Dear Charlie,
Nothing worthwhile is easy, right?
I've heard it before, a thousand different ways.
So that must mean that living is worthwhile
because it's hard. It's so ******* hard,
and it's like I'm fighting my apathy
every single second
while being chased around by the frenzy,
comprised of responsibilities and expectations
and that look in my mother's eyes when
she's proud.
I'm trying though. I'm trying
to get better.
This year was better than last year,
because I didn't swim a black sea.
I merely floated,
and only once was I pulled down.
In a month, I resurfaced.
I'm stronger, I think. I might have
that infamous Achilles' heel,
somewhere inside this ice cold, stone heart.
But the monsters didn't keep me,
didn't ruin any holidays,
didn't even make me consider
swallowing little white pill after little white pill.
I'm not perfectly healed, or even three quarters
okay. But I'm getting there,
Charlie.
You know what I mean.

In the next year,
I don't want to dream
to be happy. But I do want
to be even happier.
I want to do something,
whatever that may be.
And I want to see so many things,
and appreciate life.
I'm getting there, Charlie. I'm finding
my way there.
My only resolution next year
is to be able to say,
"I made it. I'm doing better.
I can live. And breathe.
I am going to be okay."
And that's more than enough,
isn't it, Charlie?

I.
when i look at you,
i feel a mixed reaction
as emotions collide
inside this feeble cavity we call
a chest. in general,
there are three things -
the three, most important things -
that cross my mind.

II.
butterflies. my stomach drops,
on its own personal roller coaster,
engineered by your smile.
another part of it drops because we
dance around each other, on tiptoes,
sometimes painfully. other times, we are
one, and in sync. and occasionally
we are both lost in separate worlds,
lost in thoughts and dreams.
i don't believe in prayer, but maybe
you could pray for me.

III.
desolation. loss and grief course
through tired, worn veins. already, you're
intangible. sitting right beside me,
i'm hindered by the space between us, the span of
space and infinity and this parallel universe we're
trapped inside. with time passing at snail's speed and
slipping away at jet speed, i can't
hold on. you're still here, still a concrete noun,
but you feel like an abstract dream, a haunting
memory. if you look out the window someday,
and you catch sight of the moon,
i hope it reminds you of me.

IV.
greed and begging and hope. all of it, every feeling,
encased in my thinly veiled heart. the strongest of
fortifications can't suppress my petty,
jealous words and my leveling glare. these feelings,
though unwarranted, are mine. you should be mine.
i wish my fate line crossed yours, but i'm starting to see,
trying to convince myself,
that we aren't meant and these worlds don't match. i can almost
believe it, and deep down i know it's true. i know that we can't
exist, not based on likes and dislikes when what we want,
where we want to go,
are so diverse and specific that it
(we) would never work.

V.
still, the overwhelming feeling
that sparks my reactors
is that gnawing, pleading one.
the one that i have to choke down
in an effort to make things semi-okay.
the one where i tell you everything,
and apologize, and explain my reasons
for it all. the one where i tell you i miss you,
where i tell you i will miss you,
where i say i can't imagine life without you.
the one where i confess this pathetic,
undying devotion,
even when i know this is the last
time i'll ever see you
again.

VI.
you won't ever pray for me,
or think of me when your vision
latches on to the moon. we won't ever speak
again, because that isn't how it is,
not with us.
i miss you.
don't leave.
don't go.
stay.

VII.
please, i'm begging you,
get out.
be everything you want.
do everything you need to.
and above all,
be the superstar,
the exploding supernova,
the entire galaxy
that you are.

