It should have been us.

We both know it to be true; it should be you beside me. It should be you laying here next to me. It should be you riding shotgun with your hair blowing in the wind. It should be you I’m writing love notes to, you I’m calling at midnight, and you I’m taking home from this bar.

It should have been us.

It should be me beside you. It should be me laying there in the hammock, reading beside a river. It should be me taking goofy pictures with you at the mall. It should be me using my sleeve to wipe your tears and my kisses to flush your cheeks. It should be me, beside you.

It should have been us.

We would have been so great together. We would have been never better. We would have learned to laugh and love and live through whatever came at us. It should have been you and me, you and me, you and me… Forever

It's hard to put down in ink,
Spinning strands as I think.
I can't concentrate with you in mind,
And all the words I left behind.

Unable to focus on tasks at hand,
I struggle through with one demand.
I just want to see your face,
To hold your hand, ignore this space.

Two hundred miles keep us apart,
Yet you have a solid grip on my heart.
You need not worry these nights at home,
I will not stray. I'll sleep alone.

I want you with all my being,
In my dreams, it's you I'm seeing.
You, my angel of perfection,
You my one and only affection.

Be with me now, as we rest.
The rise and fall of my chest,
Grants us again each other's face,
Across this empty, distant space.

People come and go all the time
Like you did over and over.
Every time you promised to stay
All you would do is roll onto your other side,
Sit up on the edge of the bed.
Ending the magic so soon.
Deliberately you broke it,
Or was it an accident?
Nonetheless, you ended it.
One night of peace is all I wanted.
Together we are a mess.
Love me or let me go.
Every time I see you I feel strange.
All of my body wants to shut down.
Vicious waves make me cringe
Everything begs to stop working.
Must you be the reason
Every time I cry?

The silence you clothe yourself in will become a second skin. You will work hard to remove it. You will scrub yourself raw until the sweet scent of orange blossoms replaces the lighter fluid that has seeped into your pores.

When you finally tell someone, you will be drunk. It will be 2 a.m. You will tell your parents, it will spill out of you as you hover over the toilet. Your secrets mixed with ***** and something sour, something burning, something permanent. It will feel good, to flush the pain out of your throat.

It will be hard for you to be intimate. When you talk to that boy in your English class, you will feel butterflies for the first time in months, those same butterflies whose wings were clipped that night last July. You feel the butterflies, yes, but you will cringe when his hand brushes up against your own.

When that same boy asks you out on a date, and he opens the car door for you, you will want to run. You will feel the air in your lungs combust when he kisses you. You will think he is trying to draw blood when he bites your lip.

You will wonder if he can he see the bruises and fingerprints that still stain your nakedness

You will not believe him when he says “I love you”

When he asks why you never want to touch him, why you talk in your sleep, why your chapped lips are a graveyard eroded from the salt streaming down your cheeks, you tell him everything.

You do not cringe when he tries to hold your hand this time.