It was the summer of ‘83 and my hair was blonde like you liked it
I wasn’t anything you didn’t like
My nails were that aquamarine blue you said you liked after we sat on the pier
And I learned to make your favourite breakfast after your mother made it for us the first time I came over
I was for you, I was made for you, I was yours
But then that sunny Saturday evening just before sunset
I walked down to the pier to paint you the prettiest picture
And I saw her wrapped around your bones like our first time
I saw you gaze into her eyes like they reflected the constellations we would name together on a Friday night
And I ran straight home to dye my hair red
To paint my nails black because I knew it reminded of you of the car your father left in
And the last time you’d come over for breakfast, I made sure to burn your toast like you burned my heart
I saw you the week after with her, nails painted blue, hair curled the way you liked mine and I laughed
I was for you, I was made for you, but no more
No more

It was the summer of ‘83 and my hair was blonde like you liked it
I wasn’t anything you didn’t like
My nails were that aquamarine blue you said you liked after we sat on the pier
And I learned to make your favourite breakfast after your mother made it for us the first time I came over
I was for you, I was made for you, I was yours
But then that sunny Saturday evening just before sunset
I walked down to the pier to paint you the prettiest picture
And I saw her wrapped around your bones like our first time
I saw you gaze into her eyes like they reflected the constellations we would name together on a Friday night
And I ran straight home to dye my hair red
To paint my nails black because I knew it reminded of you of the car your father left in
And the last time you’d come over for breakfast, I made sure to burn your toast like you burned my heart
I saw you the week after with her, nails painted blue, hair curled the way you liked mine and I laughed
I was for you, I was made for you, but no more
No more

Twice I confessed my soul to a ***** priest with bible hands
The first time I was lost, not even for words, just for coherence and faith
The last time I was a babbling fountain, spilling all my secrets and before I realised
It was too late. Silence.
Where was the priest? I still saw the white
I still heard the tap tapping of of his judgement on the bench
I smelled the incense like my grandmother’s room after Friday prayer

I woke up and I knew that the church was my sins
With walls of plastered apologies to God
Windows of hope and breaths of fresh air just in case I decided to change
And of course that alter was my heart
There’s no place for a broken soul in my church

And it pained me to note that although intention was all I thought that mattered It was much more, much more than what I confessed
Much more than my mind was prepared to give
And my church of sins and apologies crumbled that Sunday morning and I was left with rubble of nothing I could piece together

Two summers ago, you were a floating sunset and I was an ocean breeze

And we crashed and collided head on like the panic and fury of storm waves on a white shore

Your passion and my faith were two north poles that broke every law of attraction

And every starry night we spent on blankets out on the lawn broke my heart a little because you were beautiful but I was blind

I told you that I loved you and I knew you wore your heart on your sleeve and breaking our hearts was a chance I was willing to take

But then I got greedy and

Our suddenly behaving north poles found it harder to break the rules

Your passion didn’t allow for commitment and my faith didn’t allow for short term

Short lived I think is what I’d call our love

Too fast, too soon, too loud and too strong

But not strong enough

I wanted to give you the world, my world at least
I wanted to make you so happy and show you that the world isnt all a bad place..
I'm so sad that you don't want my world

I’ve been searching for my soul in all the wrong places
My soul isn’t meant to be quiet and confined like they say
My soul craves a slow but fierce burn that takes ages to tame
I’ve been looking in the wrong places - but no more

When I see him, my heart doesn't skip a beat, I am overjoyed, ecstatic but not nervous at all
When he sees me, he instantly smiles the most beautiful, wide smile that's making me tear up right now just thinking about it
He holds out his hands and I take them - we never interlock fingers, just palm on palm
I hug him with both hands around his neck, never around his waist and he hugs me with the same intensity every time, even after only a few hours of being apart
His peripheral vision is so bad that I can sometimes look at him for minutes at a time without him noticing - sometimes I like that, other times I don't. What's comforting though is that he always catches me anyway, because he looks at me quite frequently too
We haven't kissed, we haven't said "I love you", we haven't been rushing things which I think is so beautiful
I limit the number of times I confess that I miss him, only because I'm afraid of the same thing happening again - I always seem to want too much
So how is it different?
When he stopped in front of my home at 5am to drop me off, we sat looking at each other and he didn't even attempt to kiss me
We talked about never leaving and about other times we'd spend together and adventures we'd go on
We hugged each other multiple times and he kissed me on the cheek, never did he make an attempt to touch me or to kiss me and I'm glad
I know he wants something more
He waited for my mother to come outside and was exceptionally polite but not in the 'trying-to-make-an-impression' way, he is just simply polite
And I got upstairs at 5:17 and checked my phone only to see his text saying "I'll miss you"
And that's how I know it's different