gentle                                        but kind, your
touch                                         sends shivers through my veins,
down                                         my spine, across the plains of my
skin.                                          you are
careful,                                      as though i might be startled and
run away.                                 you're wary, and with good
reason,                                      because i am restless and a flight
risk.                                           i am the whipping wind and the weighted
anchor,                                     the concurrent push and pull, rise and
fall                                            of the churning tide. your fingertips slide across
my                                            skin. my gut rolls and twists, tightly coiling, injecting my
body                                         with venom and excitement and lust and longing. you
ignite                                        my neuroses and sparks fly; firecrackers bursting against a
clear,                                         star-lit July canvas. splatters of paint
coat                                           the world and my sight blacks out for light years and milliseconds
all at once.                                i shiver but bite it back, revolting against the warm
chill                                           clutching at my bones, vying for survival.
powerless                                  to you, even when i know in my heart i have to
accept                                       that there is nothing to become of
us, no                                        more than the dance of two partners at a
masquerade                             whose fates are only temporarily entwined. thread tickles my wrist,
i laugh,                                     and i hold my tongue. i hold back
every ******* word,                like it's a dam about to burst and sweep away everything,
devastating                              the entire world. my words could
destroy                                     what i have gained, what i have settled for, what i have
done.                                        what have i done? .  .  . but the words slink back
inside,                                      always on the brink, never to be heard or
seen.                                        i wish to see you gone, like the sun to the moon and like the moon to the sun.                                        yet there was comfort,
knowing you'd return.          knowing that you'd
always                                    circle back around, constantly on each other's tails, a
thrilling chase.                       the end is nigh, the sky is burning red, the world is on
fire.                                         flames lick the tips of my toes, race up my arms, and
ashes                                      of my safety net tumble and glide
down, all around me.            hazards surround me. i am a
hazard.                                  you are a road block and a shortcut, one i find myself led to in
temptation.                            let me free, guide me home, be
the one -                                 or perhaps, maybe... no? the
bittersweet goodbye,             the final tears - i hope- will be
freed                                       in five months time. five months is not even a
moment.                                not when you're praying that time
slows, crawls, halts.              the harder i cling, the further away
you go.                                   your fingers leave my wrist,
leaving                                  behind lilac string as a reminder. my heart
collapses                               on itself. five months is not enough. the twenty
seconds                                 were not enough, not even as you
touched me.                         shaken, fighting laughter and fears and
tears,                                     watch me shove it away. the
inevitable                             only comes around, only is real, when you're forced to
face it.                                  and i will not accept that you're gone until you're finally, actually
gone.

Dearest,

This thing is claiming me again. I write only to express a great need to see you, or call you, or maybe even crank up the engine of this beat up junker I'm sitting in now. I'd very much like to see you again, or once more, even if it were just your eyes. It's been three years. Three years since I last heard your voice, or laugh, or saw you smile. ****, do I miss that smile. It's been three years since you left without a decent goodbye, you ***. You never had a ******* clue - but, anyway. That's not why I'm here.

I was thinking of you today, as I have every single one before and will continue to until my breathing ceases. Did you know it's the anniversary of when I realized I was hopelessly in love with you? Of course you don't. I never told you about that moment, or how I really felt. I swore I might, before you were gone, but it's been three years and I never did. So that's that, I guess. This is such a waste, writing to you. Yet here I am, painstakingly scrawling these thoughts whirling around in my brain on to a sheet of loose leaf paper. The best part is knowing I'll never send this to you. This is going to sit here in my pocket until I wash it, or burn it when I'm searching for the cigarettes I don't smoke, or even lose it on my walk through the city.

I walk every day, and not just to and from places. I walk to think. I walk to clear my head. Instead, I will pass somewhere you've been -- somewhere we've been -- and I will be right where I started again, plagued by the ghost of you on every new corner, in the middle of the crowds, and at the foot of the subway stairs. You are everywhere, darling.

You'd be laughing at this point, probably. You'd be thinking that I ramble like I used to and still don't manage to say enough to ever convince you that I'm true. Or maybe you'd be thinking how wasteful this is to this sheet of paper. How unfair that this piece of paper gets to carry this nonsensical message to you -- or not, actually -- and how unfair that it gets to sit in my pocket, close enough to be lost. Or maybe you wouldn't think that at all, and you'd be just blankly reading all of this and wondering whether I'm just bullshitting around the truth, like I've always done oh-so-well.

Or maybe you'd just be thinking that this is so typical of me, keeping things I'll never do anything with for the sake of keeping them. You always thought I liked the act of keeping things rather than the things themselves. Perhaps you're right, because I've always wished I could both keep you and be rid of you and the toxicity you bring.

