We drink.
To loosen up.
To have a good time.
To leave the world behind for awhile
And regret the leaving later.
But people say the most honest things when they are drunk.
So I never get drunk.
Not anymore.
Maybe because I am not an honest person.
Maybe because I do not want to say honest things.
Maybe the world I want to leave behind
Would become far more real if I acknowledged it in inebriation.
And so I stay sober.
To keep the truth to myself.

Except with you.
I cannot hide my honest feelings from you.
Maybe because I don't want to.
Maybe because love is more potent than alcohol
In this situation.
Because I feel perpetually drunk with you.
Because my words could never be
Anything but honest
In your presence.
And so you know everything.
Because you know that,
In spite of my sobriety,
I am drunk on you.
And I hope that in the wake of my infinite drunkenness,
The unimaginably honest love I have for you
Does not leave the aching regret
Of slow sobering.

She is a master of words.
She uses them wisely.
She uses them haphazardly.
She uses them to plant seeds
to grow flowers of either beauty or poison
Or both, with equal feverishness.
She uses them quietly.
She uses them loudly.
She uses them build beautiful ideas
of either Paradise or Babylon
with no regard of passions but her own.
She uses them infrequently.
She uses them continuously.
She creates a symphony
of either joy or sorrow for the audience to feel
and she merely watches the catastrophe from afar,
And walks away.

I am silence.
Not the peaceful, comfortable kind of silence.
I am neither pleasant nor amicable.

I am silence.
The kind that deafens and absorbs you.
I am screaming obscenities.

I am silence.
Filled with secrets and unhappiness.
I am begging to be forgotten.

I am silence.
Fragile and tenuous like the thread we are hanging by.
I am hoping to finally be broken.

The moments we have
Are counted and cruel.
They never leave enough
Room for the words to come out.
Words that beg to be spilled
From my overcrowded mind
And into the vastness of
Your understanding.
I know you know
What I mean.
I never have to ask,
You always just know.
But time is cruel.
And fate is cruel.
And the moments we spend
are merely messengers.
Reminding us that sometimes,
The best things in our lives
Are only allowed in moments
When no one is watching.
We are only allowed to take pleasure
Where no one can see.
And we can only speak of it
In hushed tones,
In the darkened corners
Of the most secreted spaces
In our not quite broken,
But not altogether whole,
Hearts.

What if all I had needed was for you to ask me to stay?
What if you knew I only ever wanted you?
What if my heart breaks with every backward step you take?
What did you mean, then, when you said forever and family?
Why would you draw me in that way, if only to crush me so suddenly?
What if you had given us a chance?
What if you hadn't run away?
What if I could stand to be within a mile's short reach of you now?
What if I had the stomach to stay?
What if I could stop my feet from running away from or towards you?
What if I could only stand still and breathe?
What if I believed that you don't want me to disappear?
What do you have to say?
What if I turn to vacant misty memory, anyway?

He stood outside while the rain soaked through his clothes and into his bones. He didn't even seem to notice the water tearing his eyes and dripping from his ears. Still as stone, he waited with patience. Like it was nothing to just wait. Like the rain didn't matter. From the look on his face, it might rain for days, weeks even, before he would notice the state he was in. Even then, it would not matter to him. He could be patient. Great discipline had taught him to weather any circumstance, that eventually the reward would come. So, he stood, statuesque and perfect, even if he was a mess. He'd held flowers once, but they had long since been discarded. Somewhere. For all he knew, he had dropped them next to himself years ago and was now standing in the flower garden which had sprung from them. A mere lawn ornament. Still he stood.
And then the door opened. He realized he had forgotten to knock, when a shocked and beautifully scarred face met his stony, dampened, perfectly patient gaze. She stepped out into the rain. Like it wasn't even falling. Maybe she had caused its seizure, because the closer she came, the warmer he felt. She was the answer to a question he didn't even think to ask when he'd met her. And there she was, as close as she'd been in months. Suddenly everything would be alright. Life made sense again.
She stopped just before him, the most beautiful creature in his world, and stared up at him.
"I had given up hope that you would ever darken my doorstep again, but I knew it was you. You didn't even knock and I knew you were there. Why? Why now, after all this time?"
All he could do was stare for a moment. Lost in her eyes. Eyes that told stories no writer could possibly dream up. It had been so long since he'd heard her voice. It was music. The grandest symphony ever written. It nearly brought him to tears.
"How could I stay away? I tried to ignore it. I tried to shut it out. I tried a thousand ways to forget, but the truth is, I know you. I've always known you. And from the day we met, I've loved you. How could I just forget that?"
She grinned and dazzled him, then stood on tiptoes and kissed him with all the heat, and all the passion, and every fiber in her being. The kind of kiss that made them both dizzy and weak.
"Come inside. Out of the rain."

Some days,
it's not even worth the scream
escaping the throat
so choked with
frustrated and unspoken words,
to find ears
so clogged with
unrealistic demands
that came from mouths
that should be full of feet
for being the catalyst
to eyes
so filled with anger and tears.
All the while
wringing hands
with more to do
than can ever get done,
trying to soothe
a heart
which perches perilously
on the edge of enraged and extinct.
Oh, how I long for sleep.