it's been a year.
It's been a year and I think about the torn-up pieces of paper I used to hide in your room with notes scribbled in purple pen. I wonder about the last letter I ever wrote you. I asked you to remember all the little things that made us—the simplicities of our routine, the days that were for us to know. I asked you to remember me, but it's been a year and I don't remember who she was. It makes me sad to miss the girl that was yours, the girl you used to love.
I wake up early now. I prefer French press coffee but still love the hazelnut creamer. Coffee mate is better than delight. I make my bed almost every morning and I'm a big fan of house slippers. I drink lots of water but I need lemon flavoring in it. I haven't bought milk in months. I study at the kitchen table and never use my desk, I have a house plant that I've kept alive. I still have those singing tourettes you always mocked me for, and no I haven't finished the books I said I would. I listen to podcasts, I'm learning more about myself daily. I have new friends that you've never met. My favorite song is from an artist I didn't get the chance to show you. My mom got married, and we're not as close anymore. My sister has a new boyfriend and he's moving in with us. I don't drink at home very often, but when I do it's always wine. I have lived alone for the past few months, and I've become well acquainted with myself. I love my space, I love my solitude. I still play that one song by the Manchester orchestra, and it still makes me think of you. I don't check your profile as much anymore, but I see you're happy and my heart smiles for you. I miss your dog and your backyard and your sister, but I've mastered the art of grieving. There's still love for you in this heart of mine. I still look for your face in the front window of every gray Honda Civic, your license plate is still memorized. I'm not the girl you met in 2018, I'm not the girl you lost last spring. There are parts of me that with you I couldn't show. There are parts of me you'll never get to know.

Thank God.

There are days that my head feels too heavy for my neck to carry. Days that I wish my thoughts had a mute button or I could scream loud enough for them to find their way out of my mind. The truth is the demons have made their beds here, they've hung their pictures on the wall and painted the walls grey. I think they're here to stay. They've been flooding the place too often lately and I've been meaning to stick an eviction notice on their door but got too busy trying to teach myself how to breathe underwater. I don't like asking for help, I'd rather stare at the people in the windows. What their life is like, I don't know. I still convince myself it's better than mine. I don't like admitting that the pain doesn't hurt anymore. Somedays I just feel it more than others. My screams are silent and my tears are dry when they stream down my face. No one hears a thing. No one see's a thing. I am the deer in headlights that refuses to move out of the way, but the car swerves around me every time. Death has invited me over for dinner and life gave me a curfew. I wish the blood on my wrists didn't stain the clothes of the people who love me. I just don't know how to live in this skin when being alive is killing me. When being alive is keeping them happy.
I don't think living is supposed to feel like hands around my neck. Maybe one day it won't be so hard to breathe.

We're sitting on a train heading north, you are in the seat facing mine. Your gaze is set out the window but your thumb continues to trace my fingers. I am staring at you- your eyes are tired and you're wearing that hat that covers up the hair you didn't have time to comb.  We have two hours till this train stops and I'm trying to take in every moment. Time has only ever ignored my whims for it to slow down when I'm with you. I watch the snow fall, I watch your hands, I feel your skin and I smell the air- a city scent...and pizza. I try to take in these moments because they seem to slip away far too quickly. Life has no mercy on young love; It will not sit still for us. The sun will set as quickly as it rises. Summer will turn to fall, Winter will turn to spring and through the passing of seasons, I promise to love you in a way that's so constant you won't ever dread the changes.
I have these dreams that I'm in a church dressed in white, your eyes are set on mine from the end of the aisle. The benches are filled with every version of myself that has ever loved you. They're all smiling because they knew this day would come from the moment I laid eyes on you from across the street that summer evening.  I never believed in love at first sight until I saw your smile for the first time. Faith came to me like a sinner walking into the arms of God. You saw me naked before ever taking my clothes off. You made love to the deepest parts of who I am and touched my heart in ways that left me shaken more than your hand between my thighs ever could. I fell in love with life the day you told me you could see yourself falling in love with me and I believed in forever the day you told me you did.
Here’s to forever,
I love you Dan.

I never understood what people meant when they say you can make a home out of a person.

I never understood what people meant when they say you can make a home out of a person until the day his smile began to look like the welcome mat to his eyes, and his fingers running through my hair felt like they've never belonged anywhere else.

I've written about love before him.  

I've written about hands on my skin and lips whispering the sweetest of words into my ear.
I've written about tongues that ran down my neck like honey.
I've written poems describing the motions of falling in love; comparing it to storms, and then comparing it to a summer day...

and then comparing it to pain.

I've written poems about April turning to June and winter turning to spring;
but I've never had a favorite poem of mine.
I've never had a favorite month or a favorite season or a favorite sound or even a place that felt like home. 

 But now I do.

We wake up to the sun slipping through the shades of his window; it's routine.
Time doesn't exist between him and I.
I turn to him, forcing my eyes open so they can trace the line of his jaw, the curvature of his lips, the frailness of his eyes slowly awakening to meet mine.
At this moment, I've found the one place that's home; and it isn't made of bricks and baseboards.
Home is curled hair, deep brown eyes, and a crooked smile.  Home is the hand that holds mine. Home is his voice when he tells me he loves me.