But at the end of the day, I'm the one writing you. Maybe my feelings learn towards the former of those two extremes.

Anyway, you would have been right about the bullshitting thing. I'm really writing because the emptiness is back, eating me out and wringing my guts inside out, and it isn't even pleasurable. I wrote because I haven't done so in some time, and it's been a long time since I wrote one of these one-sided letters to you. I used to write more; I used to have dozens, even, though I never wrote those on loose leaf paper in an old junker, heat off in the middle of winter. Really, I'm freezing right now. This is ridiculous. And I've got to stop bullshitting to you, I do.

You know, I can almost hear you responding to this. I can hear your voice somewhere in the back of my mind, answering me. And maybe that makes me more insane than I ever was. Maybe this hollowed out body has finally been done in, and I'm just beginning my descent into the clutches of insanity... or maybe I just can't tell you the truth.  You know me well, you do.

The truth is that I ******* miss you so much, it hurts to breathe. It physically causes my chest to ache, for pain to shoot through my entire body with each pump of my heart. Unfortunately, my heart is beating ceaselessly and my breathing has yet to stop by choice, so it hurts every day, every single second. I am always missing you. There is no other truth but that.

I think that, by allowing myself to write this, I'm hoping this idea of you can save me. I know already that this is the dumbest thing I've let myself hope for, more stupid than letting myself hope for you and for change and for happiness. The point is, letting myself do this at all is stupid, But I can't stop myself. You are worse than any drug I've ever known, and I pity those whose lives you have touched only because I know what it's like to be cut off from you. God forbid you leave them, someday, and they end up like me. Or a few shades less crazy than me.

I haven't even eaten because of this emptiness. I can't eat, actually. If I feed the monster, it erupts and soaks me with self hatred. I'm afraid of it. I'm afraid to do anything to infuriate it, and it's always angry. It's always whispering to me, sexily and sweet, asking me to do things that are so wrong. I'm not listening, and I'm staying clean, but it's hard, dearest. It's so hard when you've got nothing to cling to, nothing to even dream about hoping for.

This emptiness takes and takes, and it does not give back anything but empty caverns and the memory of what it was to feel. It takes everything I've got and it dumps it on the ground, spreads it around and sullies it. And when it's tattered and worn and filthy and unrecognizable, it crumbles it between its fingers like it's nothing but ash. I hate this behemoth more than I hate living through it. It's never-ending, the terrors it brings, and it pounds against me when I trap it away. It is invincible though, and it will always win. It's invincible in the way I believed we once had been, a long time in the past. Like us, I am not as invincible as I dreamed.

I'm sorry if I've worried you. I didn't mean to tell you, not truly. But now that the words are out, I seem to be a bit less empty than I was. Maybe I'll find my way out of this... maybe. I hope you are well, and smiling, and the world treats you kindly. I hope the night sky is beautiful where you are, and the lights glimmer in the distance exactly as you've imagined them. You deserve it a thousand times over me.

-A.C.

It's starting again.

I can feel the emptiness nestling in my joints.

With each drop in temperature, the
evils begin spiraling inside
of my mind as I fall
to the hounds.

I don't care. I don't blink.
It has no effect on me
anymore.

In my mind, I am smoking away
the tears and choking fears. Wispy tendrils of
heather gray caress my thin, chapped
lips with love. I am wearing
leather and black and there are
silver knuckles
gracing my lily white skin, marred
only by my ******, bitten nails and
your ink. I am
embracing
the demons, letting them drive
me away on chrome plated chariots, just
to get away, to run faster than God
itself, to the end -
the finish line -
they can't catch me;
they won't catch me yet,
not today.

In reality, I am buried
by layers of fat and years of secrets. I am
nothing but easily forgotten, and I
breathe in the esse of other lives, as if
they can save me or take hold, can grab
me tight, can pull my head high above suffocating
midnight waves. I am an
actor only by the smiles that convince me of a performance
well done. I am a liar, a
**** good one.

