I built a Berlin Wall around my heart.
Not to keep others out,
but to keep myself in.
I built the walls higher
until no light could get in
and I stayed there.
I may have been alone
but at least I was safe.
Safe from you and your sugar coated words and electric touch.
Protected from the lies that seeped from between your lips,
and god, just your lips.
I kept myself away from your impish charm and devilish smile.
I had to,
I couldn’t let you in
Because when you broke me the first time
I could hardly manage
to pick up the fragments
and build them into something that at least resembled the girl I had been before.
A shell of what it was.
I added armour.
Heavy chainmail to keep me away from your beckoning embrace.
Was it worth it?
I’m not sure.
But the over flow of emotions
that I swam through every time I saw you
was drowning me.
So I built a raft and let it take me away.
I put myself here but now I’m trapped,
stuck in my own mind and stuck in my own heart.
It’s a terrible place to be.
Trust me,
you wouldn’t want to be here with me.

I guess it’s fitting that you’re made of star dust.
Each part of you from a different corner of the world.
I bet the sparkles in your eyes, were once flecks of the sun
and the salt of your lips were at one time part of the sea.
Because your voice is the warmth of a summer day,
Your laugh like thunder
Your touch electricity.
I’m almost sure your mind was once a part of some great poets,
Like F. Scott Fitzgerald
Or Virginia Woolf
And your hands must have belonged to Monet.
Your teeth look like skyscrapers from down here
And the city inside of you is about to swallow me up.
Like the deepest parts of the ocean
Your innermost thoughts are hidden and untouched
Even from me.
Like the bottom of a secret lake.
All I want to do with you is everything.
Because you’re this perfect being that makes everything better.
And I love you.
And somehow, you love me too.

The thing about falling out of love
is you have to be just as careful coming out as you were going in (if not more).
Too fast and you’ll crash.
But too slow and you’ll be stuck like that forever.
I guess you have to take care of your heart
like you take care of all those silken shirts in your closet.
You have to let it cool just right or it’ll wrinkle.
Those crumples and crinkles left imprinted on you.
A fold for each lost love,
until your heart is nothing more than a creased mess.

Not all words can be defined into simple terms.
You can’t explain love
in a sentence, or a paragraph, or a book.
Peace is not understandable from person to person
behind a page of meaningless text.
Happiness and sadness are not antonyms,
but meld and morph into one another
without you even noticing.
I would never be able to show you the way I feel
when I look at him,
this incomprehensible mix of compassion, enchantment, and pure freedom.
Try to put into terms the ball of jealous rage you feel
in your stomach when you see them with someone else.
Elation doesn’t come in doses.
Inspiration isn’t packaged and shipped to your door.
Nostalgia can’t be sold,
and trust can’t be bought.
Emotions aren’t that easy.
They aren’t black and white
and you can never have just one at a time.
They don’t come when you call or leave you when you beg them.
And just like you can’t explain colour to a blind man,
you can’t explain love to someone who’s never truly felt it before.

The makeup I had meticulously painted my face with a few hours before was now forgottenly smudged down my cheeks; and the hair that had been pristine now looked greasy and half-hearted, hanging down my back in matted locks. My mask was gone and I was raw. Overly exposed like a fawn. The moon was creating patterns in the water that my drunken eyes sluggishly followed as I tried to piece together my broken bits. The thoughts I’d been evading were creeping up again, no longer held off by the haze of the party. I can feel each thought I carry weighing on me heavier than mercury, pulling me down into the river. I puckered my lips, desperately pulling in the fresh smoke I’d just lit and turning my head towards the shadow that now loomed over me. It was you. You sat down next to me and I passed you the cigarette, without a word. This was me waving the white flag. The white flag that had been precariously placed around its nicotine center. The nicotine that had coated your tar black heart. I could almost taste the sour burn in the back of my throat as I watched you so intently, that I felt my eyes must be burning as brightly as the slowly dwindling **** hanging from your slightly chapped lips. But the only thing I needed to inhale to get me high was you. It was heart breaking to watch you like this. With the moon in your eyes and the smell of ***** and drugs clinging to your clothes. You were an other worldly creature. Your nimble fingers brushing your mouth as smoke seeped from between your full lips. When you looked over at me, dissecting me with your crystalline irises. I swear, the moon blushed almost as hard as I did. Bare toes curling, I gathered some courage but your gaze still made me weak, cutting through me like glass my gaze flashed between your eyes and your lips, trying to decide which was the more precious site. Right then and there, it seemed so simple with the moonlight soaking into my skin I leaned in and kissed you hard, before you had a chance to take another deep puff. My mind clouded over and all I had the desire to do was kiss until both our lips were swollen and tinted red. You pulled me closer and I could taste the mixing alcohol our tongues were creating, savouring it. I could feel your heavy heart pushing on my chest and your hot touch all over. Me, the girl stuck in a body that can’t love her. And you, the boy with the world inside his mind that spilled out every time he spoke. We’d be a mess by morning but neither of us cared. When the sun rose the love we’d felt that night wouldn’t exist. This was just our way to get by, our way to live.