I thank July for bringing me love.

I'm thankful for the goosebumps he leaves on the surface of my skin. I thank the sound of his laugh for restoring the life in a part of me I thought was dying.
I've never written about love before him. I've written about hands that have touched me just to take parts of me with them when they leave. I've written about the motions of losing myself in someone who destroyed the most innocent pieces of me.
Love has never been so hopeful, so consistent, so pure.

This is my favorite poem. Home has soft eyes.

I keep trying to remember the way your lips tasted. Or how they felt brushing against mine while you breathed into me. I try to remember what your voice sounded like, the way you looked at me. I try to remember how your hands felt. My mind is making up for the nights I couldn't get you out of it because his face is starting to fill the spot in my memory where yours used to be. I can't recall the sound of your voice but I can feel his breath on my neck while his hands trace the grooves in my back and I'm starting to be okay with my conscience letting you go. My sheets are stained with a new scent, a spiced applewood mixed with drugstore hair gel and I can't help but bathe in it as it erases the smell of her skin on your mouth from the back of my mind. There's something different about you and him. He says he isn't going to leave with the kind of certainty that masks any sort of lie he could be hiding and the kind of desire that makes me forget to look for it. He touches me with a softness that reminds me that your hands were not meant for this body, a softness that comes from hands that will stay loyal to this skin.

At midnight there's a freight train that passes through the neighbouring town; its loud enough shake the windows of our room and wake me. At 12:03 you roll over, kiss the blade of my shoulder and pull me closer into your embrace. You are sleeping-  silent and easy. My eyes are wide, watching the shadows on the walls as the cars drive by, putting the thought of leaving on my mind but keeping me in the warmth of our sheets until I can figure out how to slip out from under your arm. It feels so natural resting there below my rib cage just above my belly button, so i'm asking myself why I'm so urged to escape the one place that feels familiar; the one place that feels warm. It's 12:07 and the wind chimes start singing outside our window, giving signal of the cold winter breeze that would chill me to the bone if I decide that tonight's the night I leave you. It always works this way, running away from heartache before it happens; dodging the pain before I feel it on this body that you worship. Trying to forget about the nights when I'd ask you why you do this and your response always being, "you're worth it". I've been left too many times to believe it's true so now it's my turn to walk out that door before you do and even though my hands are shaking beneath you, my heart is whispering that the time is now. I wish you could wake up and beg me to stay somehow, but your eyes are sealed and a part of me knows how you would feel if you woke to me shutting the door ever so quietly the way I'm used to.
Love isn't enough to keep me satisfied- it used to be when I was young and naive but my heart's been broken too many times by guys who've watched me helplessly cry yet sat there and denied that they're even hurting me. It's a road that I'm used to walking down. The sidewalks beginning to know the sound of me dragging my feet at a quarter past twelve while the moons getting ready to hear me yell "why am I ******* like this?". I wish I wasn't like this. But God put me together like a puzzle and I think he lost a piece during the process. I don't know if I have a purpose, and I don't know in which God I believe. But I've spent my whole life running- trying to find someone who feels like the missing part of me. It's 12:23. You weren't the missing part of me. I'll never get the chance to apologize and at 6:41 the sun will rise but I'm begging you baby please don't cry when you don't see me laying beside you. People like me are hurricanes and we come around and bring too much pain and trust me sometimes I feel insane for always running away from from soft kisses and a safe place. But even bomb shelters get destroyed. And maybe love isn't meant for someone like me, maybe I'm meant to live with this void in my chest ; I haven't figured it out yet. Just make the bed like you always do, then go out and find yourself someone who loves you in all the ways I didn't know how. A girl with pretty eyes and a soft voice who is strawberry sweet and recognizes that despite it all, your heart is still soft and you will still need love when the sun rises.

"you'll know it's real when it's a cure to your depression. You'll know it's real if your love for him overpowers your will to die"

I'm falling in love with you.

I'm sorry.

Please don't leave.

If I knew what I know now, then, I wouldn't hold the feeling of regret in my hands everytime someone spoke your name. I wouldn't have let you drive away without you knowing that you're leaving someone who loves you. If I knew what I know now, then, this feeling of "what if" would not be a soundtrack playing in the background every time I miss you. I shouldn't have to miss you, but I also couldn't have made you stay. Sometimes I wish that you would have shown me that you felt the same way.. but the smiles from across the room never lasted quite long enough. I wanted to tell you that night we sat on my mother's couch, but then I asked myself if I was ready to watch you leave and the answer was always no. I wanted to tell you when we sat on my porch and watched the cars drive by as the sun set over my little neighborhood. The birds would have heard it and the sun would have given its last drops of light to my words... but they stayed locked onto my tongue and never made their way out. If I knew what I know now then, I would have written you a letter instead.
The words I love you come bearing too much weight, I have never been strong enough to risk slipping them through my clenched teeth because I always thought you would respond with a goodbye. If I knew what I know now, then, I would shot a gun at my fear and let the words spill like honey onto my lips.

