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

I promise you a love that never dies. A love as real as a rose freshly blooming in the spring, a love that stays as beautiful as the fake bouquet in the window pane of your mother’s kitchen.
I promise you minimal space between our skin, I promise you undying sparks when our lips enfold like pages of romance novels.
I promise a smile that medicates to the pain you feel in your heart, I promise eyes that can identify where your suffering is making home.
I promise words as powerful as eviction notices on the door of your mind, I promise to never stop rolling them off my tongue until the demons make their way out.
I promise to open the curtains just enough for the rays of the morning sun to kiss your bare back. I promise to close them at night and hold you till you feel comfortable in the silence and darkness.
I promise to whisper my love into your ears so you can always fall asleep to the sound of truth.
I promise you days where we stay inside and listen to the rain slide down the glass windows. I promise to stay when the ground dries up. I promise to never make you feel the way your father did, I promise to always remind you that your worth is amplified in my eyes.
I promise so many things, but mainly to love as though it’s the only thing I am capable of doing.
I promise to love you till our skin cracks and our bones turn to dust. I promise to love you when the singing of church bells marks our departure.
I promise to love you when our home changes from brick walls, to mounds of soil.
I promise to love you as long as I am alive and ever after.

The smell of death seeps through the cracks of locked doors where you hide the side of yourself that you never let me see. I keep having search parties for the key but I've finally convinced myself that you buried it along with all the other hearts you've broken. The blood stains on the ceiling are reminders that in some cases the last place I want to go is up, and laying breathless at the bottom of a lake is a better way to drown out the sound of “I love you” seeping through your clenched teeth.
When I was 10 years old I first heard the word ‘anesthesia’ come from the mouth of my best friend whose mother died a year before, and she told me that it meant she was numb to everything. Nothing could make her feel anything which is probably why she danced with death and there were rope burns around her neck as she lay in a casket 3 years later.
It escaped my mouth for the first time yesterday when I saw you walking towards me with a smile on your face and a gun in your hand and the realization hit me before the bullet did; sometimes the side that is hidden from us is the side we’re trying to escape from. But my fear of death subsides every time I stand before you, why else do you think I ever let your mouth meet mine? The consequence is just as dangerous. You’re just as poisonous. There’s no way to escape this.
I find myself standing in the middle of busy streets where cars hit me but I don’t die. I find myself waiting for the train, but never at the station. I find myself in places and I can’t remember how I got there but death always looks me hungrily in the eye and loses its appetite as soon as it gets close enough to take my breath away.
I want to quit breathing, but I don’t. This feeling is so strong yet contradicting. So powerful yet, so nonchalant. It was last night as I lay on a bed with sheets covered in my blood that I came to a conclusion...death is my anesthetic, and you've been giving it to me in doses.

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.

Open books with black covers containing stories never good enough to be read, words never long enough to contain the fragment of a thought. Maybe that's why I turn to putting my own in the complexity of poems, maybe that's why I'm never satisfied because I can never say what I mean. Sometimes I don't think you know what I mean, so if you haven't been able to read the between the lines; I miss you. I've been looking for so many ways to say it but none of them have been enough to make you come back. The thing about poetry is its never enough to make you feel the way I do. It'll never make you realize that ink seeps out of my pens with the purpose to make you feel something; but it never does. The thing about poetry is that you need to be empty to write it and that's why I learnt how to after you left. The shut door opened a new one which was the will to write about all the broken pieces of myself. The thing about poetry is it requires to see life through the eyes of things unspoken. Little do most know that mirrors and picture frames can speak novels of things forgotten which is me to you. The thing about poetry, is that I'm running out of things to say. I'm running out of words to spray on city walls, or carve in the wood of dying trees. The thing about poetry is that this isn't it. This is the goodbye, good luck. I have nothing more to bleed out for you, my mind is turning to dust. This is the last "I love you" I have left to write about, this is extended hands with empty palms.
This is the apology. It's me trying to feel something more than what I do, and as hard as I try to get there, I can swear that in nights of deafening silence I can still hear the sky screaming out your name.

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

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.

