Kids compare their love to the stars. Citing celestial forces in their rooftop, late night, parents-can't-hear, stolen-beer vows. They compare the way their hands combine to constellations ever present in the night sky. I trashed this misconception in the back of a Chevrolet with the married man I was with that day when he compared our love to the moon and sun and how ours was a forbidden one. There wasn't a notion of poetry in his slurred words, just a man so scared of growing old he needed the comfort of a child, to soothe his soul. You and me, you and the person I am trying to be, don't need the sun or the moon or the stars in the sky, we just need the TV set on a Tuesday night. We fell in love in the daylight, in parks down the street. We fell for each other, not the universe, that before you, had tortured me. We don't need space suits to look into each other's eyes and know that it's here, right here, on this couch where we first made love that we call home. The kids can keep their zodiac signs and universe themed metaphors because our love can't be illustrated with astrological analogies. It's complicated and messy and hurtful and hard, but loving you is the best thing I’ve ever done, right here on earth.


-bcg (we fell in love in the daylight, so what happens when the sun goes down)

Three months ago, before we started talking regularly again, I asked you a question. You probably wouldn’t remember, it was a fleeting moment so long ago, but I remember. I remember thinking before I asked it, I remember nervously awaiting your response, I remember assuming you would respond in a joke.

But you didn’t.

You weren’t happy, and while you said it in a much more eloquent and well thought out way, I saw the sadness in your eyes.

And here we are now and I just felt like you should know that every single time I almost hung up, every single time I almost didn’t laugh off one of your cruel jokes, every single time I was one glass away from calling you and telling you to go **** yourself because you were killing me so slowly sometimes I would forget you even were. Every single time, I would stay on the call, I would laugh off the joke, I would put down the drink, because you weren’t happy and I was the one person who was never, ever okay with that and I’m still working everyday to change it.


-bcg (i asked you, but you never asked me)

And I’ll be here
using words to convince you,
you made the wrong choice,
because I have no other way
of winning you over.


-bcg (i’m still yours even though you were never mine)

Tell me you miss me
Tell me to stay
Tell me you wouldn’t have it any other way

Tell me that even though things are about to get real rough, it’s worth it, because you like the way I smile into my empty coffee cup

Tell me there isn’t another person in this world
that could keep you from me

Tell me we will continue to laugh at the sound of the
rain pouring down on the roof at 2am
until we fall asleep to the rhythm of the soft pitter-patter

Tell me you miss me
Tell me to stay
Tell me you wouldn’t have it any other way


-bcg (you won’t and that’s okay, a girl can still dream)

I want to say **** it and text you because all I want to do is talk to you about everything going on in our lives, and im so close. I pull out my phone, I start the message, and then it hits me. If you had wanted to talk, you would have let me know ******* weeks ago.

-bcg (how do you choose between comfort and dignity)

To him:
“You’re funny and you play along with my little jokes and you always respond. I ask you the questions I used to ask him and you answer them differently and you have different favorite colors and you have different embarrassing moments and you have different fears because you are different people. But asking you those questions, after listening to his answers, just feels gross. It feels cheap. You are nothing to him. You hold nothing to him. You’re vain like he never was. He had no idea what was happening, question-by-question he was falling for me, but he had no idea. He didn’t know he was falling until he had already fallen. He was real. The first real thing I knew. He was honest. He was mine.”


To you:
“I feel sick talking to him about his day, asking his favorite color, talking to him and asking him the same things. Because the thing is, I would still rather listen to you tell me about your details over and over again than learn his or any boy before.”

-bcg (i cant tell you this because im scared of the way you look at me now when i tell you how i feel)

How did you come to the conclusion that we had no chance of making it? How did you figure that out without me? How many nights did you stay up thinking? How many friends did you consult? How many conversations did we have where you never mentioned you were solving this problem? How many conversations where I told you I loved you and you did too? How many of those conversations did we have when you already knew what the solution was and it wasn't you and me? When did you figure out we couldn't be? When?