Maybe you would have kissed me and tasted it.

Do not touch me with fingers that have cupped my mouth trying to keep me silent.

I am burnt.

These days, I find myself in a constant battle between the things I love and the things I need to push away because they don't know how to properly love me back. You have always been one to turn my feelings into a noose I want to **** myself with. You have always made me hate myself for having a heart that pumps the ink I use to attempt writing suicide letters with after making art on my wrists for too long. These days, I find more hope in the thought of dying... more peace in the thought of a final breath. We both get a different kind of pleasure when I beg you to choke me between satin sheets; I am looking for a beautiful way to to make my heart stop. The day I realized I stopped loving you was the day you told me you didn't like who I was becoming; you couldn't love the monster that was growing inside me. I've become to exhausted to keep trying to push him out. Its his eyes you're looking into now. Its his lips you've been kissing. It's his words telling you that I can no longer try and focus on my future when I don't even see a tomorrow for myself. It's hard to convince people you're okay with being alive after they see you looking for all the high places...

I've given up on trying.

Please don't tell me there's a light at the end of the tunnel; I've been running in the dark for too long for you to convince me I'll ever find my way out of this **** place.
I've become numb to whatever's trying to destroy me, I just wish it wasn't taking so much time to get the job done.

I once carved poetry into your back with the nail of my pinky finger-  so that any girl who lays beside you can read the way I fell in love with your breathing after all the nights you found sleep before I did. Maybe they'll get a bitter taste in their mouth when they realize my love for you was not enough to make you stay.
You traced your fingertips on my skin as though I was simply a map that led to your pleasure. You sunk your teeth into my shoulders while pulling back on my hair because you were convinced that I couldn't feel anything; somehow its 3 years later and my eyes still read through our conversations searching between the lines for the reason you left.
You used to touch me as though your hand on my thigh was the key to my heart and my moans were the only ways of expressing my love to you but you'll never be able to read the poem on your back that says I could feel your heart beat on the mattress of my twin bed... its been three years and my sheets still smell like vacancy. My heart is collecting dust in the corners because no ones been in there since you decided it wasn't enough for you. I can't recall the rhythm of your heart and sometimes my lungs forget how to breath.
Its days like these I wish you were right about my inability to feel. But God knows there are more nerve endings in my heart than the place between my thighs and maybe if you wouldn't have ****** all the love out of me it wouldn't be as hard to see you go.
Its been three years.

I’ve never been good with goodbye’s
This one would hurt I knew
I don’t remember the date
When the finish line ran to you.
Your skin was softly dimming
Your grip was weakening too
I do remember the weather
When the finish line ran to you
The may flowers were blooming
The sun shined in the room
But I swear the floor caught every tear
When the finish line ran to you
Its like I could see Jesus
Smiling down at the view
He knew that you would see him
When the finish line ran to you
Midnight saw your last breath
So did the lit up moon
There was a celebration in heaven
When the finish line ran to you
So grandma I hope you hear me
Singing our old favourite tunes
I was still on the sidelines cheering you on
When the finish line ran to you.

the sky was pink

lost in bed, room 26

blue motel walls

silent narrow halls

soft music in the streets

my hands, your cheeks

soft sighs

angel eyes

maybe

t h i s

is

the

P a r a d i s e

i've been searching for

The apple never falls close enough to the tree.

"do you ever feel like maybe we're taking this whole life thing too seriously? Because I do. If I had the choice I'd be out somewhere west, living in a tree house with a dog and possibly a garden of some sort... I don't know, it seems like a crazy thought but I've always felt like this whole experience of life should be less cliche than it is. People take **** way too seriously and I just can't conform to it"

I laughed. Not a mocking "what are you even saying right now?" kind of laugh, but I couldn't help but be blown away by such a crazy thought. The moment was fitting; our backs leaning against the wooden fence that enclosed my yard, heads tilted up towards a sky decorated in bright yellow stars. It was nearly 3 am and the world was asleep around us. All there was to be heard was our breathing amid the silence and I could feel the heat from the smoke of my cigarette grazing against my fingertips.

"You have no idea how much my wanderlust tears at me"* I brought the cigarette up to my lips and breathed deep till my lungs were filled and exhaled slowly. "I just want to get out of this town. Move to B.C, meet new people. Feel something different; something other than this desire for a new perspective. Its almost like..." I paused "I want to be happy but I don't know what makes me happy yet, if that makes any sense"

He quickly turned to me, the kitchen light from inside spilling on his face so I could see the constellations of freckles on his cheeks the queer smile on his lips.
"I make you happy" he said mockingly

I smirked,"you make me feel an emotion that doesn't even have a name yet, happiness isn't complicated enough to describe it"

"You're so in love with me, its cute"
I couldn't see his smile but I could hear it. Suddenly it felt as though a curtain had been removed and I was center stage with the leading roll in a play that everyone wanted to see. I couldn't mess up my lines because I was making them up as I go and they weren't directed towards anybody but him. He was sitting in the middle row, with his eyes on mine, listening.
So I spoke. I turned my heart upside down and spilled words out of my mouth till everything I said fit so perfectly it didn't require an explanation.