I hope you believe me when my I tell you my body is composed of more than a skin and bone frame.
My body is a picture book of times stained to me like tattoos of memories unable to be washed off.
If you stare closely enough my purple knuckles tell a story of walls caving in on days I can't remember.
My fingers are a light shade of skin because they have traced bodies who's pigment fell in love with my hands.
My palms are empty from receiving and giving a little more than I should of let go; some things I should of clutched onto for longer.
My arms are made of clenched embrace and have a scent of regret laced from wrist to elbow.
My shoulders hold individual carvings of finger nails and teeth marks from more than one individual night.
My lips are a discolored red from every poison stained mouth in which they've met.
My neck is a canvas of rough hands, ropes not tied tight enough and purple stains of affection from those who have lied about loving me,
and my eyes have turned grey from staring for too long into the forests and oceans they've met at three in the morning in the caves of unfamiliar faces.
So if you happen to walk into my room, don't be alarmed by the smell of apathy. Don't concern yourself about the bottles buried and broken under mounds of clothes that reek of Marlboros. Don't turn the light on, and don't open the curtains.
I have lived long enough, my body will tell you the story.
But before you read it, please trust me when I say "there is more to me than this."

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”

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.

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.

"...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."

Its 12:46 and I'm wondering if she's the one you're staying up late for. Does she fill your stomach with butterflies, like I did? Does her name sound so sweet it melts in your mouth when you say it? Does she graze your skin with her fingertips, like I did? Does the taste of her mouth get you drunk? Does she stare into your green eyes and melt into them, like I did? Does she point out when your lower lip trembles? Does she curl her fingers into yours, like I did? Do they fit just as perfectly? Does she kiss you deeply in the morning as she does in the night, like I did? Do her hips fit perfectly in your hands? Does she tell you how much you mean to her, like I did? Do you hesitate before saying it back? Does she smile at you from a distance, like I did? Does she bring you laughter even when she's gone? Does she love you as much as I did? Do you love her as you loved me?
Or did you never love me to begin with?...

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.

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.

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.

I couldn't wait for the day the sun didn't feel like it was trying to burn me, or for the day the rain wasn't trying to fill my lungs. I couldn't wait for the day the highway wouldn't sound like it's calling me to play with it, or the day sidewalks quit threatening to swallow me whole. There was something about the way my fear of love made the words wrap themselves around my vocal cords. I'm sorry I've never been able to get those three words out without sounding like I'm going to choke. I couldn't wait for the day my love for you didn't feel like a consequence or for the day I could convince myself that what you felt for me was real. The truth is I'm not used to people staying longer than I'm able to hold myself back from pushing them away. I got in the habit of writing my love to you on the parts of my skin that I'd never let you see, so that tearing off my clothes would be the easiest way to show you how I feel. My veins are filling with ink now, a mix of red and blue filled with words left unsaid. Some nights I talk to the walls, some nights they tell me about where your knuckles made dents when I'd whisper in my sleep about leaving you; I never really thought you'd be the first one out the door. Loving you was making excuses. Loving you was throwing diamonds in wishing wells, knowing my hope wasn't worth the price. Sometimes when the highway calls me, sometimes when the sidewalks threaten to swallow me whole, sometimes when the rain fills my lungs with water;  letting you go looks a lot like the final death of me.

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.

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.

You know its love when the ring of your doorbell sounds like a melody after his fingers push it, when he's already inside before you get to the door. You know it's love when your welcome mat looks more appealing with his ***** shoes on it and when hello is on the tip of your tongue but his is already in your mouth. It's love when you prefer to see yourself in his eyes than any other revealing glass. It's love when when your favorite song is the sound of his humming when he's deep in focus, and you can't pull your eyes away from his pouted lip when he's lost in thought. When you enjoy the way his hands neatly wrap around his fork, the way his jaw moves when he speaks or chews, the way he pours his coffee. You know it's love when he stares at you just as long with your clothes on as he does when they're off. When he says he's in love with your thoughts more than he's in love with your skin. When the silence is full, when you aspire to love yourself the way he does.
.
.
.
You know its over when the doorbell stops ringing. When his shoes and your welcome mat are no longer familiar with each other. It's over when his hand never meets with your doorknob and when 'I love you' is on the tip of your tongue but his is already in someone else's mouth. Its over when you can't see yourself in his eyes because he never makes contact with yours. It's over when you start reminiscing, when you start  gazing at walls for hours, when you start touching the skin of everyone you meet trying to remember the way he felt. You know its over when your thoughts stay bottled up because he's no longer there to spill them to. You know its over when you no longer appreciate the smell of coffee because it reminds you of the way he poured it. It's over when you wake up in strangers bed trying to get him out of your mind. It's over when you realize that the love you shared is one that you'll ever be able to find