I'm not even excited for Christmas.
The tree, the lights, the frosty
air does nothing to arouse a festive
spirit or a hopeful mood. This is my only tell.
I have never lost
this one hope, this sole
light. Never have I lost
all - just you, though that has
always felt like a loss
larger than life.

"**** it all," I whisper.
Because no one cares, and we
are a selfish race. We are self-
absorbed, drowning in our own sorrows, and
clinging to desperate attempts of connecting.

It's starting again, and this time, I can
taste it on my tongue. Bitter, copper, heavy and
foul. Perhaps, if I believed in salvation, I
could afford
hope. For now, though, hope is an
empty bottle of water in the Sahara, and it is
foreign and massive and dark and looming.

Eating me alive.

We are all part of the Dead Poets Society,
in that we are all adeptly capable
of free thought and expression.

The difference, between
true romantics and the (in)expressive realists,
lies in the passionate mumblings which echo across prairies.

The difference is simply that we
cling to life, to dreams, to desperation and to death
as though they are the buoys of a great journey - invincible.

While the realists puncture holes
in dreams and death alike,
sinking with abstract thoughts like great boulders - motionless.

The difference between two polar opposites
is the brazen stroke of being
and the frenzied, wild dash of living.

"I'll be right back",
"See you soon",
"I love you" -
all code words for goodbye.

In a society of easily forgotten,
casually replaced, and faulty
relationships, I am one of them;
one of the ghosts.

Not privileged enough,
not quite as sharp,
nor do I have a fraction of their
glittering, Golden luster.

I fade instead,
floating in and out of view,
opaque in body;
I am naught.

With their gleaming teeth, sharp
wit and poisonous
tongues, you outshine all
in my unseeing eyes.

Through objective eyes, you
are equivalent to the ones I loathe,
and perhaps the Highest
Priest of the Golden.

Just as monstrous,
with poisonous fingertips
injecting my skin by accident,
intent to ****.

For you cause my chills,
and elevate my pulse,
and corrupt my nervous system,
eliciting pure, electric desire.

Maybe I do despise you,
the same as the other Goldens.
I might hate your grin, and
your silky, alluring voice.

Or, maybe, I only pretend -
confusion is the question,
yet your clumsy touches
are the deadly key.

the worst kind of Sad is not when Sad tries not to be Sad.

it is when Sad hides in your closet,
threading it's claws through the slightly healed,
fresh scars
that litter your entire being
the way that Freddy claws
at his victims of sleep.

it is when Sad creeps up upon you
as you listen to your favorite song
and it suffocates you -
suffocates you with your own scarf,
letting you fade in and out of life
as you lose yourself in memories you'd like
to forget.

you know which scarf Sad uses, don't you?
it's the red one, with the black stripes,
the one you threw in the furthest corner of your closet
because it reminds you of that day,
and summer sweat,
and the aching empty feeling that consumed you
until you were swallowed up
completely eaten alive.

Sad is only Sad when it keeps you from precious slumber
and drives you to the brink of drowsiness, all the while
weighing you down with
bone crushing, eye drooping heaviness;
Sad hibernates there, sound asleep behind the cavity in your chest
and it makes you think you're okay again.

the worst kind of Sad
is when it resurfaces -
though only when you're alone -
and replays your entire day,
a constant loop through each dragging second,
until you doubt it ever happened.

the worst kind of Sad
is not Sadness itself;
it is not even the chest clenching feeling
that it brings, forcing you to think
about each breath as you make it
but rather, the worst kind of Sad
is the one that breaks your ribs with the strength
of a wrecking ball
and prematurely reminds you
that someday
they will be gone - for good, forever,
a ghost haunting your life.

the worst kind of Sad is the
inevitable and unalterable reality
that there is nothing you can do
to stop it.

(I bit my tongue a thousand times, but had we reached the thousand and first, I would have told you the truth. Why are we allowed to become close now when you are sure to be gone before I can blink my eyes and gather the courage to say goodbye?)