It ain’t love, kid
When you pull my hair and you kiss my neck
It ain’t love when you look me dead in the face and you give me a hug as I take that ‘walk of shame’ down your stairs
Funny how I used to cry when you’d leave but now I’m the one leaving and I still cry but the reason has changed
How I used to beg you to stay but you don’t say a word against it when I offer to leave
How the tables have turned like your back to my word
How you don’t try to wipe my tears and ignore the ones you don’t see
How I’d still give you the world if you asked on a golden platter with all the fixings of a passionate love
But what are these words to you
What is my body to you
What is my soul to you
Man, it ain’t love, kid
But it sure as hell stings like it

After we kissed, I put my head on his shoulder because that's all I knew how to do
He didn't lean his head down on mine like you did
He didn't let me burrow my face into his chest and listen to his heartbeat
He didn't even smile
And then I realized that I was looking for you in him
I will always look for you in every man I kiss & every man I allow to touch me
I will always look for your touch
Everywhere

How come I'm not even good enough for the user?
People always want better, they always want more
Why I am so content with settling?
Why don't I walk away and hurt people for once?
Why don't I put my feelings ahead of other people's?

I'm used to a man's hands on my thighs meaning something more
I'm used to kissing someone I'm in love with
I'm used to baring my soul to someone who is committed to me
But today, when he held my face in his hands like I've always dreamed of having done to me
And his hands instantly found the space between my thighs before he stroked my cheek or traced my jaw
I was tempted to say "I have other body parts, I have hands and shoulders and a neck"
"I'm more than just a body that you can use"
But I remembered that there are no feelings involved
This is purely physical
This is my medicine
This is what's going to numb my pain

His lips are so soft and he doesn't have a taste
He is pure temptation & I am intrigued
I said "Other people are not medicine"
But he's like a cough syrup you never want to stop taking
And his hands are like bandages to my raw battle wounds
He cannot heal me
He cannot save me
But he can numb my pain

I am so hurt

Still so hurt

Those words still cut me everyday

I am surrounded by people but I am not fulfilled

I have conversations but they are all so meaningless and they leave me even emptier

My laughter doesn’t fill me anymore because I can’t even smile with you

There is nothing in this world I want without you

Nowhere I want to be without you

That’s the trouble with doing things

Everywhere I go and turn, we have a memory there

Walking, holding hands, stopping for a kiss, laughing

It hurts me everyday and everywhere and I am so empty

My life is empty and lonely

Coming home to tell everything to no one is painful

Coming home to hear no “I love you” and no “How was your day?” has left me so empty

I don’t know how to be alone

How are you so okay with that? Don’t our memories hurt?

Doesn’t your heart sink when you hear my name or see me?

Don’t you think about how cold it feels when I’m not next to you and how warm it felt when you were holding me?

How do you forget that? That you held me in your arms so many times

This is so painful mostly because there is no one to tell this to

I can’t even call you or message you or anything and that is awful

You have gone from being my everything to being a stranger to me in a few days

My heart doesn’t know how to deal with that

My heart is too fragile and I am too dependent on you

I told you so many times “Don’t ever leave me”

I’ve said it to you while looking you in the eyes and being close to you as is humanly possible and I meant it

I meant that I didn’t know how to live without you

I meant that you are my everything

Oh God you are my everything

My heart is finished

I dont want anyone else

I dont’ know how to care about anyone else

You were supposed to be it

And now you’re gone and I wanted it to be you

I wanted to be a part of your family and I associate that warm feeling of Christmas with you and I don’t know how I’m going to be okay again

I dont know how to be okay without you

You were my okay

You were who I went to when I was lost and now I’m lost and I dont have a home anymore

You arent my home anymore and now I dont know which direction to turn

I wanted everything with you every single **** thing I wanted with you

I thought we’d get through this I really did

We had to we had to

We are so young and all I want is everything with you.
Every single life experience, big or small
Mediocre or extraordinary
You’re the only person I want to experience any of it with
To tell any of it to.
And I hope that 10 years from now, you read this and remember my wish
And you’d smile at me and think “We made it. Despite everything, we made it.”
I want every fight with you, at our worst
And every happy moment, at our best.
I want movie dates and dinner dates and lunch dates and study dates.
I want long hugs and short hugs and “I love you so much and I’ve missed you for so long” hugs and “I don’t want to talk you right now because I’m mad at you, but I still love you” hugs.
I want long drives and drives to get ice cream and drives to get sushi and drives when we’re stressed out together and drives to and from school together.
I want to cook with you and watch sad movies with you so i can cry on your shoulder and fall asleep in front of you while we’re studying.

