we’re as close as we can get
Something about her arms feels like being curled up in an afghan
and looking outside on a bleak and frore January night - Safe
They smell like every comforted cry and sympathetic word of my entire life;
Like home

I'm changing with the seasons
and I'm beginning to think that the goosebumps on my skin are self defense
from more than just the cold.

He will appear out of nowhere with his confident stature,
animated laugh,
the body that you could only assume is an illusion,
comparable to a Greek god.

He will draw you with his beaming features-
his perfect mouth upon his perfect face with his perfect eyes
that are looking only at you
as if you are worthy to even see something so beautiful.

His radiant allure derives from a level of bliss and euphoria you'd never seen anyone acquire
and you don't want to leave his light.

His intellect will entice you
even more so than the essence of his beauty
and his soul will mirror kindness and freedom.

You will deny him any interest despite his perfection
and you will do this for a long time.

You'll wake up to kiss his face in the mornings
and you'll see the emotion in his eyes
when he tells you what you do to him.

You'll avoid the conversation when it's staring into the face of the future and asking questions about tomorrow.

He'll cook for you (significantly better than anything you could cook yourself)
and he'll watch your favorite cartoons and
you'll relay inside jokes that make you both feel at home with each other.
This will be both comforting and terrifying and
you'll wonder why you won't let yourself feel the way he wants you to.

You'll scan his face and find it exactly as flawless as it's always been, abnormally beautiful even,
and you cannot decide why he's there wanting you.
But he is.

And your weariness will leave you on emotional standby and undoubtedly conflicted.

I’ve never learned the way to be content
with scummy hard wood floors in studio apartments
and falling asleep to police sirens and the rush of cars over city bridges
and drug dealers outside my window whose business is only recognizable by night.

Boxes stay kept in the closet where I can’t be bothered by their stares
that beg me to loosen the layers of packing tape wrapped in every direction;
I can’t remember if I’m going to like what’s inside of them and I really,
really don’t want to not like it.

What makes a hundred stranger’s old homes become a home of yours?
Imagination is turning white walls that hold thousands of secrets
between each new layer of paint
into something that whispers familiar things to you before the lights go out.

There’s not enough bleach underneath the sink to wash away the stains of everyone who’s been here first,
no matter how much I scrub,
no matter how many bruises I’ll be willing to find on my knees tomorrow.
Ledges gathered dust of skin particles I hadn't been here to shed
And the bathtub is left with soap remnants rinsed from someone else's body.

My bed fits perfectly over the faded circle of wood in the corner,
and I’m sure theirs did too.
Tonight I’ll sleep to all things made here
and all things lost.

I’ll set my life up on the floor beneath two more
I'll memorize the routine of footstep patterns above me.

I never expected that a fresh start would feel so much more
like a lot of tangled endings.

He was a penny superglued to the sidewalk.

He was a balloon that made a plan to escape my

fingers before I ever had a chance to tie it

around my wrist first.

I will undoubtedly fall in love with somebody
who will undoubtedly be the wrong person for me,
and I will mistakenly make them my world.

I will tell myself not to think of a future
but my core will not detach itself from the hopes that we last
and my mind will be unable to conjure up a scenario in which we are apart
and anything less than perfect.

I will be so devoted to this person
that I will make a fool of myself for any reason,
so long as they are with me.
I will break completely when we fall apart
and I will forget what it felt like to be happy by myself,
how to be complete by being only me.

I will remember the realization that my heart can physically ache
and the throbbing will keep me awake at night.
I will lose hope and care for anything other than a relapse of time.
I will become cynical and angry and sad
and I will stay that way for much too long.

My self-esteem will plummet
and I will hurt so deeply that I will wish for things I don't mean.
I will love that person and hate them in cycles of I'm-literally-insane
and it may never actually stop.

Invite me into the pages of your insecurities
and all you find is wrong with you.

Dig the deepest of tunnels
and bury me there in the corner of your brain,
but the part that holds all your obsessions,
of collarbones,
romantic comedies,
of expensive whiskey,
of me.

Tangle me up in your bed sheets,
make it feel like more than infatuation.
Throw me into the cell where you've locked away your worst self;
show me the bad with all of your good.

Dance me across the floor where you lay your heart out.
Guide me around every fragile part
and trust that they won't be shattered under my feet.

Write me the words of your universe
and show me the flight of your hands
upon my face,
down my spine,
around my legs.
Make me believe I'm the first one
to ever make your wrists shake
and your mouth uncertain.

