i start by telling her i am convinced there are almost no moments that matter,
like really profoundly matter,
and i am subliminally convinced of this, especially when i am alone.
but then i swear to her, there i was all alone in a basement staring a small, blurry two dimensional copy of you,
and when i look at your smile in the photo, mine grows bigger
and i let out this soft, unintentional laugh,
at the exact moment i feel tears rolling down my face, and my body seems to know before my heart does, and my heart knows before my mind does.  
and i knew then.
i knew then that i was wrong, that i was not stuck in a series of inutile moments that in grand design, meant nothing at all. if all the other moments i thought a waste led me here, i valued them.
this moment was a brick wall and a cleansing rain. it was the absolute moment i knew i would spend my life happily earning your trust, your time, your heart.
i tell her this with relief on my breath because the hurricane in my head named after you has settled, and i am more than ready to start building back up.

What if I don't make it to where I'm supposed to be before I have a chance to change it all?

broken again.
it comes and goes, right?
or what do you call the spaces between
where i've mastered how to human
throughout the day,
the times when I can say hello and goodbye
and laugh at unfunny jokes
and do what's expected
and take my medicine,
would i call it unbroken so long as i am not sobbing in a ball on the floor?
it hits when it hits.
and sometimes it's one thing at a time.
sometimes i am struck with the notion
that his heart breaks in his chest every day and that it is my fault
and sometimes i only recall the times he was kicking me in the stomach
and then it's both
or maybe it's the life we lost or all three
or a completely different loss of a different person or a different fallout
or a different pain that i caused
a different wound i am responsible for
or a different time when my heart was ripped from my chest
occasionally i get slammed with memories from a time when i should have been protected, sometimes i remember things that can't possibly be in my range of memory

sometimes it's more and sometimes it's less, sometimes it's a combination, sometimes it is none of the above. it is never gradual. it hits, it hurts. like concrete and broken glass. i can't control it, but i am broken again.

you should have stayed
you should have stayed

           i'm over that now

and here i am, screaming inside,
screaming in your heart
"i couldn't hate you and loving you
might be destroying me
LOVE ME
LOVE ME
god please,
love me"

here i am, on my knees,
watching a clock with broken ******* hands,
with my broken hands
trying to make it work

Years pushing the darkness back into the shape of a shadow
even when she was slicing my back open to get back into me.
Years of lies after years of embracing unspeakable happenings. How could I have known it was okay not to be okay? I missed my chance to fall apart and heal properly. Then all I wanted was to forget his hands taking my breath and my voice and my love
and his cruelty taking... Everything else I had ever wanted.
And I wanted to forget the way I had let myself fall into an ocean of her love only to drown in it and beg for more to fill my lungs.
So I forced it all out of my mind because, Lord, I have finally faced it: as soon as my mind finds a way out, I take it. I take it and I run with it. I run wild trying to heal my barely beating heart and I hide, pathetic and alone in corners of the world that no one would think to look for me. I do not linger in pain and wait. I take what I can like a ******* thief in the night and hastily sew my heart together and calm my mind and lungs until I can carry on.
It worked for years. And years.
I... thank you for a moment of peace to think while you shelter me from the world of pain and reality of love and loss.
My eternally unsettled mind will continue and my heart will as always, try to keep beating.

I misjudge my own feelings. I change my mind constantly. I have to make the wrong choice five times before I make the right one and understand why it’s right. Sometimes, quite often, these faults --no--habits will confuse you. I’ll tell you I need to be left alone ten minutes before I need you more than I have ever needed you before. I will be most energetic when I feel I will soon collapse into a sea of sadness. I will infuriate and disappoint you while I make countless, hasty, bad decisions as I try to alleviate the symptoms of life. I will say it once but not more: I am sorry for these things about me, only because they will sometimes negatively impact you. I am me. I am worth it.

Leave me out with the waste
This is not what I do
It's the wrong kind of place
To be cheating on you
It's the wrong time
She's pulling me through
It's a small crime
And I've got no excuse