It's been months.
I've been bearing the weight of emptiness.
The absence of color on the walls and lipstick stains on post it notes I used to leave you.
The comfort i find in darkness is only there because light shows a world without you and its one I don't want to see.
Going back to the past is like a train ride with no destination on tracks made up of un-kept promises.
I'm sorry that I keep apologizing for still loving you.
I'm sorry that I keep waking up shaking in the middle of night, choking for air as I call out your name.
I'm sorry I still look for your face in the midst of crowded sidewalks.
I tried writing you a letter last night to explain to you the agony of living in this emptiness, but the pen broke, spilled ink on the page and I think it said more than my words ever will.
Despite the fact that you left me on the verge of breaking, I hope you're happy.
I hope that every cigarette you put between your lips knows how lucky it is to be there.
I haven't kissed you in months, but I'll never forget the way you taste.
I'll never forget the way I loved you when my named would roll off your tongue.
Nor the way it feels to be wanted by someone who could make love sound so bitter sweet.

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.

They wait. They wait in the corners of your mind right behind the "no crossing sign" in an attempt to scare you away. They're everything you've ever tried to push away in any shape or form. If you're wondering what you've been trying to drown in liquor, this is your answer. If you're wondering what you've been hoping would crumble like the final ash of your cigarette, this is your answer. How do you run away from what you're made of? You've been trying. You've been destroying the darkest sides of your mind not realizing the cracks spread further than where you intended. So here you are, broken. The circle puzzle piece who doesn't seem to know where to fit. The grey flower in the field of colorful bouquets, cutting at your stem thinking the picture would be prettier without you in it. The picture would not be the same without you in it. Look at your veins, feel your heart. Sense the movement, the rhythm, the continuation of the pattern. You are made up of everything you've been trying to destroy. Someday someone isn't going to need an alarm clock, you will be their reason. Everyday when it feels like sun is kissing your cheek, it is because the whole universe is happy you're here. So stay. Let gravity be the pull on your body, let this be the pull on your heart; stay. May the music of the wind, the echoes of the water and your footprints on the sand be a reminder that this world would not be the same without you in it. And no, you are not the reason for the sun orbiting around the earth, nor are you the reason the seasons change. But you are a stepping stone to change, you are a future movement. You are a part of a beautiful cycle. Put your hand on your heart, feel the beat on your palm, look at your veins and hear the melody they resonate as the blood flows, hear the strumming of your eyelashes every time you blink, the harmonic symphony of air every time it enters your lungs. I beg you; don't stop the music.

I've always contested this theory of time.
This counting of sands in hourglass bottles.
They always said time was in our hands.
But I didn't mind because the sun always rose, always set.
I never yearned to stop it. I never yearned to stay.
Until I met you.
Until I found myself in your arms in the morning till dawn
and it never felt long enough.
Until the words that made me melt into puddles formed time tables that showed a past moment I never wanted to escape from.
From the falling of snow, to the falling of leaves.
The hands on clocks were slowly gripping us by the shoulders;
tearing us apart.
Wars with the one thing we couldn't defeat.
Until kisses could hold time for a moment, we could never get enough.
Inserting coins into machines so that maybe hope
could fall out of the slot into our empty palms.
Once the days got shorter as the air grew cold,
we had to dig up for good memories to keep us holding.
Your skin had already been traced by my fingers,
your lips had already been pressed into mine.
there was nothing keeping us together other than not wanting
to wake up alone at the sound of beeping alarms.
To wake up calls tellings us that life doesn't stop for anyone.
The cold coffee that tastes as bitter as remembering the battle with passing minutes.
Some battles are meant to be lost.
We lost this one, we were left with learnt lessons.
I never bargained for lessons in the first place, I wanted to be left with you.
Wars are temporary. We we're supposed to be forever.
But once again, forever is controlled by ticking hands.
And ours were never strong enough to resist it.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Are you blind?
You're back on the conveyer belt, again.
You're fooled by that you see, again.
You seem to be getting closer but you're drifting further away.
You see hope on the horizon which turns to agony as soon as you get close enough to reach it.
You're heart is breaking at the thought of struggle
You're depending on the bottle, again.
The guzzle is burning your throat as you swallow any chance at revival.
Fingers turn to black, lips turn to black, mind turns to black.
You're crumbling with the ashes of cigarettes
There's no rebuilding broken debris anymore.
Hope is sunken beaneath you as you lay drunk on the floor.
Miles away from the conveyer belt, again.
No going back to where you're headed.
No heads or tails to change the situation.
No more gods willing to listen.
Its over.
Don't inhale.
Life wasted at the thought of making it
but giving up when you get a chance to escape your mind.
No press play, fast forward, rewind.
No more hands helping you out the gutter
You're already buried six feet too deep.
Your hands are on your mouth, again
Trying to quiet your screams.
No ones listening
No ones wondering
No ones there.
You've created this hell for yourself;
just lock the door as you leave.

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.

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

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.

"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’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.

She's the open window and the closed door.
She's stale and bitter, but tastes as sweet as freshly picked fruit on days the sun rays make love to her skin.
She's everything she tried her hardest to be, she's everything she didn't want to become.
She's the kind of girl who drinks herself to sleep on Sunday nights, hoping to find him in the same level of desperation.
She basques in his absence, she grieves in loneliness.
She is not who she is, she is a side effect of who she was made to be.
I've never seen anything like her.
I've never known anything like her
I was always aware of her, but I never feared her.
I never knew she'd become real to me.
But I found her. I found her in the bathroom this morning.
I found her once my head came up from the faucet after swallowing six pills too many.
I found her in the honest glass.
She smiled at me and glanced down at my trembling hands.
I looked her in the eyes, and welcomed her 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 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.

I'm falling in love with you.

I'm sorry.

Please don't leave.

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.

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.

I've come to the conclusion that it's possible to stare at the ceiling for so long you can feel it staring right back. There are some spaces on the walls that my eyes gaze onto for longer and there's some parts of my bed in which i'd rather lay. There was something about the way the sheets felt against my skin this morning that seemed as though they were trying to protect me from the truth this day would hold. There's something about the way the birds sang louder as if they were trying to overlap the sound of you leaving. There's something about the way I could feel a breeze from the door downstairs, as though you we're so rushed to get out that you couldn't take an extra moment to shut it properly. I should have seen it coming, I should have told you that you've mistaken. I should of told you that I never needed you but I never enjoyed the thought of waking up alone. There's something about the way you told me you'd never leave that sounded a lot like the way my father told my mother he loved her, I should of been quicker to point out the lie. But how do you tell someone to stay while dreaming of inviting someone else in? It was never you. It was me. Lately I've been feeling like maybe its less about the way 'i love you' sounded when i was saying it, and more about who was in mind; it was never you. I'm sorry that I'd only stay in bed with you till you fell asleep, you were simply a rain drop in the ocean. I fall in love with downpours. I love closed doors and black walls.
We're different. You're gone, I'm okay.

Its uncontrollable.
The way people end up in our lives
The way people show up at the end of our lives.
The way people end our lives.
You were all three.
You walked in through the door I saved for someone I thought might be able to love me; the door with a welcome matt that looked more like a warning sign.
You walked in on the side of me that was only meant to be seen by the reflection I find in the mirror
Empty prescription bottle, empty liquor, empty heart.
And with the seconds passing I realized you came too late to have a chance at saving a life that I never got to live.
You try to turn back the clocks to see if I was better off before you came.
But time is a measure we convince ourselves has the power to change things.
Nothing can change other than the arrow on the circular board that points towards a past I can't seem to escape from.
Every breath is forced at this point.
So were my last few years.
The door was always open.
You just showed up too late.