And when did you figure out you would be okay without me? Because I would really, really appreciate it if we could go back there. To that night, that moment, that thought. And you teach me how to do the same. Because it's right about now when the pain is too much and my heart is beating too fast and I just want all this hurt to go away, when I would really ******* love to know how to be okay without you.

-bcg (teach me how to be as cold as you)

He made it very clear what he wanted,
and what he wanted was never me.


-bcg (it isn't meant to be read, it's meant to be yelled)

I still miss you just as much
I just don't say it anymore.
Because when I do
The look on your face
That mixture of pity and uncomfortableness
Makes me want to *****.
And I can't throw up with an empty stomach
And heaving is just unladylike.

-bcg (i miss you)

I know you care. Even when you told me things that hurt so bad I had to use a blade against my own skin for my body to make sense again. Even when you literally showed me how little I mattered to you. Even when you stopped loving me the first time. Even when you watched in silence as I begged for you to ask me to stay. Even now when I haven’t heard from you for so long and I am so close to the edge.

I know you care because you always cared, just not enough.

-bcg (i dont know how long i can keep holding on)

I keep on making the same mistake of
thinking I mean more to you than I actually do.

-bcg (there’s no sign of stopping)

He likes reading Russian poetry and she likes listening to him whisper it through the phone.

She likes watching sitcoms, dramas, and really anything available on Netflix steaming and he likes teasing her about it on the way home.

They like to distract themselves and pretend everything's alright. They like to text and talk every week night.


They fit well, like out of a storybook page, or a rhyme in an old song that you would hear on your dad’s iPod on shuffle. Except there was one thing they overlooked all those nights talking about everything and nothing over and over till the sun would rise.

She never could watch the last episode of the shows she binged, but he always read the last page of the books he read. She was afraid of endings and goodbyes.

So when the clock struck twelve and it was time to go home, only one was doomed to a life of bathroom floors, empty stomachs, and dull, dead eyes.

-bcg (i was afraid of endings and when you asked me i told you i would be fine

There's this thing about me that I thought you knew by now. I love hard and I love deeply. I love full and I love endlessly.
So when there's a shot, when I see a chance, I'm gonna take it. No matter the odds, or how bad things could get. No matter what could happen, I'm gonna take the shot. Because I'm in love with you and I will always think you're worth the risk.
So if I don't see you tomorrow, I want you to know, you were worth the shot, we were worth the shot.

-bcg (i missed and that was our last throw, but ****** if it wasn't worth every sad song lyric running through my head at 2:47pm on a wednesday as i stare at the picture of you that maliciously showed up on my newsfeed the day after i flushed all my blades away)

She still dances, you know? She still laughs and smiles. She still opens her heart to strangers. She’s still the girl you fell in love with.

But there are these little things I’ve been noticing. Like sometimes we’ll be driving and singing along to the radio and she’ll just stop in the middle of the chorus, pull out her phone, and just stare down at it or a full minute before putting it away. She doesn’t go on facebook anymore because she’s worried about seeing something of yours. She looks so small, her old clothes don’t look right on her. That glint in her eye she used to have after a few drinks is completely gone. Replaced by this empty glaze that is hard to look directly at. She second-guesses herself, not all the time, but for someone who never used to do that, it’s noticeable. It’s like this once confident, beautiful, intelligent girl was just spun around one too many times by this one person and she cant quite find her balance now that she’s back on the ground.

She’s still the girl you fell in love with
But you broke her, in a way that can never be completely healed.  

-bcg (please stop calling her, i’m begging you)

Somewhere, right at this moment, a man is walking into a coffee shop. He's looking at the board above the baristas head. He can't decide what type of tea to get. This is the hardest decision that he's going to have to make today.

Somewhere, right at this moment, a man is having trouble selecting his drink order, while you're doubled over on the floor with a bottle clutched to your chest and a handful of pills begging to be swallowed, choosing whether to live or die.