I said;
"I am not in love with you. I am not in love with you. I am not in love with you. I know I sound like a record on repeat but you're a song and I  don't want your lyrics stuck in my head.
I love the way you're not religious but look up at the stars as though you can finally believe in something. I love the way you're selfless and undefined; like sometimes you die just to revive as something better than you were before. I love the way the earth doesn't feel so big when I'm with you, or that this whole life thing feels more like a two person game that we're so good at winning. I love the way you talk about your dreams in a way that you want to make them more than just dreams. I love the way you talk about plans as though you're already pulling them out of your head and getting started. I love the way you perceive the day as an agenda that needs constant filling. I love the way you look when you're passionate and inspired, or the way you get goosebumps along the surface of your skin when you talk about summer. I've never wanted anything more than to lay outside with you at night and hear you speak so I can experience your mind. No I am not in love with you and no it's not cute. But your presence puts me at ease, almost like I could be on the other side of the world with you and never feel home sick. I told you before that there's no name for the emotion I feel when I'm with you, but whatever it is I never want to stop feeling it."

There's nothing I would rather be than the one you call home.

my poetry is empty
I need to fill these lines with the world around me. The snow melting in my hands, the rain racing down the sleeves of my jacket, the wind brushing my hair. I need to fill my poetry with the purest of things. I have been writing polluted poetry. Fake love, fake loss, fake feelings towards people who no longer exist. I have learned that the way I exist and the way I write are what will keep me alive on paper long after I am gone. Immortal poetry. Poetry that can't help but be unconfined. Poetry that can make you question if what you feel is what you feel and if the way you think of yourself is real and if any of this is even worth writing about, I don't know but I'm gonna do it anyways. My heart is pumping the keys of violins, my veins are filled with lyrics that I can't quite understand but I'll keep singing them.  There's something soft about listening, there's something soothing about the ending of a song. There's something about how I used to write poetry that seems so wrong and I'm not gonna erase it but I wish I could go back and make a couple of edits in the ways I talked about love as though it's something my heart has ever truly felt before. This poem isn't going to be about anyone else rather than myself. This poem is going to be that old book that sits on the book shelf that no one reads anymore, but everytime they see it they think "God I used to love that" and maybe one day they'll look back and miss the smell of the pages. This poem doesn't have any sort of secret message so stop dissecting the phrases. Stop wondering "why did the poet use the violin instead of another instrument?" Stop analyzing it and maybe you'll hear a song playing in your head as you read it. This poem is raw, it's what's seeping from the tips of my fingers and for that I think it's quite beautiful. When do we ever let anything spill for long enough to see that maybe the puddle could turn into art? Who had the audacity to call some plants flowers and others weeds? Who gave them the right to decide what was beautiful and what wasn't?  Don't try to tell me that this is how it's meant to be, because in poetry there's no guidelines. There's no wrong words and there's no wrong lines. There's just me - and you. And thoughts, and spills and weeds and flowers and love and things I've never felt and I hope one day as you pass by that book on the shelf, you pick it up and read it. I hope one day you remember why you always kept it. I hope the front cover feels glad to have felt your finger tips. I know I did.

I hope every cigarette you place between your lips knows how lucky it is to be there,
I hope every bottle you grab a hold of falls in love with the warmth of your finger tips; I know I did.

You told me you didn't like the way I stared for so long at sunsets. Almost as though you didn't want me to fall in love with something that was leaving. What you never considered was that the most comforting thing about watching it leave was the knowing that it would come back even more beautifully at dawn. You told me you didn't like the way my cheeks shook when I laughed, so I began laughing less passionately. You told me you didn't like the way I bit my bottom lip when I was deep in thought, so I stopped getting lost in my own head. You told me you didn't like the way I whistled while making the bed in the morning, so my morning tune got silenced. You told me, you didn't like the way my voice shook when I told you how much I love you. So I began saying less often. I did all this, to make you love me more. I did all this because I wanted to be the reason that you didn't leave; I know you've spent your whole life running. I wanted to be the home you couldn't find yourself getting away from. I was clay in your hands and you moulded me into everything that I've never been. I wish I would have been enough for you to come home to. I wish that my kiss felt as welcoming as the front door mat. I wanted to be everything that I'm not for you, but I just needed you to keep me.

Fire.
Fire in my eyes when I look into the spark ignited in yours.
The smoke, heavy breathing
coughing, trying to catch my breath
Hot, sweaty, my fingers on your skin. Bare skin. Soft skin.
Your hands in my hair. Long hair, rough tugs.
Shaking legs, wrinkled sheets, tight grips on old headboards
And this is it. Heat, heat, slowly getting hotter. Passion becoming more than just a word.
Lust becoming more than a thought.
You and me in this wild, uncontrollable
Fire.

I wish my heart had a hand
It could write about feelings I don’t understand
If you asked me how I felt, Id know what to say
I wish my heart had a hand.