-a.c.

hollowed out
a vast ravine
my vessel is vacant
with rooms for lease

empty
my soul is weary and tired
blackened
crumbling to ashes in its cage
a crater
poignant with despair
while beasts with crimson claws
eat their way inside

like the shadow-lands
my body carries carasses
of past evolutions,
and my previous sanguine mask
made of paper mache
falls
apart
as icy winds strike,
raking sharp fingernails across
my skin,
marking it read, black, and blue.

rooms for rent until july,
until life has ended,
until the black becomes a champ,
capturing the beating of my heart
and stilling my insides.

there were days of gold -
just yesterday, i swear -
but they are as coy as spring,
always replaced by the inevitable,
irrevocable plague
of the vicious winds and icy breath
of monsters
rising from hibernation,
taking their rightful place
and murdering the light
starting to reappear in my eyes.

there are beasts inside me
with yellowed claws
and gaping, black pits
for mouths
who grin with sickly teeth
that are dripping
with the blood of
my past selves.

selves that they have carved
into shreds and chunks
until all that was left were black stumps,
ashes, and fragile bones
left to rot,
to poison the remaining
pure
pieces that remain.

and in the dark
i can feel them.

i can taste
the venom
pulsing through my translucent veins
as it slides through my system
effortlessly blighting my mind,
soul, and body
with twisted, dark thoughts
with loathing, weariness,
and with concepts that are rooted in truth.

they remind me that i have no place here,
that i do not deserve to waste
the precious oxygen
required to keep me alive,
nor am i worth contributing to
the depletion of natural resources
that will someday
run out.

a voice that once whispered seductively
from the outskirts of my dark,
tortured brain,
and trained me on ways to rip myself from life
with only a bottle of pills
or a blade,
now screams at me.

costantly reminding me that i am not good
enough
or that there is
nowhere
for me;
no matter how far i run,
my ghosts will follow.

as these ghosts are not the people
or this town
or even corpses that rot,
confined underground.

my ghosts are all the same,
and they are all
me.

i am the demon,
the murderer,
the ruination of my past,
my present
and, eventually,
my future.

i am the monster in the closet
beating against the doors
and pleading to be set free.
i am the behemoth who is suffocating,
forced to breathe in my own virulent air
and i am the demon
that i have battled,
the demon i have conquered
over and over again
if only for the time being.

the black war that
rages
inside of my mind
is the monster's fault
and by extension,
this battle -
all of these battles -
can only be solved by myself
and perhaps,
if i were a hero
i could win.

but i am just a mortal,
straining under the weight
of one fraction of
the world
and no mere mortal
has ever been
their own hero;
no mere mortal
will ever win
against
their shadow twin.

don't leave,
and don't you dare
say goodbye.

i am not crying
because you will be gone -
or, i'm trying to pretend
that that isn't the case.

i am crying
because you're like my safety blanket,
and my inspiration,
and you were once my best friend
i am crying
because i need you,
even if you don't need me.

i need things to stay the same,
and you disappearing,
moving to bigger cities
and starting a new life
is not the same.

i want to hear your laugh,
obnoxiously loud over things
that are never quite as funny
as your reaction
i need to know that you are somewhere,
close by,
thinking and living and breathing
the same way i am
and i need to know
that when the moon shines its beams
across us at night,
and i am looking at the stars,
that perhaps we are thinking the same thought
just in different visions;
relative, like the way
every person
perceives things differently.

i do not want to
forget
you, or anything you've made me feel
although i do know it's time to
move on.
but i must admit,
when i am in class,
and your name somehow stumbles its way
to the front of my brain,
it will hurt that much more -
like a sudden shock
caused by an imbalance of electrical charges.

i do not want you to leave,
and thinking about it now hurts too much.
i guess i knew,
always,
that this was coming
but i never realized it would come
quite so suddenly,
or quite so soon.

my blood's running through my veins
ice cold, so slow
my mind's stumbling over memories
from a lifetime ago.
my eyes don't shed tears,
but somehow they cry,
as i listen to the sound
of a broken heart die.
you listen to the lies,
i listen to the feelings,
bleeding through the words
that float to the cloudy ceiling.
watch the angel's wings,
last breath in her eyes,
wings spreading wide
as she chokes out her goodbyes.

