Do not tell me you love me
If you love me you would pay for dinner sometimes
If you love me you would kiss away the pain
If you love me you would appreciate what I do
If you love me you would not treat me like this
So do not tell me you love me. Words are not enough. Show me your love because I've heard it a thousand times and the wind still blows through the trees and the sun still rises in the east and sets in the west and I still feel like nothing to you.

Suddenly,
all the love songs
on the radio
were about him
and then
just as suddenly,
the radio
stopped playing
all those songs
replaced them
with heartbroken ballads
and yet,
they were still about him
he always had to be the center of attention

As we sat and inhaled the past and the memories radiated through our veins, I asked you as we sat high and dry if you cared to know why I never gave myself to the boy of glass and you said sure and in that minute or two it took me to pluck up the courage to tell you why, I thought about the wind beneath us under that tunnel as we watched ***** river banks and I said "I didn't give myself to him because he wasn't you, because I didn't love him like I love you, that how much I'd rather give myself to you was what saved me from making a choice I would have regretted deeply, for ever since I first met you I knew--I looked at you and I knew.. Look at that boy I'm going to love him forever, I'm going to give him all of me--even if it kills me--I'm going to give him my broken pieces and make the seconds I spend inside his head count--I'm going to haunt his head until he becomes drunk off the way my body arches back or the way my toes crinkle or even just way I happen to nibble on his lip. I didn't give myself to him because he was a boy of stone cold cement but you are a boy of beautiful stardust I would gladly waste a million wishes on, however with all the battles we have been through you've actually been a blessing, the small piece of sky that just so happens to make feel alive. I cannot thank you enough for existing and bringing me back from the dead, I didn't give myself to him because he was not worth my simple innocence and my million dollar heart, for the fire beneath my skin has been burning only for you, for about 5 years..
I didn't give myself to him because he was not beautiful, he was never one for standing with me through tough waters, he thought cruel words that brought down my worth was the way to go, however he was not you. You've never raised your voice at me or even attempted to belittle me with cursed words because unlike him, I know that I too set off a storm beneath your ribcage making your heart numb to the idea of leaving a love like this behind, because you and I both know that we simply couldn't do it, not now, not ever...
so if you must know I didn't give myself to him because he destroyed me from the start and you've spent years saving me, you could have given up and walked out a long time ago --but you didn't and I thank you for at least that even if we can only be together in my head, maybe in 10 years time when we waste another countless night inhaling our past we can try again--but until then I would like you to know the reason why I never gave myself to him and it is because
he-- was not you."

*vm

I don’t have a problem with saying too little, you don’t have to carve inspiration into a health room desk or vandalize a bathroom stall to get me to tell him how I feel. I have a problem with acting as if it’s four a.m. all day long and forgetting that you don’t need to know about my every mood swing: my Sunday highs and Tuesdays lows and Thursday nothings. I think my biggest fault is bothering you to tell me all the thoughts that have yet to cross your mind (and maybe wishing they had.) I want you to want to know everything I feel at any given moment: what I thought of this evening’s sunset and how long it took me to fall asleep last night and why track two of my favorite album makes me feel like I’m in a dream. I want you to want me to know why you painted your bedroom walls yellow and how often you floss your teeth and which day of the week you feel happiest on. But most of all, I want to know everything you feel, even before you’ve felt it.

I will not ask you to stay

If you must go, go
I don't need you
I will breathe (carefully) without you
I will smile (slowly) without you
I will go on (eventually) without you

I'd be much happier
If you chose to not leave,
But if you must let go, let go
And I will too

Hopefully one day
I will teach my heart to not break
Whenever everyday thoughts
Lead to you

I'm afraid I'm much too weak,
I'm afraid we'll always be
A book with the end pages ripped out,
I'm afraid I'll always wonder,
Always ache,
Always place everyone second to you

I'm afraid I'll always love you,
But I will not ask you to stay

I feel invisible
Yet you claim(ed) I am the air you breathe
And perhaps like air I am always present,
But presently forgotten

The heaviness of your hush is crushing me with empty blows
This silence leads me to wander down a path cloaked in a heavy mist
That whispers harsh truths such as:
Our hopeless, fictitious, drawn out infatuation is like
A library book that was checked out last March
You underlined and doggie-paged the first few chapters
And then left it on your shelf to collect dust all of April and May

I foolishly kept begging you to finish the book
Read the last sentence
Take time to skim over the epilogue
Please
Find your way to the back cover

I foolishly ignored your “I can’t”s

And now it’s late August and our love is long overdue,
In the opposite sense of what the phrase typically means

I write with angry lead because
I am too stubborn to admit I just filled a trash bin with tissues
And that the cuffed sleeves of my flannel
Are damp like grass’s morning dew

I have so much more to say,
Although I cannot find the words
To say anything more than



You should’ve written.

Because two weeks of nothing
Was enough for me to realize that you are just a passing breeze
Seldom present, presently becoming something of the past.

The air feels like falling action,
It feels like this is coming to an end
I can see the curtains closing
And I don’t know why I haven’t cried or
Why my heart feels like it’s made of stone

Maybe this isn’t the end!
Maybe it’s a new chapter!
A rising sun!
A see you soon!
(How should I know to say goodnight and not goodbye?)

But if this does end
   If it’s a closed book
      A setting sun
         Never see you again
(How should I know to say goodbye and not goodnight?)

I know we tried,
I know we loved with full hearts,
I know it hurts to say goodbye.

your name is always
on the tip of my tongue
and if you
wrap me in a blanket
and place me by the fire,
in the flames
i'll see your smile,
but if i blink
it'll disappear
because our time
while full, was fleeting
and now you are just
dandelion seeds
in the summer breeze
that will land
in another yard
to make someone else's
wishes come true

Just when I was starting to think I'd be okay
that I would be able to move on one day
and find someone else who I could love the way I loved you
what do you go and do?
You call me when you're drunk
who would've thunk
that I'd be the one that you call
as you stumble and fall
up the stairs on the way to your room
the man you used to want as your groom.
Who almost though his heart was healing
until you told him you were dizzy looking at the ceiling.
He realized he missed your voice on the phone
remembered the secrets you'd shown
and thousands of other memories over time
how you'd been partners in crime
for 8 long wonderful years
and that brought back more tears,
because that's when he remembered that you were no longer his
that you wouldn't be having his kids
or buying a house where you'd live together,
and spend your lives in each others arms forever.
All those dreams are long and gone
but he still waits, played like a pawn
as the queen protects her new king
and leads the pain into pain and suffering.
But the pawn keeps moving for her because that's all he knows
she was the future that he chose
but his future no longer wanted to choose him.
He had gone out on a limb
and given away his heart.
But when they grew apart
she kept a broken piece with her everywhere she went.
He thought he was slowly able to mend
but just realized that it was just pretend.
He was putting on a mask to make life easier
but the more he thinks the more he is queasier
because she's the one she called when she got wasted
which means in her mind he's still pasted.
He thinks about how she could've called her new thing
but she called me and I answered on the first ring,
because I still love her and a part of her loves me
and I know it's foolish but that's all I can see.
The slight glimmer of hope that I have when I shouldn't
because I want to think she would when I know that she wouldn't
ever get back with me for various reasons
although we've loved each other through so many seasons.
She called me, but why
why would she call the heartbroken guy
that still loves her when she won't return his feeling
yet at the same time is this call revealing.
I'll sit here and wonder but I'll never know
why she drunk called me and why I responded with hello.