I wish my heart had a voice.
when I’m with you it’d be the most beautiful noise
that speaks when I can’t find what to say
I wish my heart had a voice.

I wish my heart had a shield
Against a love that’s just weeds in a floral field
A love that dies at the end of the day
I wish my heart had a shield.

I wish my heart had a door
So I couldn’t let strangers in anymore
That leave scars in this fragile place
I wish my heart had a door.

I wish my heart had a sign
It could warn me about the lies in your lines
So that at the end of the day I’m not torn
I wish my heart had a sign.

These past nights I've been waking up from nightmares to the wind howling against my window; it's almost as though it's begging me to let it in so that it can whisper in my ears not to miss you. That's all I know how to do these days, other than search for the man on the moon and ask him how he copes with the loneliness. But even the moon reminds me of you; there's something about the glow that makes me think of your smile. The craters that remind me of the dimples in your cheeks. I wish I could tell you how much I miss you. But I can't make words out of this ache in my chest and I wish you were feeling this too so that I could know that at least my love was strong enough to make you feel something other than regret.

I'm in the mood to write, though about I do not know.
Words have weighed down on my tongue, I need to let them go.
I'm in the mood to write, though I don't know what to say.
These thoughts are trapped inside my hands, I want to throw them away.
I'm in the mood to write, but I don't know how I feel.
Sometimes it's happy, at times it's sad but I don't know which is real.
I'm in the mood to write, but the page is remaining blank.
I can't control my emotions anymore, for that I have you to thank.
I'm looking out at the city, the streets are quiet tonight. Maybe it's the brightness of the sky but I'm in the mood to write.

My biggest fear
Is that I'll wake up in 10 years
And still miss you

I'm sorry I can't get anything out of my mouth without it sounding like I'm sorry. Even my "I love you"'s sound like apologies when I'm trying to confess it as though the feeling hasn't been rotting inside my chest for the past few months. I'm sorry that the welcome mat looks like an entry prohibited sign, I promise if you squint your eyes enough it looks a little more inviting. I'm sorry I'm always the first one out of bed in the morning, I've never been good at making people feel like I'm going to stay and I'm not going to allow you to get used to me in the sheets with you. I'm sorry that I flinch when you don't pour enough ***** in my glass, but I'd rather be numb by the last sip than the third serving. I'm sorry if I keep cutting the conversation short, your voice reminds me of him and it rings in my ears like the sound of someone telling you they don't want you anymore; and well, that's what he did. I'm sorry the bag under my eyes keep revealing my lack of sleep, but I've never been good at being alone in the dark and it's hard for me to find the courage and ask you to stay the night. I'm sorry I keep saying I'm sorry; I've  been weighed down with guilt for every pain I've ever felt and I'm just hoping that maybe you'll see why I write poems that can't be read out loud.

I don't know how to tell you that I have found the love of my life in the corner of my hospital bedroom. He stands patiently. Watches me eager. Feeding me his hand-me-down depression. He could make me feel at home in a roofless shelter, make this rain feel like soft kisses along my skin, he could make razor blades feel like feathers. I have never known the true definition of flirting until seeing the hunger for my soul in his eyes. I don't know how else to tell you that I've found the love of my life. All I can say is that death has been begging me to stay the night, I've been choking on apologies. These days he's the only one who knows how to hold me.

There's something about the time of year when the leaves start to fall that makes my eyes go from clear blue to stained glass. Something about morning breath that makes me wish I could stop breathing until I remember that no one will love me even if I'm under a headstone. There's something about the wind, something about a whisper that sounds like it's begging me to leave; but when I fear the power of gravity after I tie the rope, I feel like death is trying to tell me I'm not ready yet. There's something about the frost bite on my hands that has me wishing there was something more for my empty palms to grab hold onto. Something about the way the cold makes my lips tremble and my voice crack, but no one hears a **** thing. Something about the way I'm looking for eyes to melt in and restore the life in mine. There's something about the way the doormat makes me feel anything but welcome and how the slammed door yells at me that I should of never come in. Something about winter and the absence of you, makes me feel like I wasn't meant to see December.

I've never wanted someone so much it felt like all I was ever doing was wait for them. There's always a designated area, always an assigned seat, always a reserved table. I still don't know what my boundaries are to loving you, but so far you've taken up my entire train of thought. The cart that was filled with my sanity is filled with the thought of wanting you; and I'm starting to lose my mind. I have no control over the route of these copper tracks. I don't know when I'm expecting to find myself laying beside these rails wishing things would have gone a different way. There's no heads or tails in the gamble of love. I've put my heart on the table, waiting to see what you're willing to lose and it won't be as much as I'm willing to give; but that's just my luck. I'm never the one who walks out with the better end of the bargain, I just want something to be mine. The something being you, the mine being me. Together in a game that I can make easy to play. A train ride that lasts long enough for us to be able to pinch ourselves and it still be real. A reserved area that no one gets the power of overtaking. I'm in for the long shot, I'm willing to risk it. Just come down to the station and and buy a one way ticket.

