i have vivid dreams
of your lips pressed to my neck.
and how soon you left.

i only learned how to use photoshop when i was young because i wanted to be able to airbrush my dimples and make my thighs slimmer.

2. i let that boy kiss me when i didnt want his lips, his tongue, his hands touching me.

3. i kept my first job for two years longer than i wanted to because my mom told me it was too early for me to start being a quitter.

4. i wear t shirts because the girl at forever twenty-one gave me the look when i came out of the dressing room in that little dress with sunflowers on it

5. i let someone tell me i couldnt and i believed them.

i don’t know about you
but libraries
dont work for me.
i don’t need a citadel.
a sanctuary.
i don’t need silence
to hear myself.
i bury myself in the world.
i hide in plain sight.
im in the corner of
the student center.
at a tall table
outside of a bistro
in an airport.
sitting on a bench
in a crowded park.
i can’t be alive in silence.
i love the sound
of pre-meds playing ping-pong,
of happy reunions,
and baggage claim assignments.
love the laughs on the breeze
the sound of swings
and running feet.
i love the sound of life.
i don’t need silence
that closes me off.
i need the ordinary
to remind me
that i am alive.

dont wish that he'd take you to the places you love
because every time you go back
you'll taste him in your mouth
you'll feel him on your hips
you'll hear him in your heart
and you'll wonder why
you can't watch a sunset without reaching for him.

this year
you learned a lot
you learned to love
without loving
and you learned
that you're strong
and you carry on
when love walks away.

i love you most as
clock ticks mark the long minutes
since i saw you last.

3:00 am doesn’t scare me anymore.
I used to lay in bed
watching the clock
tick tock
tick tock
and if I hadn’t fallen asleep
by 2:59
I was afraid.
Afraid because
they tell you
that’s when the demons come out.
Now my only demons
remind me of you.
And I’m not afraid
because they’re beautiful.

Your mouth does brutal things to my heart,
and your eyes do awful things to my mind,
and your hands do agonizing things to my lungs.

And I know it's because I've given up.
That mind over matter has fallen away
and you're more there now
than you ever were when I was looking for you.

I wanted to know what you tasted like
in the morning
after you got home from work
at night before bed.

I wanted to know what you want to name your kids
if you want a lot of kids
or none at all
if you'll take them to Disney
or send them to space camp.

I wanted to know what you thought about everything
the republican party
the ******* Jeopardy! last night
the New York Yankees
the color yellow.

I wanted to know what songs make you feel like crying
like dancing
like wishing on stars
like staying with me forever.

I only wanted to know if you liked music
or drawing
or reading
or playing basketball
or watching old movies.

I wanted to find out if you liked cats
or dogs
or children
or parties
or board games
or sitcoms
or Chinese food
or
or
or..

My mind races because I realize I've imagined you.
My heart thumps and shatters because I see
you're not the person I thought you were,
not the person I created.

I wanted to know you.

I only wanted to know you.

And now you'll never know me.

You'll never know that I like dogs
and green tea
and laughing
and hanging Christmas lights
and cooking
and Gone With the Wind marathons.

You'll never know that I planned our wedding
named our children
picked out curtains for our kitchen
planned our first trip to the mountains
decided what to get your mom for Christmas.

And even if I created you
my perfect you
my flawed you
my funny, out of order, lost on the interstate version of you,
I fell for you.

I'll never know if you'd rather go dancing or stay in.
And you'll never know that I'd swim the ocean to hold your hand.

No.
No matter what,
you'll never know
how much I loved you.

I am extraordinary.
Not in the usual way that a thing is extraordinary.
A thing is usually extraordinary in the way it is special, unique;
I am extraordinary in my height, in my stature.
And I know that's not much but it's been my one constant for twenty years
and I have grown fond of the way I tower over my problems.

And then there's you.

