The smoke from our lungs
And incense that'd reduced to ashes
Drowned the room neck-high
With feathery, bleary tides.
My breathe stolen from
The pipe filled with cremated *****,
Collapsed my lungs, forcing them
To shrivel up like raisins.
Perhaps if I were to swim up,
Emerge through the waves,
I'd inhale a gasp of air
Then bob gently on the surface.
I'd set sail on my back
And let the opaque waters
Cradle me, rock me tenderly
And whisper cajoleries in my ear.
But at this moment, I'm ******
And like a stone
On the ocean floor,
I'll stay submerged.
So instead, I'll just watch
The light fixture's radiance
Dance along the surface
Of these smokey seas.
As if the sun's rays
Could reach down
And bless this
Basement.

When I was 14
I loved a girl named Amanda.
She swore she'd die for me.
She held my hand.
I never kissed Amanda:
She was with a boy named John.
For 3 years, we burned together like a flame,
Never touching.
And then one day, she understood, and ran away.
She loved me,
And I loved her,
And she ran away.

Then I found Mickey.
She did touch me.
When we kissed I felt gravity shift
And so did she.
And we held on,
We held on as hell rained down
We held on and hurt each other.
We bled
We fought
We loved
We reached for one another
With a need so immense it destroyed.
We fell apart
And then fell back together inevitably, involuntarily.
I looked at her like she was my god.
She looked at me like I was her judgement.
Eventually there came a time when there was nothing she could not hurt me with
And my love for her became an accusation in her eyes.
She ran, too. She boiled herself in guilt
And threw the scalding remnants in my face,
And I was blind,
And I loved her
And she loved me
And we never spoke
Again.

Therese kissed me on her anniversary with Nick.
I'd never had anyone look into my eyes
With such joy.
She broke down my resistance
Melted it.
When she touched me I shook.
I told her I loved her
And I saw a craving in those eyes
For exactly what I offered
And it
Leveled me with longing.
We danced for months, for nearly a year.
She would kiss me in the dark on the little bridge by the lake
And tell me she shouldn't
And kiss me again as if she couldn't stop.
I drowned in her.
If I could have pried my ribs open and offered her my heart,
I would have.
I said things to her
That shocked me.
I kissed her palms.
And she looked at me with those eyes
Full of joy.
Slowly, she opened before me like a rose,
She told me who she was.
She showed me what she hid.
And then one night
We sat at her kitchen table drinking ***** with juice
And we said everything.
She showed me her diary
That she keeps in fear that she will forget who she is.
It said, "Galaxies" on the inside cover.
She'd never shown anyone before.
She kissed me, she tucked my hair behind my ear,
She smiled at me,
And every time my heart broke with love I saw it hit her
Physically
Like a kiss, like a drug.
She held my hands, said they were beautiful
Said she wished she had hands like that
And I said take them
And she saw me mean it.
She took a black pen and wrote "Galaxies" on my left thumb,
Right next to the scar I got the day after Mickey left.
Later we pressed our skin together as if it could make us the same,
And I have never felt so safe or so whole.
She was like velvet
And through everything her eyes held that joy that squeezed my heart.
I knew she was afraid.
She was afraid because she felt it when I touched her.
She felt it when I loved her,
And she wanted it
Too much.
And so when she said she couldn't,
I already knew.
I haven't heard from her in a very long time.
She loves me.
I love her too.
And she may not come back.

Love is not told by touching.
Love is not told by kindness.
Love is not told by staying or going.
Love has no caveats, no clock, no rules.
Love is.
Love is in the eyes: They never lie.
It doesn't matter how chaste,
How cruel,
How brief.
Love is.
It is not required to be joyful, or easy.
Love is not bound to give
Answers--

What is love.
Can one just walk away?
"Sometimes."
Sometimes?

Sometimes.