-bcg (perspective can be a ***** and a life saver)

The day I met him I fainted. I can't say it was his fault as it was hours before we saw each other, but I think it was the universes way of foreshadowing the wave that was about to break over me. We rarely notice the universe's foreshadowing, but if we did we would save ourselves from so much trouble. If only you had noticed the way his hands shake like your fathers did after he came home from the bar. If only you had paid attention to her inability to ever answer the simple question of, "how are you.”

You're talking to someone else?

Yeah, but it's different.

You talk to him everyday, you text him every night, he knows you... How is it different?

     I talk to you, I respond to him. I love you, I fill time with him. He’s there for me, I’m still waiting on you.

“Do you still think about me?”
“Well, I don’t think about you as much as you think about me.”

2. “I’m yours and you’re mine, for now”

3. “I like you”
No response.

4. “We just don’t make sense.”
“But right now, with me laying in your arms, with my head on your chest, laughing about the weather, don’t we make a little bit of sense?”
“No.”

5. “This is getting too hard, I can’t keep doing this. I don’t think we should talk anymore.
“Okay.”
“What are you thinking?”
“How mad you would be if I said, “Well this was fun,” and hung up on you”

6. “If you told me to stay, I would stay. Just ask me to stay, please.”
“I’m not going to beg you, if you want to go. Just go.”

-bcg (things i laughed off, but shouldn’t have)

Hi. We can’t stop talking. Three things have happened today that I needed to tell someone, but the thing is there was only one person I wanted to tell. And well we both have a lot to figure out, but figuring things out doesn’t sound so scary if you’re there to make jokes about everything with me. I know we aren’t ready to be “together,” and I know you’re tired and angry about being in limbo. But the thing is, limbo can be fun; I was actually really good at it before my growth spurt.

-bcg (i can handle not knowing what we are as long as you’re right there next to me)

Today I was in the middle of something when I had a fleeting thought of what it would me like if you were here. I immediately stopped what I was doing to let myself daydream of you. So rarely do I let my mind drift to this that I thought it would be a little reward for being so good and compartmentalizing so well.

So I thought of you. I thought of the joke you would make about my handwriting. I thought about where your hand would be on my thigh. I thought about the laugh lines around your eyes that would come out when you smiled at my smile. I thought about it all.

But while I wasn’t paying attention, my mind went out of control, and I was skimming through memories of you and me while simultaneously making up scenarios of everything that we could be. The room was spinning and I was barely breathing when suddenly everything went cold and hot at the same time and you were saying goodbye a thousand times. Over and over, each one hit, and I just had to sit back and let the waves of grief keep crashing over the same body that once was held in your arms when I couldn’t stop shaking that Wednesday night back in July.

It was like I was falling and flying all at once and it took three deep breaths to clear it all up.
I gathered myself and left the room because for some reason it was starting to smell of you.

**** this and **** goodbyes. I would die for just one more night.

-bcg (i forget about you long enough to forget why i needed to)

He places his hand on the small of my back and we walk down the street like everything that was meant to be, was being,
and we were at the center of it all.


-bcg (what a good sunday really looks like)

"You aren't supposed to step on the cracks, I'll tell on you," I stick my tongue out at his comment and he laughs. I saunter closer to him on the street as we close in on our destination and he wraps his arm around me. We are just about to the pet store when Peter pulls on my hand and stops on the sidewalk. I turn around confused, "What's wrong? Having doubts?"
"No, I just want to make sure you aren't."
"I'm fine, I want to do this. I'm ready, I promise."
"Do you think we're going to fast?"
I laugh and he smiles sheepishly, "I don't want you to get scared again, I don't want to rush you."
"Trust me, Peter, I'm ready for this. Let's get engaged."

We walk hand in hand into the pet store and pick out our little puppy, our ring, and our promise to each other. He's more playful than the others and his right ear won't stay upright. I like his dopy looking half smile and Peter likes his boundless energy.

