I will miss you at college, I really will.
I won’t miss the wrinkled brows, at my too-heavy-eyeliner wearing face.
But i’ll probably come home make up free
with a head full of purple hair.
I know i’ll walk through the door sometime and you’ll be horrified.
And maybe you won’t want to sit in Starbucks with me.

And when your friends are bragging about their daughters,
saying mine got a full ride to Notre Dame,
or mine was recently proposed to,
you’re going to say,
“mine is happy.”
And maybe that will be enough.

our story needed to be shared
it was epic
with moments of divine beautiful happiness
and moments of raw animalistic pain
so i attempted to write it down

it took me years of reliving every detail
writing on napkins in coffee shops
and receipts in grocery stores

it took me years of memories
three suicide attempts
and two men i never really loved

i finished last night
i finished our story
------------------------------------
and then my screen lit up
and then the walls came down
and then i realized our story hasn't ended
all we've been through is the prologue

I didnt lose anything the day that you kissed my red lips,
told me that you liked them swollen this color instead of painted it.
I didn’t lose anything when you kissed down my neck and across my collar bone and all the way down into my soul.
I don’t think I lost anything the day we kicked off our socks and shoes and shimmied out of our jeans
When we crawled under the covers and into each others hearts,
whispering words that I can still feel againt my skin long after your touch has faded.
Christmas lights casting shadows that I chased across your jaw
Legs tangled and fingers twined,
we were more laughter and love
patience and passion
imperfection and beauty than I had ever felt in myself alone.
I don’t think I lost anything;
some part of myself that my mother was always telling me to protect.
*I think I may have even grown.

The noon's greygolden meshes make
All night a veil,
The shorelamps in the sleeping lake
Laburnum tendrils trail.

The sly reeds whisper to the night
A name-- her name-
And all my soul is a delight,
A swoon of shame.

It was many and many a year ago,
  In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
  By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
  Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
  In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
  I and my ANNABEL LEE;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
  Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
  In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
  My beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
  And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
  In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
  Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
  In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
  Chilling and killing my ANNABEL LEE.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
  Of those who were older than we—
  Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in heaven above,
  Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
  In her sepulchre there by the sea—
  In her tomb by the side of the sea.