I met you and suddenly I didn't feel extraordinary at all.
You made me feel so different.
I met you and I felt small.
And for me that's something, you know
because I don't ever feel small.
I don't ever feel like the world can crush that part of me
and suddenly you do just that.

And I want to tell you.

I want to whisper in your ear how much you matter,
how grand you are with your adornments and your ways.
The way you don't even have to try.

Like a blast of winter air, you come along and freeze my lungs;
leaving me breathless and aching, gasping for life.
Then like spring sunshine, your eyes thaw me again
and I wish that I was the reason for your smile.

But I am only a flower and you are a garden.

I am a grain of salt and you are an ocean.

You are the bravest
the boldest
the strongest
the most
and best of all this life has to offer.

But I am me and you are you.

And we can never be.

tell me life is so
beautiful that you can't bare
to see me leave it.

i loved everything
about him.
i loved his ears
because
they were too big for his head.
and his head
had bright tufts
of russled ginger hair.
the freckles
under his blue eyes
that frame his nose
and pepper his cheeks.
the flow softly
down his neck
across his chest
shoulders
back
arms.
beautiful.

i love how awkward he is.
he tries so hard
to impress me
to impress them
to impress himself.
and hes so silly
when he dribbles the ball
and shoots
and maybe he scored
i dont know
because
im not watching the ball
and i never was.
he thinks hes amazing
and maybe he is
but i dont notice
because all i see
is his goofy grin
and his too-long limbs
and the sheer joy
he breathes.
beautiful.

‘i dont wanna die
without any scars’
he says
quoting that fight club movie
we watched a dozen times.
movies,
i remember.
he loved movies.
he read a lot
quoted a lot too.
‘you pretty little fool’
he whispers.
i laugh
because
i was eleventh grade once
and i read gatsby too
just like he did
just like you.
i'd memorized his favorites
the poems
songs
and lines.
i could quote them
because
he loved the music
that filtered the words.
and he called it
beautiful.

i have memorized
the fabric of you.
i have tasted your sting
your wine
your honey
and i still want
crave
yearn for more.
his lips twitched in that clark gable way
and i wish that he knew
how much
i mean it
when i say
‘youre beautiful’.

I stood there looking out the window
    and I thought about the irony of the rain falling
    when I felt like it was storming in my heart.

    I watched the skies darken as I felt my spirit grow clouded.
    I listened to the thunder and my own resolve shook.
    I saw all these things and still the only thing that made sense was you.

    I thought about every girl
    that had ever loved you like I had
    and I wondered how they got out of the rain,
    what shelter they found.

    I looked out into the rain
    and I wished for it to wash you away,
    to drown your memory.

    And then suddenly I hurt even more.

    Because I realized in that moment
    that the only thing worse than not having you
    was to forget you.
    That I cannot be complete without you.
    That my soul sings an off key solo without your harmony.

    I stood in the rain
    and wished for lightening to show my path
    and instead it lit me on fire with a flame so angry
    I thought I would never recover.

    I had gone to the window to wash you away
    and I walked away drowning in you.

They asked me,
When I was only a child,
About the castle.
I told them
How I love to watch
The smoke
That blended with
the gray English sky
Rise from the turrets;
To watch the lady there,
Wistful,
Ride her mare.
I told them
That the castle was very beautiful,
But I
Did not want to live there.

They asked again,
When the flowers were but blooming,
About the castle.
Again I said
How the garden was
So beautifully kept,
And that the roses were
Fairer than any others;
But that the daughter,
Whose hair shone like
A raven's back,
Was too forlorn.
I told them
That the garden was lovely,
But I
Did not want to live there.

They asked again,
At the end of my learning age,
But then my opinion mattered not.
They packed my bags,
And moved my prizes
To that castle
Whose cold stone walls were
Not nearly so beautiful from the inside;
Where the firelight shone
On saddened faces,
On broken souls,
And the door closed me in darkness.
I told them
That the castle was cold,
But still
They locked me there.