It's a strange feeling I can't quite speak aloud.
I can remember your filthy hands and how they moved from the small of my back to the bones of my hips,
I can trace those movements over and over but I can't ever recreate the sparks you ignited in me.
No, your hands were burning and mine are reaching.
I can remember exactly how smooth your voice sounds in my ear at 2am and how your chest moves with every breath you take in your sleep.
I can listen with all intention of hearing you still, for hours, but only silence answers.
No, I'm alone in this bed and you're probably breathing easily.

It's a strange feeling,
Yes, I've been missing you.

Sometimes I miss it.
The uncomfortable seats and the nervous tapping.
Dozens of eyes staring on through.
The panic in a mother's eyes and
How quick feet left a crowded room.
I'm nostalgic for my misery,
Because I knew it so well,
Because it knew me, too.

Comforting is a tragedy,
When it's one you've learned to recite
Day after day, the same practiced smile
Then bleeding it out by my own hand
Night after night.
I knew my lines well,
I'd known my whole life.

I miss it some days,
the adrenaline of the ER.
I know that it's wrong,
But breaking felt so right.
My demons have mostly gone,
And for that I thank myself.
But if it ever gets too safe out here,
I'll retire to my old bed.
I'll welcome back my old friends
With my hospital bracelet
wrapped around pink wrists again.

They will try to take everything.

The people you love, and the flowers you've grown,
every award you have earned and every dollar you've yet to spend.
Your safety and your home, your lover and your rights to freedom.
They will bleed you dry of everything you own.
Your sanctuaries to ruin, music to rhythms with no sound.
This is real life, and they've no reason to stop taking
what was meant to be ours, for now and since ever.
I haven't got much left but my head, and my heart
and to no surprise, they've both been aching.

They will try to take everything, but my God,
you cannot let them.

Go if you must, now if you can.
Take all that you've got left,
run til you can't stand.
This is your battle, your fight
and fight it you must,
every day of your life.

This is the night,
one we shan't ever forget,
for this is the eve we remembered
how to be who we are
without apology.

Now go! Don't ever stop,
remember this poem
forget what they taught.
If they take us, do not forfeit.
Go, if you must,
but go violently,
Go, and we must,
and never go silently.

I remember how you showed up at my door
and you knew I was weak in your presence.
You took my face in your hands,
and made me feel again.

You took me upstairs,
you showed me all the passion
we thought we had
forgotten.

Your flame burnt out and
I asked you to tell me that
you loved me, one more time.

I saw your shoulders slump
and that was the moment
I knew it was over.

I'm not saying I'm in love with you, but I could be.
You're the person I want to tell about my day, and you're all the words I want to hear drag on in the dark of the night. You're the thoughts attached to my morning coffee and to my evening reflection.

I'm not saying I'm in love with you,
but I want to travel the world by your side, once, twice, even a third time. The first to see the world, the second to see you, and the third to realize you're one in the same.
I want to write in languages unspoken about the way your lips curve around mine, and I want you to drown me in your every movement. You're a tidal wave, and I'm all washed up.

I'm not in love with you,
but I'm so dangerously close.

Last night the stars fell out of the sky,
and you sighed deeply in your sleep.
I thought maybe you could feel it too,
the universe falling around us.

I fell in love with you last night,
and you're sleepy mind had not a clue.

I laid awake all night, listening
to the humming of your breath
against my rigid skin.

I fell in love with you last night,
and you rolled out of bed
and out the door
before my heart could let you in.