Draw my name on your forearm,
under your sleeve.
Hide it from your mother and know that as long as it's there,
I exist.

Carve me into the headboard of the bed you plan to take with you
the next place you go.
Remember me there every time you move your pillow
away from its place against the wooden frame.

Drink me in as you drink in your coffee
from across the table.
Pass me the syrup and your grinning lips.

Study my movements
as you pretend to study your crossword,
and I'll study your reflection on my spoon
as I pretend not to notice.

Trying to make you happy was like choosing a, b, c, or d
for six million questions
that only consisted of True or False
I don’t even think you realized setting up a roadblock
in every direction you led me

You were always under construction
and your sign was always turned to a hard STOP
as I waited for a gentle GO SLOW
that you can’t promise me will ever even come
Waiting
and waiting
and waiting for your sadness to pass
so that I might push through to you just one more time

My blood could never circulate evenly enough
to keep my hands and feet warm in the winter
I thought it was okay because yours couldn’t either,
and you said you'd loved the red of my cheeks
but frozen people are just that-
frozen
I guess that's why your eyes kept the same
cold stare in the summertime

If I am a spider, you’ve hit me with your newspaper
You aren’t afraid of me
You don’t even have to think about the options:
I could keep her in a mason jar;
I could let her escape through the crack of the window;
I could let her be herself for just one more day
You just do it
Maybe it’s funny because maybe that’s what you do to yourself
every time you remember you’re still here

And tomorrow, you’ll read the paper as if today never existed
As if you hadn’t watched me wither and tremble
and plead
  and plead
    and plead
and turned the other cheek
As if you haven’t done this a thousand times before

I'd always doubted that there would ever be a day when my heart didn't ache for you.
How could twenty four hours pass by without a single thought of what once held enough power to make us change everything we believe in?

I feared I'd never stop waiting for you on a burning ledge, dipping my toes in the lava that we had always begged to be sand,
just to watch you turn back around before you could even feel the steam
or the sweat beading down your forehead.

Life keeps a tally chart for each time my mother is right.
She was right about the love and the hurt that lingers on and she was right about the noises in your ears, years later, that sound an awful lot like their voice right beside you.
Now, add another tally for "moving on", because that ringing doesn't happen so often these days
and your voice doesn't cast that spell on me anymore,
the one that levitates my body across the distance between us
until I'm near enough to remember why I loved you;
I don't care to know anymore.

Could it be that now, finally, you can appear without destroying everything in your path?
Could it be that now I am still standing when a thought of you forces its way back to me;
that my chest feels no more than a quicker step and with one deep breath, I am honestly and truly okay?

. . .

"I don't deserve you,"* you say to me
Just as you'd said a million times before.
You're the best person I've ever met,
I know because of the feeling in my chest
When your words become too serious,
And you want your hurt to end so badly
That you're willing to go away with it.

Your phone is just a dead end
But I'll keep trying until I can't,
Which shouldn't be long now because
My head has never pounded so loudly
And neither has my heart,
And I can't see the numbers I'm dialing
Through the heavy pools between my eyelids.

I've never been so afraid of anything
In my life.
I'm in just a small room of all the world,
And yet most of it is only filled with you.
And I'm crying in my room and
I didn't think I'd ever be afraid to think that
You might be done crying in yours.

Each bare-footed step in the grass
Feels the dew that garnered while your eyes were closed,
And each night I count the stars that died
Only to shine through your window and give you something beautiful
to look at.
The tree in my front yard grows for you
And the initials we carved into its bark refuse to heal.
The sigh as I fall asleep and the dress that hangs upon my shoulders and wraps around my waist does so for you and only you.

Everything I want is you
And everything you are, you hate.
And I want to convince you to love you,
Even more than I want to convince you to love me.

Can't you see that the sun only rises to see your face?
Don't you know that the crickets only chirp when they know that you're listening?
And how is it that you aren’t blinded by the reflection of your light in every room that you illuminate?

I didn't want to make you feel bad

when I told you that the scariest moment 
of my life
was in those long hours of
 not knowing
whether or not the best part 
of my world was still a part of the world.
I just wanted you to realize how bad 
it would be if you weren’t.

You're sure that as hard as you look,
you can't see anything in you that's worth loving.
Please don't give up.
Because any direction I glance,
the something worth loving in you is my only view.

Our hearts drum in unison as we lie
chest to chest.
They run full speed ahead
in hopes of landing in the same place as the other,
only to fall backward
as they hit the inside of their small, well-crafted cages.
Over and over and over again.