The friction between our eyes
used to be enough to set buildings on fire
but now I'm not even sure
we could light a candle.
You come in so gently,
like a low tide on a Tuesday morning,
but you left like a tsunami,
swelling and breaking,
having no mercy for what you destroyed.
You carried yourself like wind
in July at midnight --
warm and quiet enough
to go unnoticed,
but just enough
that people will notice the changes
when you're gone.
I never got to tell you
how you made me feel so at home,
so comforting, like an endless desert.
But I guess
you've never been so earthly
as you are right now.

I've spent the last four years of my life sleeping on top of the letters between us both,
and I don't know what that says about me,
but today I passed a broken down church the windows boarded up,
but you could still hear the music pouring out.
It made me think of you because you were always such a fixer-upper
but still carried beauty.
And maybe we've both been hiding from the truth,
and painting the rusted chains around gold.
You never keep a calendar because you hate counting days,
so you put up pictures of me instead,
and I don't know what that says about you
but yesterday I passed a homeless man
picking bits and pieces out of a garbage can
and it made me think that I really need to throw out those letters.

There is a constant glowing
in the back of my brain.
Optimists will say it's a light
at the end of the tunnel.
Pessimists will say its a train.
But I think I kn ow myself well enough
to know that it's probably
an exit sign

When a car slows down behind me
and in the 5 seconds between
the car slowing to a crawl
and the window rolling down
I've had 27 panic attacks
and fully convinced myself
this is how I die:
murdered by a man
twice my size
But when the window rolls down
I see not a body building male
but a woman roughly the age of my mother
and she asks if I'm okay,
and do I need a ride

Sometimes I like to just lay down and listen to myself breathe.
I like to feel my pulse,
to remind myself, that yes,
there is still a heart in there.
Somewhere.
Somewhere, buried beneath all the empty pill bottles
and ****** knuckles,
there is still a human being,
fighting, pushing, beating
its way to the surface.
And I know that,
eventually,
it will come crawling out of my mouth,
and into someone else's.
It will leave me gasping,
begging,
and afraid,
and I'll never be ready,
but it will feel so, so good.
And I cannot wait
for its escape.

Darling,
do you think 200 years from now
archaeologists will care about us?
Not humanity as a whole,
just us.
Do you think scientists will discuss
the way your skin reflects moonlight?
Do you think historians will teach
of the way you thought I didn't know
you only tickled me so I would hold your hand?
And darling,
do you think the moon,
or the sky,
or the universe,
feels any sort of obligation
to accept our existence?
Because I don't.

A couple sitting on the stones on the edge of the ocean,
and I walking a dock,
(their silhouettes barely visible against an early morning)
I could tell they weren't talking,
just sitting there,
listening to the waves hit the rocks
that existed centuries
before any creature was around to hear it.
And watching them I wonder
if the water
made them fall in love
like it did to so many things before them.
I wonder if they think they're alone
(Are we ever?)
He stands,
she stands,
(I wonder if they see me too)
I wonder if he loves her,
if she loves him.
(They grab hands)
I wonder if he reads her eyes
like she reads his body
(They walk to the edge)
I wonder if he tells her
she's beautiful
(They jump)
And I wonder if it's possible to write
a poem without a sad ending