I wish I could forget you, leave behind the memories like you left me, but I can’t. You’re in the air I breathe, cutting up my lungs like pieces of glass and ***** drank all too quickly. Your scent is in my clothes and on my bed, snaking your way into my dreams at night. You’re in the coffee that I drink after sleepless nights; bitter and cold on my tongue but with the possibility of delicious warmth. You’re in the paths that I trudge down every day, reminding me of the times we spent there and the feelings that are now lost forever. I hate that you left me like this. All of these empty promises and a void so large no one could dream of filling it. You must not have ever loved me, because if you had it would have been impossible to just leave like you did, taking all of my heart with you. Packing it away in your suitcase along with the shirt I gave you and the books I’d lent. What did you do with the pictures of us? Would you try to forget and leave them in their frames, or did they not mean enough to you to even worry about and were thrown carelessly in the bottom of your bag? I hate the gaps you left in me. I’m broken and damaged now and you left with the cure to fixing me. This lovesick pain is getting tiresome and I hate that it isn’t wearing on you too. I thought I was someone you couldn’t live without. You sure as hell were to me. And what’s saddest of all is that if you came back now, I would run and throw my arms around you. Because I’ve already fallen as far as I can, there’s no need for me to be cautious now for I can’t slip farther down than I have. I would love to be someone that you need. Someone you can’t live without. I would be honoured to be the person you look at, the way that I looked at you. But I was just a passing spark for you, and you were my light. Just take back the memories like you took back everything else.

We spoke with our hands roaming
Lost our words in heated breaths.
Skin like milk in strobe lights.
Giggles like children in the streets.
Slower
Drenched in warmth.
Muffled voices soaking through the brick.
When I caught the taste of recklessness between your teeth
I was content to bask in the heat of this moment.
Okay with right now in your arms.

Do you ever want to crawl inside a duvet like a tomb.
To have the warmth pressing in on all sides,
Like the hug you always crave
but never receive.
Blocking out the outside world.
All light,
gone.
All senses,
gone.
Like a temporary death.
Trying on your coffin as you would try on a dress.
You slow your breathing
and squeeze your eyes shut so tight, you’re seeing spots.
Can literally feel time moving around you,
Can hear the sound of rain pattering on the roof
and it’s like the heavens are falling.
You’re in your own world
In your own galaxy.
Alone.
Far away from the body lying on its bed wrapped in its duvet.
Distanced from the problems,
the troubles,
and the beating of your own heart.
Craving for this to never end,
And maybe it doesn’t have to.

I look down at my palette, and see the paints melting together.
I remember when we were like that,
colouring the canvas with life.
You were the deep, dark blue of an ocean at night,
and I was the grey of clouds.
You brought vividness to me,
and turned my dull hue to vibrance.
So how did we get like this?
The painter’s brush mixed us too far,
turning our kaleidoscope into a jumbled mess.
Murky brown, and unusable,
unable to be separated.
We’ve become so close our colours have merged
and we are no longer separates.
Wherever I go I take some of you with me.
Dragged across the canvas behind me,
like an afterthought.
The trail of a comet.
A past that will never really leave me
because by now it’s a part of me.
It’s second nature
to think of you when my mind wanders
and to reach for your hand without thought.
You’ve changed me forever
and I can never go back
to a time before you
before us.
But why would I want to?

I have an all consuming fear that I will never meet my “True Love.” That one person that is better for you than any other human being on this earth. Because what if we never meet, if we just keep living our lives settling for second best while our one perfect match is out there oblivious to our presence. Thinking we could never be happier. But if we met each other, any other feeling we’ve ever had in our lives would be obsolete. It’s ineffable really. There could be an ocean between you and your soul mate. A language barrier, a 7,068 kilometer fissure between us preventing our paths from ever crossing. I have to push this thought from my mind daily, because just thinking that I’ll never meet you breaks my heart. I don’t even know you, but if we never meet my life will forever be incomplete.

You said you were too broken to be wanted.
But you’re wrong,
that’s exactly the reason I love you.
I can see the light
shining from in-between your broken pieces.
It looks like the sun
streaming through the gaps in tree leaves.
You have moss
pouring from your cracked, cobblestone lips.
A world within your bursting bones
that holds rivers of feelings
and mountains of untold stories.
The tears that roll down your cheeks
rip open gashes like knives.
You’re like a butterfly,
with beautiful wings
that everyone can see but you.
I just want to spend the rest of my life
putting your splintered heart back together.
So you can see what I see.

