Hair pony-tailed, tight up against my head
Almost as snug as us, supine in my bed
I am long past drifted
Dreams in and out sifted
Covers covered, pretenses shed

A chill brushed over me, sleepily
Eyes flutter open and admiringly
I gaze at you curled up next to me
Heart filled so full, busting at its seam
You are peacefully breathing, this is no dream

Blankets shuffled to your side
Undesiring to wake you, I quietly confide
"Baby, I'm a little bit cold"
Your eyes pop right open and you promptly fold
Me up in the blankets, you hold me so tight
I wish this is how I could spend every night

I saw you again last night
You were in my house
In this dream, I lived on the first floor
Of some elaborate vintage hotel

The opulence that surrounded us
Juxtaposed the dissonance
Of our internal dispositions
The true feelings we never shared

You were in my room
You kissed me and I knew
Something wasn't right
Really, something wasn't right
Even in real life

So I started to project
My true and honest feelings
Like I felt I never totally could
Wanting what I wanted
Seemed to be the opposite of yours
And I never wanted to let you down

Always the opposite, never the same
Constant clashing of ideals
Never peace, torn in between
What I wanted and what you said you needed

So I finally told you, I needed to be done
If not for my own sake, then for yours
So we didn't self destruct
And completely tear each other apart

As I said those words
You said some in return
About how you thought something
Had always been wrong
That hit deep in my soul because I knew it too

I didn't want to admit that
I wasn't ready to love you
I was emotionally closed off
But thought I could squeeze you in there
Along with all the other feelings
I was too ashamed to tell you about

So I let it go
I let us build up the hope
Of something permanent
When I didn't feel ready
I felt like I was partly participating
And partly spectating
Only half committed
Because you only had half my heart
And I can't help how I felt
I just did a ****** job
Of handling it and not being honest

I couldn't tell you
That the reason I couldn't tell you
That I wanted to be with you forever
Was because I didn't see it like you did
You said I was your world
And I can't help that I didn't feel it
There was nothing you could have done
To make yourself my entire world
You knew you weren't and you tried hard
You really tried to make me love you more
I wasn't ready, I was so preoccupied
With still loving a boy that was never mine
He wasnt ready for me like I wasn't ready for you
Constantly wanting the inaccessible
It was my fault I said yes when I didn't know
I loved you yes, but I could have loved you more

So, for that, I'm sorry
I can't fix the things I did
And my heart hurts that I hurt yours
I'm sorry for not being honest
But I'm not sorry
For being myself
And for chasing my dreams
For leaving home
Even though you were left alone

I wonder how it would be
To actually wake up next to you
To walk into my kitchen and see you there
Reading the morning paper
Drinking your coffee

I wonder how it would be
To kiss you goodbye
While we both head off to work
To support each other
To live our daily lives

I wonder how it would be
To go out to lunch
Or talk on the phone
About our days
Or those people at work who drive us nuts

I wonder how it would be
To finish our days
To come home and cook dinner together
And cuddle up and watch television
Until we are seduced by sleep

I wonder how it would be
To look you in the eyes
While we are in our pajamas
And say "Goodnight"
While still being together

But I don't wonder what it's like to love you now
Because I already do
Without doing these things
Right now, this is just a fantasy
But one day, it just may be our reality

I'm addicted to love
I crave the feeling
You give me

When you look my way
Or smile that smile
Oh my, those eyes!

Your essence is intangible
A jungle gym of emotions
Fill my chest when I'm near you

It took a picture of you in a fedora
To make me realize
That I don't have any love for you anymore

I was just walking around
Somewhere and saw saw it unintentionally
And you just looked unattractive to me

After struggling with feeling so many things
Disinterest is so freeing
To feel like you looked ugly

To feel something other than
Wanting you
Or being hurt by you
Or feeling inferior
Not good enough to be in your world

Your expression
Your frown
Everything about it

Made me realize
That the unhappiness you really feel
Is reflected outward in your pictures
And that is what made you unattractive

In the heat of the daytime
And in the cool of the night
Sometimes it escapes my mind
But when caught in the moment
Of favorite songs
I can't help but feel sublime

You confront me subconsciously
And encircle me dearly
I cannot escape from you now
I want to forfeit and surrender
To feel and remember
But I honestly do not know how

When I'm caught in those moments
On cool spring nights
During a car ride home with my someone new
A song comes on the radio
Which reminds me of us
And I look out the window as trees brush through

He is talking to me
But all I can seem to grasp
Are the issues that lie on my heart
I'm dreaming of you
And remembering last year
On this night, when we fell apart

I am envisioning laying in my bed
The covers strewn over my head
Shaking and crying with grief
Perhaps there was something more
Something I can't quite put my finger on
That brought me some sense of relief

Perhaps it was the thought
That things were not right
That every time you hugged me, something was missing
But maybe that wasn't your fault
Or mine either
So what's so bad about reminiscing?