How cruel God must be to lend me the love of my life for a meagre eight months and twenty days
And expect that when the time was up, I, his creation would bow and say "Thank You"
I, Your creation will instead stand and proclaim that You are cruel
You are cruel and unkind as to create two beings who are perfectly matched but are on two different paths that will never meet -
Not at the end, not at the middle and certainly not at the beginning
Why must You cause someone this grief
This overwhelming pain that will not cease for months
Or years
Or even in this lifetime
I in fact wish You had never shown me what true love was like
Especially since You knew You would take it away.

I guess what I didn’t say to you in person was that I never want anyone else to feel these things for you

I want this to be mine, I want it to be ours and exclusively ours

I don’t want anyone to feel a even a sliver of what I feel for you

I strip the sheets off my bed
I put my clothes to wash
But there is still nothing that can erase this
Not the rubbing of my skin raw to remove your stain
Or the brushing of my teeth to get rid of your taste

None of it can erase the feel of your lips and tongue drafting novels that should never be published on my back
Or your fingers painting life onto the blank and ordinary canvas that is my leg
It doesn’t help me forget, it doesn’t help me hurt any less
Because I can still smell you on my bed - the smell of you and old love I’ve grown too attached to now
And I can still hear your breathing and I shouldn’t - but if I think even a tiny bit harder
I can see every strand of your left eyelashes because those were the last things I memorised before you woke up
I memorised the tightness of your hug and the effortlessness of your goodbye kiss too
But I’m not prepared for the torture of remembering these details - I’m lying down and you’re not here to wipe these tears

You deliver torrents of happiness and comfort in my darkest times
And it pains me to know that I can’t do the same for you.
So badly, I want to embrace you;
Not just physically,
But your emotions:
I want to mend them
Fragment by fragment
To perfection.
Till you forget what it feels like to be unhappy.
And you experience only love.

Even though I’d love you to the best of my ability,
I know that it’d never be enough:
You deserve far more than I can give -
But I’d love you with every cell in my body
Ever fiber and nerve ending
Every breath and every syllable of every word I ever spoke.
I’d give you my all.


And I want nothing more than to see you
To memorize your every feature,
To touch and experience you in ways that you or I have never known.
Because you are so wondrous, that I can’t help but want to discover your entirety.

Even the nights are colder and longer since you aren’t here.
And the hours of two, three and four in the morning are no longer my favourite,
Because hearing you breathe before you descend into sleep makes my heart so uneasy
In a way that only you can.
My heart- have I told you about it?
How it takes off and functions irrespective of my body?
The way it soars and keeps climbing and speeding to rapidity that I’d not imagined?
Or perhaps how my breathing becomes irrational and irregular at the sound of those words you whisper
Uneasy.
Because in those moments I want you.
And it makes me feel like telling you:
“Pick me up right now and let’s drive till nowhere”
And have you kiss away the scars on my hips
Just as you would the ones on my wrists and my heart
But only after I mend you.

Do you see how much I want this?
How much I want to become familiar with your actions:
The way your thumb brushes across my cheek on your way to kiss me
The way your fingers trace patterns on my skin
Or simply the way you smile and laugh


I’m so alone without you.
But so in love.

I love you passionately and deeply
I love you with my entire being
And at times like these I wonder how I’d be able to survive without you
I feel like the literal other half of me is missing, you are missing
And every few minutes our memories flood my head :
You lying down with your head on my lap
Us sharing pizza on my bed
And then - you, picking me up while we kiss, taking me to my room and resting me gently on my bed

These memories wash over me and it becomes even more obvious that this distance doesn’t phase any part of our relationship
It tests our patience, sure, but if anything else, it brings us closer together and makes us more appreciative of the time we’re able to spend with each other.