I guess this is as real as it gets.
I stared at this blank page for a while trying to figure out how I wanted to express myself to you.
The easiest way to get my thoughts flowing was playing that Hedley song you once sang to me while we layed together on the black couch in my living room.
That couch isnt there anymore. Neither are you.
But it's that moment sits in my mind as though someone etched it there permanently and I can time travel back to that moment as soon as I hear the piano playing.
I remember how funny it was that you couldn't sing. But at the same time it was amazing that you remembered every lyric to that song and looked me in the eyes as if you meant every single word.
Ironic isn't it how it had to do with not letting me go.
Ironic that even if it sounded crazy, you were gone 2 months later.
I guess I should of seen your lose grip on my hands as a warning sign that you weren't staying,
I wasn't enough to make you stay and I guess that's why 6 months later I still lay in bed blaming myself.
They say if you love someone let them go and that seems like the most rediculous thing to me because I loved you more than I've ever loved anyone and watching you leave was just as hard as standing unarmed in the middle of a shooting range.
As pathetic as it is, I just want you to know. I want you to know how much I hate you for hurting me the way you did.
I hate you for consuming my thoughts everyday. I hate you for thinking its okay to make me fall so deeply and just leave as though I was nothing; as though we were nothing.
Ending a poem is probably the hardest part. I don't know how I want to leave you feeling.
I'll just say this; if love is what we had, then I want nothing to do with it because someone that loves you shouldn't be able to leave you feeling torn in the middle of the night, they shouldn't leave you wondering what they did wrong in order to not be enough for you. I shouldn't feel like love is something that isn't meant for me, and that's how I feel every ******* day.

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 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.

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.

I wonder if your mom was only sipping out the last drips from the bottle, to keep it away from the angry hands of your father.
I wonder if she slams the door as well, just to save him the trouble.
I wonder if she yells at the walls and buries her head where they meet, just so that he knows he isn't alone.
I wonder if she harms her own skin just so he doesn't have to.
I wonder if she tells herself she's worthless so he can save his breath.
I wonder if everyday, she breaks herself down so that he can feel like he's at least better than someone.
I ask myself often what you learnt from living in a house built up of dented walls and liquor stained floors.
I try to convince myself that you managed to build your own shelter, that you're different than them.
When you yell, I try to believe that you're just letting the sounds of your childhood escape your head.
When you punch the walls, I try to convince myself that your trying to make this new home a little more familiar.
When you bruise my skin I try to convince myself its because you don't want me to do it for you.
When you trip on your way up the stairs because of the alcohol in your veins I try to convince myself its because you don't like the way a full bottle looks on the kitchen counter.
When you turn away from me, I try to convince myself its because your scared to let me see you cry.
And after all this, when you tell me you love me; I try to convince myself that you really do.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Loving you was mistaking a welcome mat for an eviction notice and never knowing where to turn. It was stepping into empty rooms with white walls and never feeling more at home. Legend always had it that if you stare into broken mirrors you risk seeing yourself dead, loving you was staring into your eyes and getting the same result. My mother always told me that evil can disguise itself into everything you've ever wanted, I finally understood what she meant when I would watch you fall asleep and start calling out someone else's name. Sometimes I still hear your voice resonating off the walls and it sounds a lot like the door slamming on the day you left. Loving you had me digging graves inside flower gardens because I kept anticipating the mornings I'd find myself buried in dirt instead of in my sheets next to you. Loving you was putting suicide notes and love letters into the same envelope and sending them to address's of empty houses. Maybe someday they'll end up at my door again. Maybe someday you'll come back again. Maybe I die too soon to see the day. I don't know how the story ends. All I know is that I've swallowed a pill for every flower that died on "he loves me not", and right now laying six feet in the ground feels more guarded than your arms ever did.

