I don't talk about it much anymore but you know you broke my heart
Not because we were in love
Because we weren't
But I loved you anyway
Not romantically speaking but in the way that sisters lie together in the same bed
Or like brothers hold hands when they're small
Innocent
I was innocent and so were you
But things change and I have too
I'm not the same anymore as when you stuck the knife in my back
I'm not the same as the kid who didn't know how to react when you tore into me numb on the cabin floor
No I'm not the same but somehow after all these years you are
And you can't keep hoping that someone is gonna become more than themselves for forever
You can't stay up waiting for the same response you've been waiting for for the past two years
And I've been here for the past two years
Hands folded staring numbly at you and your changing personas
Yeah you can change your hair but you can't change your color
You can't change your heart
So yeah I hang back when you walk in
Yeah I leave early and I show up late
And yeah I've written you over a hundred poems trying to sort out the knife you left in my back
But I know better than to talk about it
I know better than to look you in the eye and expect you to honestly look back
I don't talk about it but you ******* broke my heart
And you didn't even try

I know that heaven will be a summer evening
And we'll be back ******* around on that hill overlooking the city
And all our past lives
Will be dust in the wind
And all that will matter is our hands in the grass
And the skyline before us
But now all we see is the war before us
The physical and the unseen
And we are being shipped off one by one to the battlefront
I wonder if when they cut your hair you will still think of me in the front seat of your car
I wonder if you will wish for me on some distant star
Or pray to some god to bring us back together as if fate hadn't been gunning for us at all
I wonder if when home is only a memory you will take the time to remember the streets we used to drive endlessly
up and down
And back and forth forcing time to talk in all honesty about our changes
I wonder if your change will change me
If we'll ever even meet again
If we'll ever even speak again
All in all, I know I will love you till the very end
Even if I only love the memory of the hopeless ******* you were swearing quietly in the church
Smile on your face like you had something to say
Hands in your pockets like you'd never go away
Heaven is a summer evening where we turn back time and it all gets reversed and we get to stay together in innocence for the rest of our eternity
In truth, I'm not sure every eternity would be enough to lie back and remember with you
Heaven is a place where I look at you and I tell you I love you and you feel it in full
Where every cancerous thought of destruction is removed from your body and you are free in spirit to be as I have seen you can be
Heaven is a place where you look into me
And I look into you
Honest
Open
And innocent.
And I have loved you for the duration of our never ending Now, but I hear the Fates call that our portion of time together is now Enough
And it hurts.
Because Enough will never be enough for me.
Because for me, Heaven is us
back ******* around on that hill overlooking the city
Heaven is your porch in the dead heat of summer
Heaven is almost burning down your father's field setting off fireworks on the fourth of July
Heaven, to put it simply,
isn't on earth yet
and it ******* hurts.
Goodbye ******* hurts when you have to turn the page from the most beauty you've ever see.
Goodbye ******* hurts when your friends tell you it'll all stay the same even when we're thousands of miles away and all you can do is smile and nod because you know,
You just know that it won't.
Goodbye
*******
Hurts.
And nothing makes it go away except surrender to our individual up and overs
Giving way to the void of 'what happens next' in the never ending Now
And I know that now.
So I will watch you ship off to fight your holy war and I will fight the war within me to fight the Change
Because the Change makes us whole
The Change makes us new.
The Change builds us into who we were meant to be in the darkened theater of life by tearing us down to our core
And your core is something terrible and wonderful to see indeed.
You were a beautiful mess of man
But you have greater things to do
And I do too
So for the goodbye for this never ending Now
I'll see you when we meet again.

On a day to day basis people ask me how I am
I have come to realize that this is a habitual response rather than a genuine inquiry
On most days, I say 'ya know, I'm alive," and I don't bother to ask this question in return.
On my better days, I'll say "I'm good, how are you?"
And I'll watch as their mouth mimics the same lies in response.
I've started to wonder if anyone else can feel the emptiness in our words
Aren't they supposed to mean, something?

During my senior year I was voted most talkative, my yearbook reminds me of how much I've grown
I used to take pride in that social chatter, being able to talk anyone's ear off, or being seen as bubbly and bright just because I knew how to waste time with the filler words.
Now, I tend to keep my mouth shut. I've learned that not everything needs words.
Why it's socially acceptable to ask mere acquaintances how they are, subconsciously reminding them of all the things going wrong in their lives, when we fully know that no one wants to hear the truth. In fact, they look down upon the truth. Don't you dare say the words depression, anxiety, ptsd, mental illness or anything else for that matter. If you can't muster up the "I'm good," it seems, the only other acceptable response is "I'm tired," because, "I'm tired" has become the go to blanket term for every other emotion.
But you know what I'm tired of? People, who don't even care, asking me how I am, because now I can't even stop lying to myself.
The other day my friend asked me if I was okay. In my most convincing voice, I said "I am - always, okay"
They looked at me and mumbled "not okay"
I didn't need their words. I believe that all words are empty until someone fills them up with the presence of their soul. I may not have as many friends as I used to, but the friends that I do have speak with sincerity. When they say something, they draw from life experiences and offer these pieces of themselves, something I do not take for granted.
I collect the pieces and keep them as treasure.
Words are so valuable, as long as you don't leave them empty.

I can't walk in
flowered printed heels
I've watched you study yourself in
the mirror
steady neck leading down to
gentle shoulders and halcyon hands
sour ideas filling my brain I'm
imagining my hands
sweetening your concerned
soft-muscled legs
into certainty
bronze-brown strands of curly hair
on dark grey seats
I sense dancing trees behind me
and savor the beautiful bitterness
of abyssal secrets
on my saccharine tongue
your collar bones are silken
and veiled with Taurus-led
misunderstandings.
mine are always veiled with
uncertainty and
sporadically veiled with
you

This is the church of the crooked and fractured teeth
These are the hours slowed by lack of sleep
There is nothing underneath this breath
There is nothing but the body you left lying cold on the concrete
Isn't leaving sweet?
And I'm pouring out at 12am all the words I never said
Painting bottled affection to fog up your head
Hours without sleep lying in your bed
I loved this even then
Into the lazy hours
The nights when you picked flowers growing out from in between my ribs
Little light we sit and swig as I wash your feet
Intoxicated by the pleasant relief of you letting me down
I escape the room without sound only to write of nothing but you for weeks on end
And these nothings float up into the rafters and I wonder what comes after this absence of you
What I wouldn't do to tear back into you
Into the gaps of your teeth
I don't get the release anymore
I watch the moon move along my floor
As I Invision all the knots in my spine you whispered into
The black and the blue and the bruised
I'm not broken just used
But I still dream of you and how I would have abused the touch of your hands
I never belonged to another man but you
What's a girl to ******* do
But pour it back out again
And maybe you will
Maybe you will too
Maybe you will stay this time in my skin
Wonder what we might have been
If you would only descend again
The wanting never ends
And I am bruised cold over you
And for the way that we moved
And I can't hold up for much longer
The waves come back only stronger
And maybe for a little while
I'd let you come back around
And we'd tangle again a union of unholy sound
For this is the church of the crooked and fractured teeth
These are the hours slowed by lack of sleep
I don't get no release without my tongue in your cheek
I dunno it's just been one of those weeks
Just one of those weeks.