Distance…

I suppose the way I feel is unoriginal
And the words I say are overused
The “I love you”s are plain
And the butterflies I feel when you’re near are recycled
The things I thought were ours
Were already yours
And everything we experienced was and is a carbon copy of what you had with her
Before you, I didn’t know what it was like to be held properly
To be kissed softly
To have the things I want to hear delicately whispered to me
To have fingers trace patterns on my skin without purpose -
There was so much I thought was ours
So many places and moments and minutes
And words you’ve said and things you’ve done
But they were already yours
So the way it feels when I relax into your arms when you hold me
Or the way I hug you
And the way I exhale when you kiss me
And the way I look at you because I love you -
It’s nothing new to you
Sadly, it was new to me
Thankfully, it was new to me.
Now, my only worry is that your touch will seem foreign
Your kisses will be rehearsed
The words you’ll say are empty
And worst of all I think -
The way you look at me will be the way you looked at her
And I’ll know.

Lying down with my head on your chest and my hand over your heart and your arm around me, I still wasn’t convinced - and you saw that
You saw the questions and confusion in my eyes.
But then, when you put your hand over mine I began to question myself
Why ever did I think any unpleasant thoughts
Why ever did I say such harsh words to such an amazing being who has forgiven me for the things I’ve done
I’ve never felt safer and more at home when I’m with you
You complete me -
Seeing the way you look at me
And the way your voice gets so raw
But its still so gentle and soft
And the way you hold me, the movement of every finger seems to be thought out so well
Your kisses too leave me needing your comfort
The way your lips tug on mine ever so gently
The way we kiss so slowly and smoothly
And the way you know just the right intensity I desire every time
You trace patterns on my pleading skin and the pent up emotions I have - the anger and doubt and fear melt away
No - not because I crave physical contact but because I can feel how much you mean everything you’ve ever said
I’m in love
I’m in love
I love you
I want this… I want us to last.

I suppose the way I feel is unoriginal
And the words I say are overused
The “I love you”s are plain
And the butterflies I feel when you’re near are recycled
The things I thought were ours
Were already yours
And everything we experienced was and is a carbon copy of what you had with her
Before you, I didn’t know what it was like to be held properly
To be kissed softly
To have the things I want to hear delicately whispered to me
To have fingers trace patterns on my skin without purpose -
There was so much I thought was ours
So many places and moments and minutes
And words you’ve said and things you’ve done
But they were already yours
So the way it feels when I relax into your arms when you hold me
Or the way I hug you
And the way I exhale when you kiss me
And the way I look at you because I love you -
It’s nothing new to you
Sadly, it was new to me
Thankfully, it was new to me.
Now, my only worry is that your touch will seem foreign
Your kisses will be rehearsed
The words you’ll say are empty
And worst of all I think -
The way you look at me will be the way you looked at her
And I’ll know.

It hurts my heart to think that a man as beautiful as you are could love a girl as broken as I am
It terrifies me that you hold me to such high esteem when my lyrical appreciation of your beauty is far less in comparison
It feels as if you do love me more and you do love me better but who can really tell when I can’t even tell you what’s really in my heart
You’re incredible, unrealistically perfect and that’s about the furthest I can get before my thoughts escape and become tangled in the web of emotions you’ve spun in my mind
I find it strange that somebody like you could feel something like this for someone like me and I know you’ve told me a hundred times why you feel the way you do but it doesn’t add up
And no, it’s not that I don’t believe you - for once its not that I don’t believe ‘you’ because when I see you smile at me or feel your arms around me or enjoy the taste of your mouth I know that this is real
I know that this is real

We may not have much

But in those few stolen moments

I am happiest

I am better than I’ve ever been and more alive than I’d ever feel

He completes me

And our downs will never be too down to affect our ups

I love him

More than we can understand.

Every single moment I spend with him is pure perfection
Every breath we take when we’re wrapped in each other’s arms
Every time our lips touch
Every stroke of his fingers against my skin
Every whisper of “I love you” shared
Makes me crave him
Makes me sad at the thought of separation - for seconds at a time; making it unbearable to experience days without him and dreading the thought of not seeing him for months
I miss him

Please allow me to scream it to the world that I love him
I love him and I love him like crazy
He’s mine, I’m entirely his and we belong exclusively to each other
When I’m with him, nothing like pain (but the pain of separation) and unhappiness exists -
There’s simply bliss and care and endless emotions I didn’t think I’d ever feel
He is perfection, in beauty and thoughts and words and everything that can ever be perfected
He’s so much more than these poor words can ever describe - be it my limited vocabulary or the possibility that such words simply don’t exist -
Either way, I want the world to know he’s mine and that he makes me undeniably happy and content
And I love him
And he loves me
He loves me.