It's been a year
I can't believe
I can't quite reconcile
How everything seemed so perfectly chaotic
But self-destructive
And I hid it all with a smile

I'm still that girl you knew
The one that skipped towards you
Only three and a half short years ago
Claps for all, you called me
Tear-stained cheeks from a broken heart
You swore to never do what he did and you said
I could have had my space if I wanted it
I just wanted to know you
You made me feel like I was loved
Like I was a treasure worth protecting
Like a sun to hold in the palm of your hand
So I said "okay" and let you love me
I grew to love you too, more than I ever
Ever thought was possible at the time
We drove around, kissed at traffic lights
Made new memories and adventured
You made me wonder why I had allowed
Allowed for myself to feel unloved
Our love grew like a ****, wild and rampid
We loved and loved and didn't fight
Until one day when we started
It had been a year or so without it
But once it started, it didn't totally end
No argument resolved, no problems closed
But I pushed on, I loved you still
I've loved you despite distance
I've loved you despite age
I've loved you despite every thing that should have pushed us apart
We don't agree on anything large
Not morals, religion, or priorities
We are falling into pieces, my heart aches
I'm bleeding and crying out for you to hear
But silence is all I have from your end
And we are still holding together by a string
You never told me that you were finished
And I'm too disheartened to say after three years
That even though I crave you like you're ******
That you're a large part of me
That you are the closest person to me
That I want to be by your side, to hear your deep voice, feel your heartbeat, smell your sweet musky cologne on my shirt after a long day,
I don't know how long I can do this
To place a band aid over our hurt
Only to rip it off come morning time

He used to go to another room
When I played my favorite songs
The piano would clash
When I got notes wrong

It turns out, though
He never told me that
He went to another room
So I could relax

He loves to hear me play
But he was giving me space
To relieve my performance pressure
So I could make mistakes

He knew I felt compelled
To be perfect in every way
He thought it would be less stressful
If he was away

All the things he never told me
The secret ways he cares
I’m slowly uncovering them
The more that he shares

I can't think of myself any differently
Than you make me feel

Dented Diet Coke can heart
Trained to be concave
Too shiny and begging
To be torn apart

To feel the sliding
Of aluminum against aluminum
Too smooth and intoxicating
To stop

Willing to
Let you
Do it, too

Don't cut your finger

Honeyed sunshine dripped
Through my lips
Your grandeur and hands
Took a trip
"Stay with me please"
My head flipped

I think you knew

As if words could have ever
Done the trick
The sweet syrup found me
Made me sick
I'd built us up in my mind
Brick by brick

Because I want you

Years and years rolled by
Here we are
Day subsides to night
In your car
Drive me wild, it won't
Be too far

It was always you

It was familiar
But not the same
Nothing looked exact
Just a counterfeit
Of what I knew

I talked to your family
In my hazy dream
Mid sentence, you entered
I looked over at you
And broke down

I sobbed like I forgot I could
I just grabbed on to you and cried
For us, the mess we made
Trying to love each other
In these crazy lives we lead

You looked different, you weren't you
And I couldn't help but say
How everything looked different
In between choking on tears
That's all I could say

I clung to you because I needed to
Because I needed you
I sobbed into your chest and shook
As I did so many times before
As I'll never do again

But you were only there as a form
You looked at me with sympathy
But without the same convictions
Without the same emotions
I cried harder

I shouted out for you last night
Said your name, reached to feel you
Because as I'm trying to move on
It's hard to not extend towards you
To hold the hand I grew to know

And as I write this, fully awake
I need to walk away from it all
Because I'm afraid my roommate will see me
Crying at the kitchen table