They all talk about loving with all their heart as though it's enough to contain the way their whole body feels. I love you with everything that I am; every good morning, every goodnight.  I love you with the scars and birthmarks that make home on the surface of my skin. I love you with everytime the corners of my mouth can't help but turn upward and my hands can't help but pinch my legs to make sure all of this is real. I love you with every finger that grips onto your shirt when we kiss, I love you with every kiss I plant on your neck when we drown ourselves in bottles of alcohol and get high on each others laughter. I love you, I love you, I love you. I never want to stop loving you. I've never felt anything like this before, and if you leave; I fear I'll never feel anything again.

...and it's after having looked into your eyes that I can say I've drowned in the ocean without stepping foot into water

When I was 15 I told my mom I couldn't go to school because my heart hurt.
She brought me to the doctor.
I couldn't find the courage to tell him the pain lives in the place where you used to be.
I had no courage to diagnose it as chronic.

I've always thought that I would be the one to write my own eulogy and keep it hidden in the back of my drawer so that when you see my name in the obituaries you won't need to worry about having to pretend you care. I'll write my eulogy for you. I'll talk about all the things you wished you could of told me before you ran off without warning, I'll write about how my love was a state of mind and all you wanted to do was blow your head off. I'll write about how you never really knew how to love me because all your life you were taught about the birds and the bees and never learnt about the significance of butterflies till everything you loved finally became everything you lost. I'll write my eulogy for you, I'll write about how the walls you built to shut me out we're decorated with us in picture frames, and no alcohol could consume you enough and give you a motive to take them down. I'll write about how maybe you thought the timing was wrong, the place was wrong, the motives were wrong but how you have never experienced a love so right. And maybe I wasn't always your cup of tea but I can bet anything that after the tenth shot of ***** your body was numb and your skin craved my fingers enough that you settled for the girl in your bed who's name, to this day you still don't know. I'll write my eulogy for you, I'll write about how for the past eight years you watched the sunset and talked to me from a different rooftop. And that even when it set it took you a while to get up and go to bed because you missed the feeling of watching me waiting in your sheets. I'll write my eulogy for you. I'll write about how you're sorry. Because the only thing different about you and a setting sun, is that the sun always came back.

I have been looking for poetry. I have been emptying drawers in search for metaphors to describe words too beautiful to roll off my tongue. I have been chocking on ways to explain this feeling in my chest and no
simile or imagery will settle because the result is always less than what I need to say. I searched under my bed this morning, I'm looking for a poem that would have convinced you to stay; a poem composed of concrete that would of kept your shoes planted here so that when the night broke to day I wouldn't of had to wake up alone. Alone in this house where picture frames of our love are hung on the wall and the carpet is stained with purple spots from that one time you made me laugh so hard and spill my wine all over it. Let me assure you I never tried to get the stains out, they were just as precious as a letter that I wrote you that never got mailed out because we shared the same mail box. And as long as I knew your address as though it was my own that's when I'd be sure that wherever I am; I'm home. I have been looking for poetry. I wrote you a letter and I placed it in our mailbox because I know you love when people write to you. I know you love the look of my handwriting when it's a message written to your name. I wrote you a letter telling you that I've never enjoyed a sunrise more than when the rays kiss our hardwood floor while we're dancing in the kitchen. I've never enjoyed a sunset more than when we're laying on the grass near that one tree and the crickets sound like they're urging us to kiss. I have been looking for poetry, and there's not one place in going to miss; I'm looking everywhere. I checked under the bathroom sink this morning where we stored those candles that burned the one night we got a bit too close, shut the windows and found ourself laying in bed running fingers along the inches of each other skin like blind men reading braille. I found poetry in the small of your back. The words wrapped themselves around your spine and made their way up to your carved shoulders. I don't think I had ever read anything more beautiful. It was as though our bedroom was a place of worship; and it's always Sunday morning. I don't want to bow my head because I'm too busy reading the prayer written in your eyes.
I'm looking for poetry. I'm not gonna stop looking for it because none of them are satisfying. I'm trying to find the poem the door mat and the porch steps wrote on the day you left. The day they wrote about the silence of your breath. And the delicacy of your steps as you ran away. The one about the cracked door you left open and the breeze that made its way upstairs and whispered the goodbye you couldn't find the courage to say.
I keep writing you letters. But they always find themselves in the mailbox by the end of the week. And I wish I'd find it in myself to accept the fact that our address is different now. Everything is different now. They say insanity is doing the same thing again and again, expecting a different result. Well I must be insane because I keep looking for the poem that tells me you leaving wasn't my fault. I'm waking up shaking in our place of worship and I'm hoping that maybe, just maybe it's God gripping me by the shoulders screaming "You are loved, you are loved, you are loved!"