After we leave the store with our new family member, Peter bends down to look eye to eye with Marshal. I watch him whisper something in his ear and it almost looks as if Marshall nods. I giggle as Peter straightens up and ask him what he had said. Peter turns to me and smiles the same kind of dopy grin Marshall had and says, "Oh I just warned him not to step on any cracks, as I am very fond of this back."

He places his hand on the small of my back and we walk down the street like everything that was meant to be, was being, and we were at the center of it all.

-bcg (we always talked about getting a dog as an engagement ring)

There are two reasons why I still talk to you: you are fun and you make me feel special. However, in the past month or so I’ve started feeling like you talk to me only when you’re bored. Like I’m the person who will always return a text and answer a call. I will always be here to entertain you. I am your person, but slowly you are losing your place as mine. I don’t feel welcome here anymore and I don’t think you really want me.
It’s not that I don’t love you or that I don’t want you, I have never wanted someone more. You are the only thing that has brought joy into my life in months.
But I no longer feel special when I talk to you and even though we’re having fun, I don’t feel good. I’ve been ignoring people who do make me feel special because I have fun with you. The person I talk to every night should want my company and make time for me. I don’t want to be your “sometimes” anymore.

And I’m not asking you to change and I don’t want you to. I fell in love with the man you are and I would never ask you to alter yourself for me. Which is why I’m simply saying goodbye.

We weren’t meant to be and that’s just the way it is. I don’t feel special when I talk to you. I feel small. I feel used. I don’t want to be wanted just when it’s convenient, I just want to be wanted.

-bcg (i’ve told you everything about myself, everything… except this)

"No matter how bad it gets, I'll always have you," I should never had tempted fate with such wasteful words. I should have spent all that time listening to the sound of your voice telling me about your childhood. Telling me about the stuffed animal you slept with until an embarrassingly old age. Telling me about needing to go clothes shopping because you saw someone wearing a button down shirt and you suddenly realized that button down shirts were a thing and you could wear them now because you're a grown up. Telling me to drink my tea and eat the sandwich you made. Telling me about your arguments with your roommate and conversations with your father. Telling me everything I needed to hear. Telling me everything was going to be alright.

I should have shut up and just listened to you then and every other night.  
You deserved more than my wasteful words and your wasted time.

-bcg (you deserved more than me, and what I gave you, but i still miss you, love, i still miss you)

It was a mistake to let me go
because when you come back, saying you've been missing me
I'll say no
because I learned how to be okay all on my own

I want you like I want one of my shows.

When we aren't together I don't want to think about you. I don't want to ponder you, analyze you, or worry about you. When you aren't here, I want nothing to do with you.

But when we are together I want to only be with you. I want to spend hours on you, obsessing over you, binging on you. I want every waking moment to be spent watching you and discovering you and every sleeping moment to be spent dreaming about you.

I want you, but only like one of my shows.

-bcg (binge watching Netflix isn't healthy, but neither are you)

I keep reading quotes about just wanting to be simple with someone. Just wanting to lay in bed and eat pizza with their person. Nothing special, something simple.

That's the stupidest **** I've ever heard. There is nothing simple about being in love.

So I don't want simple.
I want you. No matter what you come with, no matter how complicated it gets, no matter when we end.

I want you and there is nothing simple about that.

She used my name when she spoke to me. Like we would be in the middle of talking about the weather and she would deliberately finish a sentence about the impending rainstorm with my name and all of a sudden this innocent conversation reached a level of intimacy I had only experienced in bed with another person.
It was exhilarating, feeling your name in the mouth of someone like that.
With just the way she forms your name with her lips she could make you want to hold hands and waste away Friday nights in the most cliché romcom way. Every moment was full, every moment was exciting, and every ******* moment was completely and fatally exhausting.

-bcg (excerpt from the book I’ll never write)

When we met I was bruised, I was bitter, and I felt broken beyond repair. You picked me up and right in the middle of healing my wounds, kissing my scars, and making me forgive myself for every mistake, you told me the truth. You were never meant to save me; you came here so I could save you.