So I went in one day
With hearts all a'blazing

Went and hit your wall hard
But shriveled up like a raisin

So I got up, being a raisin and all
And right then and there I decided to crawl

So I crawled for a while
Under your wall, trying to get through

But I saw that was no use
So up I grew

I grew up and up
Like a big, noble tower

To see over your walls
To accumulate more power

But your walls were too high
Your demands were too steep

So I slumped down and found that
I needed to sleep

So I slept for a while
I slept a great deal

And after my dream
I realized I needed to get real

So I found my real self
Not a raisin, crawler, tower, or such

I am who I am
Not affected by your touch

But maybe some day
I'll come back
With my heart all a'blazing

But instead of me this time
Maybe you'll be the raisin

Who crawls for my love
Who will grow for it more and more

And maybe, just maybe
You will realize you could have had it before

In every heart there is a room
A sanctuary safe and strong
To heal the wounds from lovers past
Until a new one comes along

I spoke to you in cautious tones
You answered me with no pretense
And still I feel I said too much
My silence is my self defense

And every time I've held a rose
It seems I only felt the thorns
And so it goes, and so it goes
And so will you soon I suppose

But if my silence made you leave
Then that would be my worst mistake
So I will share this room with you
And you can have this heart to break

And this is why my eyes are closed
It's just as well for all I've seen
And so it goes, and so it goes
And you're the only one who knows

So I would choose to be with you
That's if the choice were mine to make
But you can make decisions too
And you can have this heart to break

And so it goes, and so it goes
And you're the only one who knows

I live for those moments in the silence
The brief, sudden silence
When we are suspended
In mid air
Waiting for a reaction
But none comes
So we stay suspended
Until some outside force plucks us from the sky

And when you tell me that you love me
There is a vulnerability in your voice
An exentuation of the syllables
A focused look in your eyes
Because of the realness and density
Weighing down on that single phrase
As if you were trying wholly
To convince me that you loved me then
But nothing compared to right now
And nothing compared to tomorrow

When you tell me that you love me*
I know that you mean it
I couldn't quite ever before

For once, I'm at a loss for words
I can't write eloquence into our anniversary yesterday
Because it was magical in and of itself
You planned me a quiet picnic in the woods, just you and me
Cooking hot dogs on a charcoal grill we didn't know how to use
And eating chicken salad
Going kayaking was a dream, paddling along
On a quiet tributary to a bigger lake, we went back into the woods
We sat in our little floating craft and talked about first kisses and magic
We wondered at how simple acts could have led us apart and how happy we are together
I noticed the calmness of the water and the intricacies of the ripples when I indulged my paddle into the stream
We were out for an hour, just paddling along
Talking, living, laughing, loving together.
Just being together
We eventually made our way back in, an hour car ride away from home
Talking some more, laughing together, enjoying the company
We went back to my place and ate dinner with my family
Shrimp Scampi with salad and bread
Then roasted marshmallows and laughed when they became torches
Nothing is better than marshmallows with the people you love
After that we set up my hammock and just swung there and watched the sun slip below the horizon
Taking in the scenery, we didn't need to talk, because there was nothing more that could have been said
It was magical until my little brother came over to us and asked why we weren't talking and called us boring
But he doesn't understand, not quite yet
Not until he is sitting on a hammock with a girl, and knows there isn't anything to say
It was a beautiful day, wonderful by itself

I enjoy those little arguments
The ones about the radio station
Where you put on that overused CD you like
And I roll my eyes in frustration

I switch the radio channels rapidly
As you give me an amused glance
And I throw one back quite jokingly
Because I never miss a chance

You say "Come On, Just pick one!"
As I let Nirvana start to play
So I agree with you quite willingly
This is my favorite type of day

It clouds the way I see your face
Transports me to another place
Makes me dissect a warm embrace
Oh how I wish it wouldn't

I hate to hurt, from past and you
It's trained in me, nothing to do
With how we are, I see it through
You're wonderful, I have no clue

As if you whipped my heart to shape
Looked over like a wilted drape
I trained my heart to feel like crepe
Clutched like Ann Darrow by the ape

It is my way I have found
It lifts my feet from solid ground
Like a circus mirror it confounds
Leaves me foolish in it like a clown

I don't expect you to see
The way its wicked works on me
It's hard some days, but I will always be
Much more than my anxiety

In the silence between what I believed to be real and reality is where you sit
Nestled between hope and illusion, you are there.
Waiting patiently, hoping diligently, you are my own mirage
Sampling the fragrances of fancied flowers and waiting
Always waiting
Your toes dip in pools of uncertainty and you wonder why you are here
Purgatory and respiratory, I can't breathe in this space
This half way between heaven and hell
So right it can't be wrong
But am I really crazy to believe it is all a sham
This illusion of a closing is really an opening
If you stare at it long enough
And think at it hard enough
It might just open
And I used to try to squeeze myself through
Just before it was closed
Because I believed it wouldn't be opened again
Now all my bridges have been burned and there is no going back
Never going back
I feel like some action star, like Arnold Schwarzenegger
Walking away from the scene of an explosion
*No looking back