I was driving down an old road this morning, one hand clenched to the handle of a porcelain coffee cup, one hand clenched to the wheel; digging my nails into the rubber. I've always hated driving, it was always a better place to be sitting in the passenger seat, your hand enfolded in mine. Im rolling through stop signs hoping maybe a car will hit their brakes a moment too late. Each road line painted a bright yellow, the kind that reminded me of a sun we used to watch rise off the balcony of our house. I didn't want to think about it too much, it would of brought me back to a better time and place than now but they always told me to keep my eyes on the road. It was easy to do until I passed by this field of yellow daisies, the kind that were printed on the spring sheets we'd wrap ourselves in on the mornings that rain kissed the roof. The kind that decorated the church on the day that I made a promise on forever. A forever that should of lasted longer than sickness can control.
The golden sun grazed it's rays over the old barn where we once sat in hay bails and counted constellations. The rays were blinding, but so was the memory that lit up with them. The yellow dress your mother wore on the day we lay you down 6 feet too deep. The day a rock became your welcome mat. The day I couldn't find the right way to say goodbye.
I was driving this morning. I'm laying in a hospital bed now. I'm sorry that the yellow lights of that truck drew me in. Somehow I saw you smiling at me through them. As I lay on the pavement in pools of red, the yellow lines of the road by my side, heartbeat coming down till all I can hear is the softness of your voice; I finally felt like maybe this is the only way home.

It hasn't rained this hard in months, the window is tasting the wrath of the sky and I am laying, clothed in empty. Have you ever felt the weight of lids against your eyes? It's almost like the closing of the curtain after a play that should have never ended. I guess that's how I feel tonight. It's the first time that the tremble of lightning shakes the house and I don't miss you. It's the first time that the thoughts inside my head are being drown out by rain. Maybe this is why there are storms, maybe everyone is a little empty. I've always loved the roaring of thunder; I never loved you.

At some point, we all reach happiness.
We all get there in different paces.
I've been working on my strides,
but baby wait for me at the finish line.

I want to form cities on my tongue, built up with all the beautiful things I've never said to you. The people would be clothed in white, and the skyscrapers would kiss my palette. I would take you to sit on the park benches, where fingernails have indented the wood and first kiss dates were carved into the backrest. I would walk you down the sidewalk, made up of all the unspoken "I miss you's" and let you pick flowers that have bloomed in the cracks between the pavement. I would show you the beauty in the darkness of empty alleyways, I would hold your hand on the edge of the tallest bridge. I would kiss you in front of the world, and shout my love for you into the void.
There are so many words you have never heard. So many times my lips have articulated "I love you" but never followed with a sound to resonate it. Maybe that's why we're not in the city. Maybe that's why you're at the other end of the room starring at walls, waiting for them to cave in and fill the silence. We always wanted more than this, but I have this fear of leaving and you have a fear of losing what was never yours. I hope I can show you the city someday, maybe you'll see my love for you clearly under bright lights. But until then, I'm trying to find it in me to get my tongue untied.

Growing up, every time I asked "How do you know if you're in love?" they always told me "When you're in love, you'll just know; but you don't have to worry about that now."

Well, I'm grown up now. I can answer my own question now. The truth is, you never really know. I have felt flowers bloom inside my heart while in the presence of some people, as though they were the soil, and the water, and the sun. I have felt every inch of my skin ache to be touched in the presence of some people, as though there fingers were the remedy. My stare has never been able to be pulled away from certain faces, I have drowned in the colors of eyes. I have laid watching the moon while the grasshoppers urged us to introduce lips. I have been held in the arms where I have felt safe from all harm, I have sang 'I love you' in the most beautiful keys. I have filled empty houses with the echos of each heartbeat.
But my answer is this;
I've been in the presence of so much. I have heard words that made my heart melt inside my chest and I have held hands that never wanted to let go. Love has visited me so many times, but I have never felt it more than when the grasshoppers stopped singing, the flowers quit blooming, and my heart started to break.
How do you know if you're in love?

You'll know when it leaves you.

Stay
I begged you
Till the words evaporated from my mouth
and the walls started to bleed
you told me that you wanted space,
and I would have given you the entire universe
but you were already gone
before I could say;
Stay.

You tipped me over. I spilled my words into your hands, they filled the creases in your palms and the spaces between your fingers. You held them as though they were malleable, crushed them with strength and shook them off as though they were something ***** that you couldn't get rid of. I still remember the night I found you trying to pick up the pieces, looking for the hidden message behind what I tried to tell you. Your knuckles ******, your face dripping with sweat, your eyes clothed in desperation. You replaced the heart on your sleeve with a broken one. You never gave me the parts of you that didn't need fixing. I wish you stopped blaming me for being the reason you're still filled with apathy, I wish you would of realized that I spent all this time looking for the right way to tell you I'm not what you're looking for. I wish everything I said was enough for you to leave, I wish my hands were strong enough to push you away. We both know that you're stronger than me; but I hope you wake up one day and realize I stopped loving you before you started. I hope one day you can wash your hands clean ; I hope you realize I never wanted to be the one weighing you down.

