but hell, it isn’t going to work out
and i’m not what you need
i’m far away, and full of dirt and bugs
but i want you
we’ll **** other people
and maybe even have fun
from time to time
but i think about your smile
and it’s stupid
but i curl up inside of it at night
pull my covers over my head
and dream bitterly about
of a life without such
distance

you said it was the weather
when i asked why it is i'’m so cold
what you forgot to mention is
that it was the middle of the
summer and whether or not you
would be back by the time fall hit

well, fall hit and the leaves
crunching beneath my shoes sound
like door slams and i stay up thinking
if you weren’t around to hear it;
did it really happen?
you don’t call the next day and
i know for sure it happened

you say i should move on,
i picked the boy with your fingers
and spent the night thinking about the
way he would look on top of me
and spent the morning hoping you
couldn’t read minds,
because mine wasn’t on yours
this time and im sorry,
you say you will call and i think about
the way winter will hit without you around
to see, because it's happened but
this time it won't leave bruises

there's a slam of a front door
that sends a signal to my lungs
to tell them that they need nicotine
and another to the dry throat that
says it's time for a cup of coffee

i conduct a symphony of
slowly getting out of bed

taking the first sip of coffee
always reminds me of that
first kiss we shared on
new years at midnight,
i knew i would regret it

lately, the drinks i pour in
the evening feel worse than
a burnt tongue, because it
slides down my throat, into the
into the stomach, into the veins,
into the brain that usually tells me
do not think about this tonight but

i am drunk
i am obsessive
i am harmless

i have grown so exhausted of
always being the wrong kind of
brave

in 10 years
your body will be
covered in ink
and i will look back
on the days i used to
make the most intimate
c o n t a c t
with the flawless
ivory silk you called
skin, a version of you
that was young and
pure

when i feel the dull burn of a car window rolled down in 50 degree weather, when i am showing someone else my favorite books and films, when a boy is holding one hand and a cigarette is holding my other, i will think of someone who tried to better themselves and that it's okay if it isn't because of me.

when i approach my first day of college and there is a hand held out to me in an attempt to meet my acquaintance or a nerve-calming crack at the teacher by an upper classman, i will take that as an invitation to get right what i didn't in high school.

when i find a friend that will take me to the hottest parties a suburban chemical factory can hold, but who won't sit outside and wait the 40 seconds i have left of my cigarette to keep me company, i will gently decline and decide that i deserve better.

when i hear a sound as demanding as a freight train cutting slowly through the calm small-town winter night, i will think of the conversations between me and an old dear friend, on a front porch lit by a giant christmas star. i will smile fondly and choke back the nostalgia.

when i think of my adventures through the year 2014, although achingly transient, i owe it to myself not to pull my hair over what could have been, but instead pull my arms around the people who deserve it, and hug a little tighter, love a little harder, and demand a lot better.

i was a moment away
from texting you to ask
if it was cold outside today
in my south east texas town

it hit me all over again

every road sign, a sigh
to the fact that i am unable
to enjoy the weather
to enjoy your company

you make it clear that
you will not be coming back
to tell me how the weather
changes

1AM, i was
gently shoved
out of a dream
in which i was
thrown into some
type of parallel
where

you
      and
              i

had never spoke
more than a mere
"excuse me"
walking into school
one morning
holding a glass door
open

i have spent
the last 5 hours
trying to get
this scene out of
my head.

even in a universe
where you had
never squeezed my
hand twice, like a
pulse, or sat on
your porch with
your cigarettes we
shared and two
glasses of orange,
i left my lipstick
on everything
you'd have thought
i would be more
permanent --

even then
i spent the rest
of my dream
thinking
about how
7:45AM
looks so
good on
you.

something snapped in me earlier this month
i think it was the bough that held most of what was rotten inside of me
but it could've just been the breath i was holding ever since the day i declared that your absence was never permanent, but i realized that this time it is
but this is not a poem about hoping that what goes up must come down, and what leaves you has to come back around
it's about how the clouds are looking more like laughing children
and i hear the birds in the morning without mourning you at the sight of an empty chair
i have found truth in a kind of beauty that has nothing to do with you

two weeks ago, all i thought about was what kind of person you have become and if they are anything like the person i fell in love with, but

if i've learned anything about love from you
it's that sometimes it means screaming until your voice shatters and other times it's found in silence
or growing out of old ways and apologizing despite only having fallen so hard, you left a crack in the cement

i've learned that the only reason anyone could ever replace me is because i left a hole big enough in their chest to need replacing
and by the end of it all, i got to laugh and cry and *** and be the truest, most human version of myself in the presence of someone else
i have a whole lifetime to do it all over again

i loved the things that you would do when you were you
that is enough for me