Being away from you feels like needle pricked heart
Feels like every passing grain of sand
drives a canyon between us
For every moment we're apart
another ray of sunshine is drip-dripping from me
Like the faulty faucet in my bathroom,
baby, I just need a caring hand
A hug and a band-aid and a promise for tomorrow
But, until then,
sunshine rains in my gut 
and my sink still leaks

They say you'll spend the new year
the same way you spend it's eve,
but I pray that's not true
because a year without you
might be the end of me

Let this be it
Let this be my time of success
I have spent too many winters
wrapping myself in regret
and disappointment
Let this be the turning point

If you could,
be gentle with my heart
Lumpy scar tissue and
shot gun shells mar the surface
but I promise it has potential
Let this be a time of healing

I beg of you - 
knees buried in a sinkhole
and head bowed 
to gods I don't even believe in -
grant me rebirth
Let this be the beginning

Riding on the back of mass despair,
you have the chance for greatness
and I see you in technicolor

somehow, i never learned to run
i was once told i move like a drunk newborn camel
and, admittedly, that is not entirely inaccurate

im from a family of shaking hands
bullet hole egos
and wobbly knees
all of us clumsy with our hearts and each other

its no wonder i trip over my own apologies
stumble at a pretty smile
falter at opportunity
this is apples and trees all over again
and nobody likes bruised fruit

i am all bruises
i am fall over anything
fall for everything
fall into everyone

there is a secret to moving gently that no one wants to share
and maybe i dont want it anyway
i am the bull and the world is my china shop

i am not afraid of falling
i am not afraid of bruises

i am a crash course in wrecking *****

i swear my lips taste like yours and they've never even met
how strange it is to miss something you've never had

i've imagined your touch so many times
i swear
i can feel the feather soft tingle of your hand in mine
and maybe it's not all fabrication and make-believe

i swear we've met before

in a parallel universe, the timing was right from the start
and i'm remembering dew drops in your hair
four months from now
and your smile
three years and a thousand "i love you's" ago

i swear some version of me knows some version of you
and
if distance kills us here
at least i'll know it was never a factor there

i swear i remember you

i wear this weariness like a hand-me-down jacket
(too broad for these shoulders
frayed at the heart stitched on my sleeve
a mess of patchwork band-aids and safety pins) -
not well

still, it's cold and
these loose threads are more comfortable than anything new
through rain and even more rain
i march on, no longer hoping for shine
the water from every glass half spilled beats down on my shoulders,
soaks through all my layers,
drowns me from the inside-out
but we have faced worse than water-logged lungs
and a driftwood heart

darker clouds gather a hundred lives past the horizon

some storms come to pass,
some storms seem to last forever
sometimes the thunder clap is your own heart,
beating, pumping, urging you forward

through the storm
i weather the weight of a thousand whispered disappointments
(dreams
hopes
realities),
shrouded in my family's shadows
disguised as a hand-me-down jacket

i feel a strangeness in the air this winter
what do you call progress while standing still?
or growing inside the box?
is this what normal is meant to feel like?
cloudy skies
eyes
mind
i've lived a thousand eons in snow
and i fear the eve of my spring is farther still