a heart full of love,
couldn't see the dedication.
you loved her like she was
a prescribed medication.
when you saw the light, and
made a fresh new start
you threw away the pills,
stabbed a dagger in her heart.
so when the love ran red and
the truth came out,
you held her hand, just once,
as the rain poured down.
in her last living moments
you swear to keep her safe,
but in the end, God's hands
tore her from this wretched place.

tonight, as you danced
on a platform of heroes,
surrounded by a blur
of faces you have never seen,
i was ****** back
in time.

as dresses swirled,
visions of a distant time
assaulted me. i could
envision
you and i
swirling the way the actors did -
the way you did -
in a ballroom
with souls fitted into
ballgowns and formal suits.

i could almost hear
you laughter
burst above the
orchestra, and
the buzz of excitement
zipping through the air.
i felt your hand
against mine;
one gripped my waist,
scorching my skin
and marking it with uncharted masses
of land.

as you lead; i follow
you twirl us around,
until we float
far above the crowd,
the clouds, straight
into the stars
when suddenly -
a flash! a spark! -
and i am back.

alone in my seat, and
stuck in a different world.
no longer twirling,
towards the land of the Gods,
but spiraling back
to unwelcome
reality.

in life,
where do you dream to go?
is it nashville,
new york city,
or maybe tokyo?

where will your heart
lead you towards?
out of my life,
through wide open doors?

how long before
i see you again?
wednesday,
next year
towards the end?

will you remember me
in ten years, twenty?
when there are crinkles
by your eyes,
or when there's gray hair aplenty?

one thing is for sure,
i could never forget you.
not tomorow,
not ever,
not even when i'm eighty-two.

but if you forget me,
i won't hold a grudge;
because life is too short
for you to trudge
through old, forgotten faces
and memories long buried,
or to revisit old races
that you've already won.

i don't ask you to remember
my visage, my dreams,
let alone my name.
just please remember
my voice, and dancing
in the rain.

i have long since
closed
the book that i desperately
attempted to pen
about "us"

there never was an "us";
there was me,
desperately in love,
clinging to to someone who did not
feel the same

there was me,
foolishly thinking that someday,
in another world, in the future,
whenever,
that things could change

they will not change

i am not
the girl that you seem to seek
i have tried, for three
long, hard years,
to fit that mold

as i come to terms
with who i am,
with what i believe,
and with where i am going,
you do not quite fit

and that is not a harsh truth,
but honest reality;
we are on different paths,
heading to different loves
and to new lives

i have not wasted my three years
that i have so carefully
handed my heart to you,
and let you stomp me into
pieces

but i have realized
that another day spent
fooling myself
into believing that we are fated
is another day lost

in this world, i cannot afford
to throw away
precious time just to
write of how your eyes sparkle
when you smile

and so,
it is with a great struggle
with the girl who still believes in
a false dream, and the girl who knows
there is more

that i must, finally,
admit the truth to myself;
there is no "us",
and there never
was.

but i still hope that you have
a wonderful,
full,
wish fulfilling,
life

farewell,
first love, first heartache,
and the only one that i
would have stayed
in Hell for.

they say that darkness falls.

they believe it overtakes the
Sun, in all its brilliance,
at the end of every day.
in their eyes, the clutches of night
abduct the light that is exuded
on to our haste-driven,
humming lives.

per contra,
black waves have never conquered
the biting bars of golden sunlight;
instead, it has always billowed
from opposite ends of the Earth
to replace a fickle Sun, one
that forsakes stars and city stripes
for new moieties, and
new existences.

at night, a duvet of ink swirls above us,
blanketing bodies and nature alike
under enchanted, glittering tapestries
woven together with the glittering tears
of galaxies out of reach, sewn and fitted
to the quintessence of shadowed alleys,
whispering fields, even
the dimply lit room where two beating hearts
unify.

they say darkness falls,
when the truth is, it rises.
darkness always rises like the calm, gentle wave.