I tried to take notes before you left
Mentally scribbling down asides
The toughness of your hands
Compared to the soft skin of mine

Blocking out the sunlight
Pulling covers over your head
Pretending that it's night
Is what it's like when we're in bed

Letting me out of the car under-roof
Needing not to brace the rain
You are a different man now
Warm-hearted, patient, unfeigned

We have the same soreness like picture day
From smiling with our teeth for so long
We almost forget what it's like to frown
Until it has passed and you're gone

It drizzled as you looked at me
Got in your car and said goodbye
This is not our first parting
But it is like that every time

There is nothing between us anymore
Not even those three yards of cold linoleum
As we walked on opposite sides of the hall
The distance has dispersed and now our silence exists there alone
Not even mused by a dream of further endeavors
There is a dead end plopped betwixt us
I cannot raise my glare to meet yours because I know
Somewhere, deep in my heart
There is nothing there for me anymore

*How can a flame sparked in the damp
Ever survive without being tramped?

Constricted bronchioles and anxiety had a baby
Within my father's chest
They named her asthma
And it is him she does possess

Coughing fits and nervous breaks
Are not easy scenes to bear
Stomach injections, lung inspections
Soiled clothes and messy hair

Then the coctails come, one by one,
Morphine, Pulmocort, Seroquil
An IV is the quickest fix
But it doesn't always fit the bill

Long inhilations, short exhilations
It increases rapidly
It's full blown now, she has attacked
Asthma, you're a mystery

Why do you posses such a man
That cares for others more?
I guess everyone has their weakness
But other have it worse, I am assured

When peace sets over
There is no feeling that compares

I am afraid that your fingers
Would grasp mine
In the precise way
That his used to

And I am scared
That the inflection in your voice
Will resonate in my brain
As all the same

But, to tell you the truth
I don't want you to be him
I don't want to do the same things
With you that I did with him
After all, it never worked out
I'm just scared this won't either
And I'm scared that you're not the right one

What changed in those days?
The time we spent together
Was it the look in your eyes or the weather?
The heat of summer and long conversation?
Out until early morning
Discussing the way we both like
Sitting in cars during rainstorms
Being immersed by the water
Sitting silently in that moment
Letting the world fold around us

Yet it terrifies me to think that you'll be too close
I don't want to let you in
Subconsciously I have shut down my heart
You're knocking ever so patiently
I just have turned on a lamp
Feigning hospitality
When all I feel is hostility
Because I don't know how to remove the deadbolt
When you bring your hands to my heart
And I feel the thumping in my chest

I want to invite you in
To have a cup of coffee
Just to meet you halfway
To take a chance on something
It may be good
Or it may be devastating

Oh and if we were the co-authors of this dear life,
What a beautiful ballad, together, we'd write!
And if it were left onto our hands
The world could then see the depth of our plans

But it is written by a maker more clever than we
Twists and turns in the works make us hold on to see
For He knows much better than you would or I
For our wants are decided, our needs are supplied

On opposite sides of a telephone line
Signals from satellites bounce between
The waves of silence that are plopped uneasily
Within our absent minded conversation

I breathe, hoping it is not too loud
A sigh, a release from this purgatory
But any microscopic sound or respiratory
Inspires him to question me

"What are you doing?" he asked halfheartedly
While I lay and watch my wall paint crack
As minutes tick by, sigh after sigh
Of not knowing which words to utter

So I break the silence finally
With a insincere and restless goodnight
Because this is how you end a fight
But I still hung on to silence until the line died

Delusion
Confusion
Deception
Refusion
Hopeless
Intrusion
I am
So
**Lost

It's so easy to believe
Through pictures I see
That your life is better
So much better without me

You're going more places
Doing things, meeting people
Smiling brighter, laughing louder
Loving life, never dull

And it's so easy to think
That all of this was because
We broke up, we parted ways
So I think and I pause

But I know I always encouraged you
To go and live out your dreams
I pushed you to explore yourself
But as it now seems

I was just holding you back
From living up to whatever
You're doing now
Your life truly seems better