-bcg (its funny, we both came for help, and we ended up breaking eachother all over again)

Convince him to get a new hair cut and when he does, notice the way it doesn't frame his face the way it used to and how his shaved head reminds you of your cousin who, as your mom said, enlisted too young. Listen to him, really listen to him when he talks and watch the way his mouth automatically turns to a smile after every single sentence he utters. Make note of every time he laughs at his own joke. When he tosses you a compliment picture his last person and how they must have felt when he tossed the same line to them. As you're lying in bed try to recall the time before he called you his and consider how long you wanted him. Remember the way you memorized his drink orders and the sweater he always wore on Tuesday. Realize that you stopped memorizing him the day he confessed to memorizing you. Bring him to social gatherings and become annoyed with the way he clings to you. Catch him staring at you at least three times in one day and when the day is over compare that number to the zero amount of times you found yourself gazing his way. His voice will come to annoy you and it is important that instead of shutting it out, you let it in. Eventually this annoyance will turn into hatred so you have to let every word sink in. Don't listen to your friends tell you how nice he is and ignore the voice in your head telling you that you have to be happy because he treats you right, unlike the last one. Let it finally hit you that you no longer like him, when you find yourself at 2am crying, in a dark room illuminated only by the light of a computer screen displaying the last picture you have of the man you actually love.

Don’t wish for love. Wish for happiness.
And never, ever confuse the two.

Dear him,

You aren’t the reason I end my nights on the floor. You aren’t the reason I wear long sleeves. You aren’t the reason the food is left on my plate after every meal. You aren’t the reason there are some days I simply cannot get out of bed.  You aren’t the reason I left.

Never blame yourself.

You are the reason I still have good days. You are the reason I wear my hair down instead of up. You are the reason there are stars in my dull, lifeless eyes. You are the reason not every smile is fake. You are the reason I wanted to stay.

Always love yourself.

Love,
her

-----------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------

Give it to him after I’m gone. Please tell him I loved him, I loved him so **** much. I know he won’t understand why that wasn’t enough, but you have to make him understand that the pain inside me was too much. I loved him, but I had to choose myself in the end.

I'm trying to train my fingers to dial numbers other than yours.

//

but when the late night thoughts hit,

there is only one phone number I can recall



and it’s yours

because it has always been yours.

Getting those blue eyes out of my head is taking more than praying and I just feel stupid because I'm pleading to a God that I don't even believe in. Hitting my head against the metaphorical wall of the memories included in, "you and I," and it’s slowly killing my self-esteem until I have nothing left, I barely even have anything left of me.

"I still love you."

-bcg (kingdoms would fall to their knees before my love for you would crumble)

“-----, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep pretending. I love you and I care about you and even though I’m trying to play it cool and act like I don’t care, you are everything to me. And the worst part is, I think you know that. I think you know that you can change my mood in one sentence, in one unreturned call. Yet you still don’t give a ****. And you know what, ----- I deserve more. I deserve more than spending my nights in a puddle of blood on the bathroom floor because you hurt me so much I had to hurt myself for my body to understand it. And I used to know that I deserve more, but somewhere between you being a stranger and you being my all, I forgot that I deserve better.
I know I told you I could handle it. I know you think I can be okay with always being your second choice. And I know you think I’m cynical and that I don’t believe in white horses and princes and fairytale endings. But I do, -----, I do. I know you think because of all the **** I’ve been through I’ve learned that nothing ever turns out okay, there is never a happy ending. But I haven’t, -----, I haven’t given up. I still have hope and I know it’s naïve and I know it’s stupid, but I still have hope that maybe, just maybe, someday you will choose me and you will keep choosing me for the rest of our lives.”

-the drunken, “just saying hi,” message left on the answering machine at 2am

“I know you care, but what you don’t understand is that it would be easier for both of us if I said goodbye now. I know I’m not the girl you end up with. If we let this go soon I might be able to get over you in this lifetime.