Suddenly, the world went numb. All the pain, the worry, the apathy, the carefulness; it all went away. There was no sound, no hum, no white noise. The light stopped flickering; the curtains stopped dancing with the breeze blowing through the window. All I felt were your hands.
Slowly and softly making their way down my shoulders, tracing my skin like fingers exploiting a map. Gently feeling the goose-bumps form along the surface of my arms, and gently intertwining your fingers with mine.
I could have closed my eyes. I could have convinced myself that your love for me ran deeper than this. The truth is, this was the foreplay before the passionate goodbye. This was you staining your pigment onto my skin.

“Stop. This can’t be your goodbye. You can’t leave me like this”

You stopped. You looked into my eyes; the same eyes I looked into so many times before. As though you had it all planned out, you brushed my shoulders with your lips and whispered in a way that still forms goose bumps along my thighs;

“I have been looking for ways to show you I love you.
Now all I can do is leave”

I still remember the day you stopped loving me

I woke up to open windows, rain spilling onto the window sill.

I wish it didn't end like this

but its still raining

and I'm still wrapped in these sheets

waiting for myself to drown.

I still remember the first time you brought your lips to my neck. I remember looking in the mirror the next morning for a hickey, but instead I found her name stained to my skin in purple ink. I always wondered why you  kept your eyes closed when we would pull away from a kiss; but now I think it's because it's the only way you can hold onto her memory for a little longer. She made her way into my head, under my skin and into my bed just by being the only thing on your mind. I've touched every part of your body but I cannot manage to clean away the prints of her hands. The first night I heard her name in between your breaths when you were sleeping showed that your closed eyes are the only thing keeping you with her. It's the only way you can hold her hand. You're at one end of the room and she's at the other, but there's something there that's blocking contact. Something that's keeping you from reaching out, paralyzing you not to call her name. They always ask me why I stay. Why I keep looking into your eyes when you don't look into mine unless there's a glimpse of green surfacing them. I guess it's because I keep falling asleep to my own bedtime story. The story where my body is the one you want to kiss. Where you can read my goosebumps like braille. Where you drown in the blue of my eyes. They say insanity is repeating the same thing and expecting a different result. Well baby I must be insane because I keep falling asleep to this story, but every morning I wake up alone.

"...But truthfully I'd rather stare at your hands. I enjoy how they never shake the way mine do as though I've been carrying an object as heavy as my heart for too long; but they're always empty. I enjoy the way you wrap them around pencils, and coffee cups with a tight grip. I like the way you make it seem like you don't let go very easily. I used to rest in weak hands. I used to slip through the fingers of people who shook me off while I held on as though my life depended on them. I think the problem with the way I live is that I often never give myself the satisfaction of controlling whats mine. I'm not strong enough to make anyone stay. I'm not good enough for them to ever want to. I've lived with this reality making home in my mind but there's something about the way you looked at me this morning; kind of the way an artist looks at a finished canvas in total awe. Maybe that was the moment that I realized that I should probably stop staring at your hands and make love to your eyes. The way the light up as though you've been swallowing lightning bugs. The way you never hesitate to let them linger. The way their blue reminds me of the walls of my grandmas house that was built up with hands that look just like yours. I like the way you stare even when your blood isn't laced with alcohol. Almost as though I'm the painting that no matter how long you look at it; it still remains beautiful. The truth is, my walls are covered in love letters and poems written for someone I never knew... that was until I met you."

They all talk of being born with skin of glass. I live with flesh of stones; no mortar holding together my pieces. One harsh touch to crumbling down into a pile of debris like houses after disaster. Houses that home the bodies of the forgotten. Houses of the people I used to love in a time when  love was something I was capable of doing. A time when blood ran through the veins that are now tangled grape vines. When the boulder in my chest once held the names of people whose lips I've once kissed. I am no longer able to hold people without them being a part of me. Whose heart was made into solid rock and built me. I am made of everyone I have broken. I remember you visited me last year, laying flowers at my feet. Crying, begging me to hold you. Begging me to take the pain away. You traced the lines of my composure, you rested your head against my solid chest. The chest that doesn't contain the resonation of a beating heart. I wanted to tell you I am sorry. I'm sorry for keeping them from you, I'm sorry that their names are etched into me. I'm sorry for being the only reminder of the ones whose absence you feared. I still remember the day the carved each death date into my side, It didn't hurt. Nothing hurts other than seeing your tears that shower onto the flowers that bring beauty to the darkness I am made of. Maybe I'll become numb someday... maybe it'll be the day they carve your death date into my surface; maybe death will look a little more beautiful.

In all honesty I've never been good with words. I never knew what to respond after the doctor would ask me what hurt, or what to tell my mother after I saw her cry when my dad left. Poetry is placing words in all the wrong places in order to build something right. Poetry is taking apart the puzzle and forcing the pieces into spaces they don't fit. I tried to write you a letter to tell you that I miss you, the problem with poetry is that there's no metaphor that makes this emptiness inside my chest any more beautiful. There's no personification real enough to make my sheets feel like you're laying in them. There's no simile literal enough to make my heart feel as though its healing. I wish I could place these words on my tongue and roll them out for you to hear, but since I've last kissed you I can't even find the motivation to part my lips. I always find myself questioning why I keep writing; because the problem with my poems is that you're never the one reading them.