I will not end for you, no.
I will begin, and I will keep
on beginning.

I will lick peach juices from
my fingertips like mama's milk
dripping from the ****. I will wrap myself in
silk sarongs and stay that way for days,
marveling at the texture of my own skin.
I will run naked through the rain and
liberate myself in knowing that
what will happen will happen and
there is no safe way out. I will sit close
and listen. I will breathe water lying still
in a stream. I will eat poems for
breakfast and I
will slowly learn
how to die.

i've been in my bed, which will always be the bed,
                     as in, the bed,
      where we spent the last of our virginities
in the push of hips and hands and two-note gasps,
and i've been thinking.

i've been thinking of
     all the firsts i gave you and
         all the things you meant to me
and how
  you will always be the boy who
     sat on a table and sang me my favorite song in front of everyone and
          didn't give a **** that his guitar was out of tune.
now that
is a ******* gesture.

i've been thinking that i need to learn to look you in the eye again.

i've been thinking of how
   all i've done for the past three weeks is walk away from you.
       and how just because you walked away from me first
                                        in the biggest way possible,
                                                     that isn't fair.
you deserve more than that
    for how hard you've tried.
i've been thinking that i haven't let myself see that very well.

i've been thinking of how
  right now
    i'm beginning to feel like i could talk to you, and make myself stay,
          and look you in the eye, and not hurt,
or like i could never talk to you again, and still be okay.
i've been thinking that that's a start
                 to something friendship-shaped and okay.

i've been thinking that maybe i'll take a break from you for awhile,
      maybe patch up the sore places in my heart, talk to some new people.
   learn some things, you know?

i've been thinking that maybe i'll talk to you tonight,
      and for the first time i won't be bitter. there will not be underlying pain in my words.
there will be no accusations. no corners to back you into. no hidden hatred. no left-over love.
     there will be just you. and just me. and we'll be fine, one of these days. i'll be fine.

i've been thinking that that can start
    as soon as i let it.

Sorry that I found out
the price of freedom
is always leaving first.

Oh !Do not love
If you do not have the ability to solve the aftermath of love….

i'm jonesing for a human being -
can you do that?
i am.
it hurts like a rose-smoke-burn in my throat
and a deep-throbbing ache in my chest -
      waiting for you
counting the days
until you're mine
to inhale
and exhale
and inhale
again.

I wish that you would lift my chin
with the tender underbelly of your middle knuckle
of your pointer finger
and that you would trace the line
of my strawberry lips
with the fingerprint of your thumb
softly memorizing the asymmetry
of a face not fit to model but somehow
fit to be deserving of your touch

I wish that you would brush my cheek
with the tips of your eyelashes
as they flutter to sleep next to me
your breath soft and steady
like a gentle wave expanding and receding
on the pale shore of my bare neck
whispering life into a cold shoulder
that softens at the cool warmth
of an unapologetic slumber.