I might not be the best with words,
they tumble out of my mouth in leaps and bounds
without warning me of where they’re going.
Maybe I can’t control my blush
and my cheeks tinge pink at just the thought of you.
I guess I could be more elegant,
stand a little taller,
be a little gentler,
curse a little less.
My constant fidgeting gets on peoples nerves
and I never make eye contact.
But all these things didn’t stop you from loving me.
I might not be a love poet
but I could write about you for the rest of my life.

You said you were too broken to be wanted.
But you’re wrong,
that’s exactly the reason I love you.
I can see the light
shining from in-between your broken pieces.
It looks like the sun
streaming through the gaps in tree leaves.
You have moss
pouring from your cracked, cobblestone lips.
A world within your bursting bones
that holds rivers of feelings
and mountains of untold stories.
The tears that roll down your cheeks
rip open gashes like knives.
You’re like a butterfly,
with beautiful wings
that everyone can see but you.
I just want to spend the rest of my life
putting your splintered heart back together.
So you can see what I see.

I need you to hold me,
tight and close.
My chest feels like its caving in.
Like a black hole has opened up inside my rib cage
and is slowly devouring me from the inside out.
I want your arms wrapped around me,
muscles tensed and skin warm.
Pulling me closer to you
in an attempt to hold together all of my broken pieces.
Nimble fingers putting me together like a puzzle.
But there are parts missing that you cannot even fathom.  
Parts of myself that I don’t even understand.
As long as I’m wrapped up in you
I don’t care about my missing fragments,
because you make me feel more complete than I ever have.

You told me you loved her.
Her black eyes and chestnut hair,
The way she said your name,
or whispered it in your ear.
How when she held you,
all you could think about was breathing her in and out.
I asked you why you loved her and you answered without hesitation.
She’s perfect, you spoke.
It’s like god took the whole universe and wrapped it up into one girl.
Her eyes are like the night sky,
completely dark but with a sparkle all the same,
Her skin, the sands of Egypt.
Her mind is every great novel ever written
and when she opens her mouth flowers pour out.
She speaks in every language ever heard, at the same time.
A mane like a waterfall, gracefully cascading down her back,
and lips that reminded you of the Grand Canyon.
Every great being that ever was can’t amount to her.
She’s the single most spectacular creature,
like a universe all in its own.
I guess that settled it.
If she was your world, your love, and your everything,
I had never so much as crossed your mind.
But I knew you were telling the truth,
Because that’s how I feel about you.
And now my world’s imploding.

No more I love you’s
Now they burn my throat like salt water.
No more broken promises
That were little more that broken bottles.
No more midnight conversations
Where we worked out everything but nothing.
We've left the memories we had behind
Like old textbooks.
We hid our hearts up our sleeves
With aces and kings.
And dried our eyes with our hair
Trying to remember where we forgot.

Sometimes I wrap my arms around my rib cage and pretend they’re yours.
But they are far too weak and my fingers are much too cold.
They provide me no comfort and just make it more painfully obvious how alone I am.
They hold me together just enough so I won’t fall apart completely.
But I’m growing weaker and it getting harder not to just cave in.
To just let go and have the pieces fall where they may.

My mind is in a constant state of restlessness.
My body stills but my thoughts-
Churning like a sea of doubt remain.
The insides of my eyelids, etched in the gold of fine meditation.
I have sensations with no words
And answers that I’ve forgotten the questions to
And yet they still stay clogging my psyche raising a messy dam.
Just remember, whenever I seem cold or distant-
I’m just thinking of this.
So deep in the vast possibilities of us, I can’t seem to grasp
the reality that’s holding my hand with its thumb pressed gently to the inside of my left wrist.
The sky is grey, did I tell you?
And the sea turns green when I look at it too long,
like your eyes when you’re angry.

When I’m with you
I don’t count time in minutes or hours or days.
I count it in stolen glances,
secret touches,
and languid kisses on the mouth.
I tell how much time has passed
by the drooping of your eyes
and the heaviness of your limbs.
I could spend eternity with you
and it would feel like seconds.
But in the same way,
I could spend a night with you
and it would feel like a year.
Time slowing and skipping
like the rhythm of my heart when you touch me.
Caress my face
and I’ll forget the year.
Pull me closer
and I won’t even remember my name.

One day I’ll laugh and it won’t feel like my lips are cracking from the strain.
One day I’ll fall asleep and wake up with my cheeks still dry.
One day I’ll stop saying Is and start saying Was.
One day I’ll quit finding you in the eyes of strangers, or the touch of guests.
One day my body won’t hurt from what you’ve done to me and I won’t slam my head into the wall pretending it’s my heart.
One day I’ll forget you existed and be happy about it.
One day my skin will change and I’ll have a body you’ve never touched.
One day I’ll learn to live with myself and the things I’ve done.
Today I’ll try.