if i could
i would fly

i would soar through clouds
and i would wave
at tiny people
through windows;
thin layers of glass, protecting people from
speeding dangers
on trains, and planes,
and automobiles.

but more likely, i
would fly to your window
and watch
as you dreamed about
city skylines and
country fields, as you sang
about stars in her eyes,
and i would think
how heavy you were;
so full of potential
and unbroken dreams.

maybe, if i could
fly, you would write about
me.
me, the bird
with the fragile wings;
the bird who flew and gave
you back inspiration in return for
faith, and belief.

i don't give second chances.

if you hurt me, over any
tiny, insignificant thing,
then i will push you away.

and even if, someday, i let you back in,
it will never be the same
because as a rule, second chances
do not change
a person whose character is
flat.

however,
the day i met you,
something changed.

i let you rip my heart
into bloodied shreds;
i watched as it fluttered down
and landed in a pile
that included my dignity,
my sanity,
and what was left of
my innocence.

i watched, completely detached
yet insanely aware of
how you could look at me
and of how i would do
anything - no,
everything
to make things okay for you.

i would move earth,
crash my car into a wall,
even sew my lips shut; i'd do
all of it
without  complaint,
especially if i knew you'd grant me one
second,
minute,
hour
of the attention i craved.

so it was no surprise,
that each time i declared
to be done or
pushed you away,
that you could always
find your way
back in.
there was always some kind of
charm, lurking
in those crystalline eyes
and tucked into your laugh.
there was always,
always - no matter how much
i changed, or moved forward -
some part of myself that i
left with you;
some part of myself that -
while i don't even want it -
i will never get back.

so it is no surprise
that you smile at me on a friday,
or that it is so painfully familiar,
or even that it strikes me down
as hard as the first blow
Cupid aimed towards my heart.
no, the surprise lies in the sharp ache,
the realization that part of you and i
are still lodged in our past;
we are still just kids,
still best friends.
there is still a part of me
that wishes to rewind time
and return to the golden era
of us.

there is still a part of myself
that would give you your twentieth
second chance
if all you did was
laugh.

sleep is nothing more
than pressing pause on netflix;
our minds are put on hold,
our worries forgotten for the duration
of a few REM cycles.
the events of the past day,
week,
even our whole lives -
all of it is suspended,
frozen in the clutches of time -
lurking in the back.
Grendel in the shadows,
only woken by glaring sunlight
and the sound of joy.

the beast slinks inside
and it interrupts
the tranquility of transgression
with splintering, mind numbing, earth quavering reality.
and consequently,
reality is nothing more
than an empty space in a too cold bed.
it is nothing
but a series of unsaid goodbyes and
pleas for you to return;
but only in the mind,
because the words are burning holes
through my lying tongue.
the only reality left is sometimes,
i catch an icy blue glare in the mirror,
haunting and devastatingly familiar.

sleep is escape
if only to a universe where we
were not;
if only to a land where what is done
can be undone,
as easily as pressing undo while typing.
at least there, where i dream of you once,
again,
you cannot leave nor hurt me.
and we always have happy endings,
because i always pictured
that that was all you could bring me.

i never dreamed i couldn't dream,
or that the monsters lurked not in the shadowy alleys,
but instead, inside of me.
and i never imagined them seeping into reality.

i never knew losing you
could **** me.

when you were thirteen,
you told me how
you hated it here, and
wanted to escape.
i idolized you then,
because i needed someone who
understood
the heavy desire
of needing to be anywhere,
everywhere,
but here.

when you were sixteen,
i told you my plans of
traveling to London
and going to school there for one year,
maybe two.
you asked me why, and
i couldn't answer
because you didn't
remember.

sometimes
when i'm feeling low and i can't
speak, you look at me.
it is not an earth shattering,
heaven quaking, explosion
when you do. but it is
the way you are
attentive
and how you seem to care
that makes me feel
as though i am
important.