Forcing thoughts to spill on a white page is like taking an empty pen and exepcting ink to leak art onto a white canvas. I've never been good at putting my thoughts into words, you've never been good at listening to what I didn't say. We were open books read by blind men, and music being played for the deaf. Never enough to satisfy, but always enough to appreciate. You dipped your dreams in sugar glaze and fed it to me on a sword, while I was busy cutting off pieces of my own with the same blade. Sometimes it's less about the meaning of words, and more about the look in your eye that comes with the sentence. Sometimes its less about the silence and more about what's filling the air. Sometimes its less about me, and more about what I could've been.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

My mom once told me, I should talk to you about God.
because maybe I could help you get away from the clutches of evil.
She could smell the cigarettes off your jacket from miles away,
as well as the liquor on your breath the days you showed up late.
Do you remember the time she brought us to church?
I held your hand in the pews and you never let "amen" escape your mouth.
You never bowed your head or closed your eyes.
I remember you told me that you've never felt more out of place, and that the preachers voice stung your ears.
I guess I should of realized that you can't save someone that basques in their own misery.
Until one day I walked out to find you on the porch with a cigarette between your fingers, begging him to take the pain away.
You always prayed to him, I never noticed it.
You told me that you don't find God on your knees Sunday mornings,
but he's the voice you hear calling out your name when you're intoxicated Saturday nights.
Do you remember when I asked you what you prayed for?
and as you blew up the smoke from your chapped lips you whispered "Change".
It was never the kind you found at the bottom of a wishing well, but rather the one that you haven't seen since the day your mom left.
You never looked me in the eyes when we talked about what makes you cry at night, or the reason you keep going back home when its the last place you want to be.
The tremble of your voice when you confided that "God doesn't help people like me" has never crawled out the seams of my mind.
I still remember one year later, finding your name in the obituaries.
I still cry every night that God couldn't find a way to ease away your suffering.
I still thank you for hanging on for so long.
I'm sorry I never know what to say when people ask what I loved about you, other than "everything he hated about himself"

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 constantly find myself reaching out to the side of my bed where you used to lay, and disappoint myself to have even set an expectation that I might have been able to touch your skin. I won’t lie, I've let myself fall asleep in the arms who have dared to hold me, but they've never felt like you. The day I woke up alone to a single sun ray beaming on my cheek, I realized that I held love in my hand almost as tightly as you held the door handle the day you left & I guess that’s been sitting on my mind for so long that I forget to welcome in any other thoughts. I let myself hate who I am, because you couldn't love me the way I thought you did. I hear people talk of love as though it’s the sweetest thing they've ever tasted, while I sit there listening with a bitter blandness on my tongue. I find myself clutching onto bottles of ***** and pills I never end up popping, almost as though my hands have the habit of holding on too tightly to things that aren't good for me. The problem is that I've never found this feeling in anything else but you. I've never longed for something so badly to the point that without it, I can’t function. My knees are so heavy, my head is constantly spinning I try to see the reflection of your face in the windows at night when I play your favorite songs. I write with my fingers in the snow till they go blue, messages to remind me this isn't permanent so that when the sun comes out and they melt, they will have been proving it all along. Trust me when I say, numb fingers can never forget the feeling of something so warm. And kissed lips will always remember the ones that made them tremble.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I was never able to build up the courage to tell you that there are so many things you’re missing. I never told you because I always got so caught up in the silence, and the kisses and feeling of heat our bodies had the capacity to place between us. You were always the first one out of bed in the morning and it was always so hard for me to slip out of the comfort of your sheets. I remember watching you stare at yourself in the mirror with your fists clenched and it broke my heart that you couldn't even admire yourself the way I admired you. I guess its my fault for never saying that my affection for you ran deeper than my fingers on your skin and our intertwined legs. I always saw beyond the green in your eyes. I always heard more than the words that escaped your lips. The truth is, I saw you as a mass of broken pieces being glued just enough to keep you standing. I dreaded the days I’d walk in on you laying by the bathtub with an empty bottle in your hand and hope thrown up all over the tiled floor. If it was medicine you needed baby I could of been your anesthetic; but I never told you. The feeling you gave me was one that I've been drinking myself dead trying to replicate. If there’s a capacity on how much love a heart can hold, I have maximized it. I've torn myself open from seams that have been sealed so many times and I got my hands covered in blood so you could see how much I love you, but realize now that you only stared at me longer than a moment when my clothes were scattered on the floor. I've been convincing myself that our stories end with two different conclusions, that we've been taught love in a different language. You love with your eyes and your hands and I love with my mouth and my words. You've never been too good at letting anyone in, maybe that’s why it was so easy for you to walk out. I keep saying I’m done writing about you, but other than this there’s nothing more my fingers can spill. This isn't gonna end with goodbye, but rather see you in a moment; when I find you in the memories that to this day, I keep replaying in my mind.