When I look at him, all I see is the man I want to marry
The man I’d do anything for
The only man I want to spend the rest of my life with
The only man who makes me feel so safe and secure and truly loved
My heart swells when I think about him and his love for me - its the best feeling in the world
And I’d never want it with anyone else
He’s my one and only.

When you're this far away from me, love
Time is immeasurable
And it's incomprehensible that such pain can exist from just departure

I woke up at 3:37
Craving you.
Your voice,
Your touch,
Your warmth:
You.
Anything and everything.
And though I’d never felt your touch,
Or heard you say what I so desperately wanted to hear,
I knew that I needed you
And your perfection was ideal.
I knew that I’d love to feel your breath on my skin
And have your lips make love to every part of my body;
So deeply and slowly
That you reached the very core of my soul.
Your fingers would leave trails of longing and desire as they climbed the curve of my back
Making their way across the most ordinary parts of me,
Leaving me breathless and blinded.
Or hearing you whisper my name,
The letters smoothly flowing out from between your lips
Which I so desperately need.
On mine,
On me.
I long for you.

This evening you said, “I like you, and you like me, right?”
To which I replied, “Of course I do.”
But you were wrong, and I lied.
I don’t like you -
I’m in love with you.
And its so much more than I’ve ever felt for anyone else.

I’m afraid
Mostly of memories and words that I desperately want to hear again
Of dreams which were made so real by subtle intonation and a few drinks
I want this so badly
But when has anything I’ve ever wanted turned out to be good for me?
So I wait
And I know that this isn’t meant to be
This can’t be
But I can’t help but wonder
What if.

I might not be able to offer you much
Like fancy presents
Or high tea
But I can give you:
Laughter
Warm hugs
Soft kisses
Playful touches
Long walks
Shy smiles
Late nights
Early mornings.
I can’t give you the world, love
Not the moon
Or even stars
But I can offer you
Patience
Understanding
Comfort
I’m sorry it’s all that I have
Because you deserve much, much more
Much more than I can give
But love, I promise you
That I won’t let you down
I won’t let you fall.
More than anything
I want to love you
I want to give you my all
Endless care
Undying love
Everything.
Everything.

Because the truth is :
I want to love you at your lowest
And then at your highest.
I want to see you at your most vulnerable because I can be that open to you.
I want to hold you while you cry,
And when you laugh.
You have no idea how much of me wants to love you; every part, mind, soul and body.
Your emotions, whether sadness, frustration, anger, happiness, joy, love:
I want them to be mine.
I want you, your all, your everything. Good, bad, indifferent.

And though it may seem irrelevant
I want you to know that you make my heart skip a beat every time you say my name;
Every time I hear you exhale at 3 am on our way to sleep;
When you talk and I can hear the smile in your voice;
And I picture my head against your chest, or our fingers intertwined.
As you whisper to me and ease my fears, my heart soars with the thought of you being mine.
Being able to hold you, and be held in your arms. Hearing your soothing voice as my lullaby every night. Kissing you, and being kissed. Loving you and knowing that I’m loved back.
And as it quickly as my thoughts accelerate, I know that you can’t.
But I also know.
That
I just might
Love you.

Your eyes kiss mine, slowly, just as we do before you fall asleep.
First, a whisper of our lips, and then our entire souls - all at once.
I gaze at your beauty while you sleep; your gorgeous lips parted ever so slightly - the wonders of your breathing keeping me awake for hours.
The way you sigh each time you exhale has me fighting for control of myself and I know that in those moments, you are everything.
And when you wake, its like the sunrise to my world, you smile as you whisper “Good Morning” and then seek my lips.
In those few minutes, as I’m wrapped in your arms, your face against mine, I’m safe and I know there’s no where else I’d like to be.

When I was six years old
And daddy told me “Don’t worry, I’m doing this for us”
What right did I have to distrust?
The world is made of happiness
And sunshine
And nothing bad can touch you
At six
How would I have known?
But at eighteen
When I was no longer pure
And had experienced many things that
‘Would never happen to me’
I had all the right to distrust
Because the world is not made of happiness
But of people who ‘want to do this for us’
And who claim ‘I love you’ at the thought of .
At eighteen and two months though
My mother told me that my father was right
He was ‘doing this for us’
And at eighteen and three I understood
He left
Because he knew.