it is 3:42 and i can't
stop
thinking of you

i don't know your name, or
what comforts you when you are sad
i am unaware if you like my favorite books
or if, when reading them,
would understand
what i am trying to say;
not in so many words,
but between the lines
and trapped in the connotations
of phrases i've loved
for all of my awareness.

your dreams are a mystery;
someday, i will pull them
from your mind
in between the meeting of our
lips
and then we will explore them,
make them reality and truth
and maybe yours
might line up with mine
and we will claim
the world, like it has been
reborn; ours for the taking;
new.

i am not aware of
where you most desire
to be
is it by the sea or
in the middle of rome,
your hands rooted
deep into history,
learning from the ghosts
haunting each corner of
every street.

nor do i know if you care
that i react to obvious twists,
or shocks that feel
like the greatest earthquake,
shaking my core and
the ground beneath my feet
and does it make you laugh when
i yell at people in horror movies?
does it seem sweet that
i speak to my pets
as though they are people,
as though they understand?
will you smile,
fond and sweet,
when i tell you the story
of my first time to new york,
for the one thousandth time,
of how i saw potential,
and life,
and everything that
i wanted to
be?

i try to picture you but
all i can see is a
white,
blank canvas
too far away to see the dots that
connect to form
you.

hopefully, maybe,
when the fates entangled our futures
and we are finally
****** together, we'll
fit
into each other
perfectly.

beside you
breathing you in
watching you from under curtains;
curtains of feathery black.

cologne and heat and dryer sheets,
a scent more like home than my home,
your lips quirk
and your eyes widen
and my heart
skips.

you speak
and i am lost
in your voice,
in the melody that you sing.
you shine; i fade.

you pause, and now
i have observed quietly for too long.
my eyes drop back to
the bitten nubs of my fingernails,
and you continue speaking.

i pull every word from your lips,
twist them,
tuck them into my brain
for another time
when i can imagine the sweet things you could
say.

but these words,
they are not meant for me
my mind wanders,
and my heart misses some beats
one,
two,
and i find myself helpless
watching you, just out of sigh
so close yet so terribly far
unattainable.

i am gasping for air when
you smile -
sudden and fleeting -
my heart skips, once more
then
nothing.

i lock the words away again,
the ones hanging precariously
at the tip
of my tongue
as some things are better left
unsaid.

drowning;
i'm drowning.

pools of blue
cast their spell
and then i'm
floating.

defying gravity,
breathing you in -
captivating,
hypnotizing,
teasing.

one world flolats in
those two pools of blue.

i am craving your touch,
gentle as silk, drifting across
hidden crevices and valleys,
unearthing my follies and defects.

i want your laugh, languid and airy
as you huff it against my skin,
erupting goosebumps -
as though they are volcanoes -
in its wake.

i need to feel your love,
need to be scorched by the dry brushfires
your lips create
when they are pressed against
mine.

i am desperate for your breath,
in quiet exhales of sleep and laughter and desire;
desperate for you to inhale the toxic fumes
of old books and shared
oxygen.

there is a physical need
to have you near,
orbiting around me
as a steady constant,
much like the Sun;
never fading or disappearing
unless it is for the quiet echoes
of the night.

i wish that you words
could be sewn
into a tapestry of wisdom,
a blanket of both security
and inadequacy,
a reminder that words can never be
enough
to describe how you shake me
and leave cracks and indelible stains,
or the fragments of yourself that are
embedded
in my skin, soul,
and mind.

i am aching for you,
so delicate yet so whole,
both sure and uncertain;
a comforting enigma that requires
a lifetime
to unravel.

there is an ache,
rooted deep in my soul,
that can only be quenched
by you.

you smile in my direction and
my heart
skips
orbits have changed course,
empires fallen,
centuries passed
since you last smiled
so familiar.
warm and welcoming
waves crashing calmly against
marbled sand,
teaching my heart to beat however you direct
i am yours
a slave to love
but you are still
blinded
and oceans away
too far to
reach.

so close yet so far
minuscule in my mind until
suddenly
there.

looming over me and
overshadowing my insignificance;
coloring it dark with your smile,
larger than life
itself.

as you move,
i breathe -
now, i am
whole.