Because one day I’m going to put my music on shuffle and for some reason a Christmas song will start playing. And for some reason it will remind me of your love of Christmas lights and how I used to tease you about how tacky it was to keep them up after New Years and you would pretend to be offended and I would pretend to apologize and everything was just so beautiful. And for some reason that memory will send me over the edge and I will be lying in bed or sitting at work or at dinner with friends and suddenly, suddenly I can’t breath and I realize there will never be a time where our memories don’t haunt me.

And so we have to say goodbye soon because I know you won’t stay forever and the farther I fall for you the harder it will hurt when I finally hit the ground. You’ll be fine. You’ll get over me quickly, I’ve already seen you do it once. Just let me go easy this time. Please, please if you ever loved me, let me go quickly because the pain will already be enough to last a lifetime.”

-bcg (it’ll be easier this way, i promise)

"Well how does he say goodbye to you?"
"We don't say goodbye..."
"How do you end a conversation?"
"Our conversations don't end. We've never said goodbye, only goodnight. Since the day we met we've spend every moment memorizing eachother. We are still learning every little thing about eachother. Our conversation won't end until the day we change the subject from me and you to us and we."
"Well then yes. It's love."

He looked at her like she was meant to be looked at. Not like he wanted her, not like he needed her, but like he knew she was his person and he was hers and they would be each others for the rest of their lives.

The conversation is constant with you we don't say hi or hello anymore we just continue to discuss matters important to us//like your favorite dessert your mother makes and how I hate the word why and everything that has ever or could ever make us cry//we don't need to greet eachother or acknowledge who or what "us" is we just need to continue calling until one day we don't have to call because somehow, slowly, without either of us noticing, I'm in your arms and your heart//forever

Some day we'll see each other again and we'll dance and sing
and at last everything will be as it was supposed to be


-bcg// someday you and i will be again (its okay, i can wait)

"What you don't understand is that I could spend the rest of my life, listening to you tell me about your day."
-bcg (just one more thing to add to the list of why you should have chosen me)

“What I like most about relationships is hope. Hope for tomorrow. Hope for the future. Looking forward to every single day, looking forward to waking up and talking or falling asleep and dreaming of them.
Relationships are not just about living in the moment. They are not about looking into each others eyes and seeing love, but looking toward a future and seeing love. And it’s not that I don’t want a future with you, it’s that I can’t even see it.
When I close my eyes I imagine being with you, but only from our past. I want to see us in the future. I want to see us lying in bed next to eachother and laughing at the coffee with spilled on the new sheets. I want to see us making meals together and walking the dogs at twilight.
But all I can see, all I can think about, is every moment I’ve spent with you. Every moment I’ve been with you. Every glance, every smile, every touch, every kiss, every time you whispered my name as I pulled you closer.
My mind never drifts to tomorrow- like it should- it drifts to the past. And the worst part is I can’t tell you. If I ever told you about my inability to see a future I know what you would think. You would think that means I want to say goodbye. You’ll think that means I don’t want you to keep calling and your name to keep showing up on my screen.
I want you to give me a future. Give me a tomorrow. It doesn’t have to be much, just one little thing I can hold on to; that can poke a hole in the darkness in front of me. I look at you and part of me wants to cry because I can only see the past. I can only see the memories. I can’t see tomorrow. So just give me a few words so that I can be a little less sad and I can see a little more future.”

-bcg (an excerpt from the book I’ll never write)

I'm your first text in the morning
and your last text at night
but that doesn't mean I'm part of your life

We can keep talking forever
and be friends like its no big deal
but you can be brave for a little while
we could make this real
Baby we could make this real

Cause we could be lovers
and best friends
We could have it all
If you would just be brave for a little while

I've memorized your habits
and I like our fake fights
but that doesn't mean I'm part of your life

We don't have to keep this pg
If you just keep your eyes on me

and we could be lovers
and best friends
We could have it all
If you would just be brave for a little while

-bcg

Inappropriate men tend to think I'm an appropriate pursuit.

And a weak girl like me tends to just agree.

I wanted forever and I got a few more hours.
-bcg (some things aren't meant to be)

You're torturing me everytime we talk and you have no idea.