Only 3 people in my life have seen me cry,
unless you count that one guy on that tailgate that one night that one time
but I don't because I was drunk and it wouldn't matter in the morning.
You are one of those three and for you I cried the heaviest.
In your arms, fog catching, trying to suspend myself
in the gravity that kept me clung to your chest with fingers in your hair
kissing your ears between tears saying how much I love you
and that I'll miss you and that
every night I Google map the distance
just praying and praying that
the blue line between your point and mine
becomes shorter and shorter in time.

But it never does.

You told me you really will miss me,
that I'm one of the only one's
who actually cares about you
which isn't true but if you want
to put me there I will be because you are
that security and you are
everything that is brilliant in my life
and to know that you will no longer be
that close to where I am is like pulling at my heart
and getting nothing back
but a 10 minute phone call and I
wish you were here.

But you never are.

So I cried.
I mean,
I cried and cried until it came down to
you holding me so I would stop shaking and telling me
that I was strong and that I'll be fine
and that
it wasn't a goodbye just a
see you then.

But I've tried to hold "then"
in my hands and I've tried to write it
on my calendar at home but I can't find it,
and I'm afraid that will turn into not finding you
when it's 2am but it's your midnight and there's no
commonplace where you and I can just relive
this moment where I cried and cried and told you that I loved you
and you smiled with your eyes.

But the comfort that holds me is you know I can do this,
you know that I'm worthy,
and you know that I'm strong.
So I tell myself that when I don't feel it and I recognize
that if you can believe in me so much than I must be able
to do this without you and to move on
without you
constantly being here.
It gets me through until I can say when,
until the next time I see you
until see you then.

squeeze you to read you,
the pores that pour out hidden punctuation
that defines and makes and creates pauses for
you to look beautiful in.

there are two velux windows somewhere
in the world that look out onto chimney pots
and rooftops and birds next to each other looking
out over a flight plan that they'll fly together.

in pub seats we'll slide into and across,
placing coats on empty chairs so not to be stolen
and you pause. And out comes a list from behind a breath and a
colon: everything you wish to achieve in a year.

I want to guide my fingertips down your backbone, using vertebrae like stepping-stones across my river of dreams into a beautiful reality of you and me.

I want to do laps in your smile and blow my speakers out to the sound of your laughter.

I want to find every ticklish spot on your body, map them out, and mark every treasure with a kiss.

I want to hold your hand, like we handcuffed ourselves together and then swallowed the keys to each other’s hearts.

I want to take a spray can full of emotion and graffiti a wall, of a police station, during the middle of the day, as if opening up isn’t dangerous enough…

I want to show you that I’m dangerous enough, that my heart could jump the Grand Canyon for you, with no helmet or elbow pads, because every scar is a story and stories are my business.

I want to shake the hand of the artist who controls your paintbrush eyelashes creating beautiful works of art every time you blink.

I want to **** the nicotine from your black and gold lips until I become your new addiction.

I want to become one of your bad habits, like procrastinating to get out of bed with me.

I want to replace your morning coffee and your hot showers. I’ll be the first thing to warm you in the morning and the last thing to hold you at night.

My arms will be like scarves laced with melatonin wrapped gently around your head as you drift away to the sound of the broken rainstorm locked inside my chest…

I want to show you what is inside my chest.

I want to show you my best, but I’m nervous my smile won’t be enough because I haven’t been flossing with my cerebral cortex and I’m afraid I won’t think before I speak.

So I’ve been biting my tongue until ever word that eventually crawls its way out of my mouth stains my shirt crimson.

These walls I’ve built are a prison and I’m growing tired of the view. I’ve been digging escape routes to landmines that blast me back to square one. So take a diamond wrecking-ball and crash into me like a kamikaze under cupid’s orders.

I need you to make the first move because I can’t open my mouth to say “hello” when I’m busy gnawing at the bear traps around my ankles.

But I swear when my legs are free I’ll drive to you like a car fast as death because I’m running from a daisy that I couldn’t pluck and trying my best not to end up like Gatsby.

And although I still have a bee hive full of romantic ideas of recreating the past resting on my shoulders, I want you to be the smoke that kills the buzzing.

I don’t have to be your everything; I just want to be your something.

And I wish I could be like Houdini so I could escape this straight jacket sewn from the fabric of time dyed blue by every ex of mine.

And when I take a punch of courage to the stomach, I hope I walk away with a smile instead of in an early grave.

Stark naked and vulnerable for another’s eyes
You see skin, bone and beating heart
While
Behind your eyes, I see the dark
                           *-lf-

Seats sat around standing tables
void of conversation,
whilst waitresses danced around the homeless
clearing up their desperation with no fuss-
just a cloth wipe across the surface
and a smile to a lonely face;
hard wood walls closed in like
coffin-lid, coffin-hinged cases.

One man alone in the corner held hands with his coffee cup and looked up hoping for familiar faces.

And his finger snapped around the rim,
for this cup of coffee
was his only drink of the day.

And his fingers broke around its handle,
for this cup of coffee
was his wick and leathered-spine candle.

And his fingers melded to the cup,
because this cup of coffee
burnt like coughed-up cigarette ****-stubs.

You asked me, drunk, if you could
be my first sober first-kiss.
Which was funny, because we
were already kissing,
and both drunker than I’ve been
since him, since forever.
But you asked anyways.

Maybe you forgot
about that part
of our *****-soaked
weekend.

But if all I can be
is your mistake,
then I
hope at least
I was your
favorite
one.