I tried so very hard
To turn you into that thing
You said you would turn me into

I turned you into a box
That sits high up in my closet
With only the most valuable things in it
To remember

There are corsages and letters
And that ****** bracelet I can't look at
There are smiley faces
And cards
And quotes all around the sides
To keep me from looking at it
Because it knew I would linger
And go back

Sometimes that box falls off my shelf
Straight into my arms
And I collapse onto the floor
Looking at what was
Contemplating if everything was
Just some lie
A beautiful lie

When you look at me
Like that
I can't *breathe

Criss-crossed scribbled heart
Dwelling on the dark parts
The ones I tried to hide hard
But once you turned into my sight
I was left unable to write right
A love, brand new bright light

Out of all the people
I could have met
Throughout my life
In space and time
I met you and felt
Something new
That no one could recreate
Not with time or practice
You can't learn passion
And in no particular fashion
You appeared just like magic
And made me remember
The way I felt before
Like I had never been gone
Like I had never had him
Like time had not passed
I didn't know it would last
But it has

It was the moment you sung along
Danced like you were alive
You were your true self
And I felt as if my heart were to burst
It felt so full
Just looking at you
Knowing that things work out for a reason
And being sure that I would
Go through all of this agony again
To experience how I felt tonight
Watching you and being by your side

Los cambios vienen
Demuelen y construyen
Son que la vida consisten

You were always a grand mystery to me
Just like that ten thousand piece puzzle I had always attempted
Scrambling on the floor
Trying to fit a million jigsaws together
That were from different puzzles

There was one in the corner of the room from a puzzle
Of a few cats sitting in a wheelbarrow
And ones from a dolphin in mid air
Trying to flip through a hoop
As mesmerizing as it was to finger through the pieces
It sure was hell trying to shove them together

But that's just it
We can never shove the pieces of life together
Especially someone else's
It never works out
So perhaps if you let that person be
They'll figure out their own jigsaw
Complete the cats in the wheelbarrow picture
And finally see that dolphin jump through the hoop

I wish you would dive deep
Explore the cavern
In my chest
I am empty
I am hollow
Not much left

I started so strong
Much resolve
Too much to give
All along

It was too easy
For you to take me
I let you in
I let you have me
So easily

I shouldn’t have to
Guard myself
From the one
Who should have
Protected me

My petals have all been picked off, my strings have been pulled taught
By constant "He Loves Me's" and "He Loves Me Nots"
Can't you see, you've left me in distress?
But, "It Doesn't Matter," seems to be how you digress

I know you are willing
Willing to give me your world
To hand over something profound

I know you would follow me
Wherever I chose to go
If only I chose to let you

If you follow, I'll resent you
If you stay, I'll miss you
But if we were not, I can't say what

In your eyes, I am me
And in mine, I am too
However, your gift gives too much

I'm afraid of taking more than I should
Even though you claim I own it all
I stuck my claim and you won't say no

Don't credit me for more than I'm worth
Don't mistake me for something I'm not
Don't ask me to change the unchangeable

If the world keeps turning longer than our souls keep burning
Perhaps we can't change the tides
With something that can't even change our minds

Asphyxiating on your shadow
Suffocating in the great lack
Smothered by selfishness
Stifled by cognizance
Strangled by an invisible grasp

Just,             
                    Do
        Because      what
You             in               you  
        live         the               want
             with        end
                    your
                          own
                                    **Decisions

I am an oyster shell, partially open under the cover of the waves
Yet once I feel your intent to pick me from the water approaching
I close myself up, and I tuck my true heart away
I do not permit love to enter, the emotion is encroaching

I know I have a pearl to offer some other
I have been building it up over the years
Little by little a shiny seal has formed a cover
Over the irritation that used to be here

Despite the way I shut down and feel disconnected
You are not unworthy of my affection, I just don't know
How to interpret my emotions for you, my mind is hectic
Nonetheless, my hands are clammy and my face glows

And by the way we stood today
I almost forgot
That we weren't together

I've reheated the same
Cup of coffee five times
This evening

Trying to write something
For myself that accurately
Describes how I experience

Often I am flooded in the ordinary
By the emotion and the density
Of life itself, in all its majesty

And sometimes I am left
Devoid of sentiment
In moments deemed worthy

I get lost in thinking of
The way the future will
Tangle with the present

I find myself stopped in
A memory as well,
A reminder, a fragment of past

The present is a fleeting concept
A paradox, I think
A circle of thought

At what point
Does the future become the present?
And the present become the past?