We ate cookies on one of our first dates together
sitting smushed into a loveseat park bench,
chocolate chip, gooey, warm, soft, too expensive
but worth it.
I licked the corner of your mouth,
and you kissed me then, with meaning,
with purpose, like it was forever.
It was beautiful then & innocent.

We eat cookies together on the couch now,
six years later and opposite sides.
You don't look at me,
I look at you with half open eyes,
I'm tired,  
I'm like the yellow lamp
in a suburban town on a dead-end street,
waiting for you to come home,
but you don't and you never will.

I watch you talking on your phone.
I sit up, click into
Google & a cookie pops up "Tinder Swipe Right. It Starts Here. Start Something Epic."
We share everything now, Wifi passwords, Netflix, Hulu, a Peloton.....................

A new cookie for you.
None for me.

I fear I'm doing it all wrong:

my walks alone,
Italian class,
writing poems....
Are these the best ways to spend my time?

The black ocean swallows me whole,
I'm drowning again.
Am I just obsessed with this sadness?
Or is our despair what repairs us…what keeps us on track?
What's this path we're always on
with growth the forefront?

If to be complacent corresponds to death, and the present
Is a blur, how can we focused? How can we be alive?

I feel everything & then nothing.
I'm afraid of my own self.
I pop an Adderall like it's nothing,
borrowing
tomorrow's energy
today.
Because I need it all,
Everything.

I'm a little mean,
better late than never
when arriving at yourself.
Spin me round,
watch me twirl my hair,
we can rendezvous
until we've torn our hearts out...
You push me away with every inch I give,
the hole inside me grows deeper,
and I'm learning to pull myself out.

Through it all,
the beauty of feeling,
it's all real,
all of it.

Come here, gather round me,
tell me your stories,
I won't leave you...
I'm inside out
I won't fight it off.
I'll go through.