i just want you to know right now
i’m grateful for the time i’ll spend writing you
because for too long i’ve been sticking glorified memories into the sunlight and naming them love
like it was alright to lose because the world was just teaching me a lesson in resilience every time i fell for someone with nothing but gravity to catch me
like it was all just practice for a hurt much worse than that
like there’s a science to breaking ourselves for the sake of staying sane

we can call our wounds victories so long as we shed a tear or two and didn't drown
and we can stick a bandage to the broken parts and pretend we’ve been having too much fun with the red finger paint but
we both know we outgrew creative solutions long before this
long before we outgrew each other

but from now on we’re done talking about the past like it’s still in front of us
done pretending like we aren’t getting enough of our share of the sun
my dear, we are not the footnotes of our own narratives
so quit letting a shortness of breath steal the stories you’ve been trying to say to the world
you can go tell the thunder its voice can’t even compare to your storytelling
tell the Rockies they’ve got nothing on your cliffhangers
nature’s never had to nurture your wounded imagination
you did that on your own

from now on
we’re gonna be beautiful without an explanation
who said these words ever had to make sense of themselves
who said any of us ever had to do the same
i swear on all the languages i'll never come to understand
these pages are gonna remember us
even when we cannot hold our pens without shaking
the ink's gonna dry and we will too but on everything
i promise something is gonna stay

a memory of you
having a memory of us
               sampling salty treats
               during that sultry spring
               screening out the wind
               that sneaked in
                    through the blinds
                          staying up all night
                             to remember what
                                   it feels like
*all night I'm gonna write poetry
all night I'm gonna write poetry
all night I'm gonna write poetry

A rhythm forever pulsing
Beating
Flowing
Melting
Through fingertips
Through the spine
Through the very fibers
Of the mind
Time
I’m forever chasing
Hunting
Searching
For more
Just a fragment
A taste
A stitch
Cause to find
Where yours and mine
Intertwine

My Beloved, your empathy is infinite
It is a bag of compassion that never runs out.
At the rarest of moments when it’s empty
When I am undeserving
Your silence is louder, there is always plenty.
Forgive my life of avarice that rips your strings!
But…how can a hole make one whole Beloved?
For your leaks endlessly trickle like a stream
Soothing desolate lands into meadows
And yet miraculously, there you still are
In the headwaters!
My Beloved, how bountiful is your empathy?
It’s a bag of compassion that never runs out.

Your imperfection enticed me
Your delicacy melted my heart
Full of sin and blemish, I fell in love with you.
Your pride disgraced my honor
I withered like a dead flower before you
You spit your venom and spite at my face,
I succumbed to your impudence.

You captured my heart and squeezed blood out of it
You ground my audacity and snorted it like a drug.
Filled with depravity, you bewitched me
I fell in love with you.
I cracked, like an ancient wall
Before your profane presence

You are as hopeless as life itself but you are my faith,
You are not worthy of worth but my being values you
With your flame all burned out, I fell in love with you
Having washed out my life, you left
I lost myself in you.

I looked for you with tiger eyes; a day, a month, a year
I sniffed around the earth like a hungry wolf, to locate your scent
My ears were pulled up like a cat in case I heard your strides
I walked and walked, I ran and ran,
But I couldn't find you

Then I found someone who said you were gone for good
You left the world with displeasure and that displeasured me.
But I want you to know, when I depart this life,
I long to come to hell…so I can be with you
Then you will see me for who I was and
Be satisfied.
And that… will satisfy me.