It's gospel isn't it? Your quiet complacency
Out sick in the bathroom but still you seem to laugh at me
Your imperial intent and millennial mind
Only seem to distance you from being anywhere close to 'fine'

You sold out your soul to a bipolar lover you
Swore off your friends and told yourself you'd never need another
You broke my heart there in your damp summer clothes
You said it wasn't personal but i know that I know that I know that

I'm not supposed to suppose anymore
That you might feel better if you just shut that door
You can give him your world but you can't keep me in yours  
So I won't come around if you knock on my door anymore

The summer you met were the coldest months I've known
Ice in your eyes winters breath filled your home
The mess that we made still hangs round my head
Thorny black crown of the words I never said

But now here we sit in a 4x4 bathroom stall
Tell me it's fine that morning will fix it all
Tears in your eyes your hands in your lap
But it won't get better if you keep running back

But I'm not supposed to suppose anymore
So you'll keep on going back to his door
You can give him your world but you can't keep me in yours
So I won't answer when you come to my door

Isn't it funny how I feel less than feminine
When I'm stalking your tweets in the early am
Inadequacy runs rampant in the chasm of my tender mind
I brush you off again, then tell them all I'm fine

It's been a sorry six years of on and off dependency
I'm trying to understand why relationships get the best of me
I sleep in my clothes and hide the rings around my eyes
Meet you for coffee wait for another part of me to die

I know I run my mouth but
I'm trying to escape the inside of my head
I may not be the hero but
At least I say what needs to be said

Life is such a mess.

Black nights and the sound of you through my bedroom wall
Sing about her so you can see past your own skin
Flaws and fault lines captivate and horrify so you pick apart what you can
Young man trying to balance civilization with the old magic you once felt in your heaven that soon after became my hell
But don't cry for them
In time we all change
In time we all rearrange our feelings and heartbreaks
We all figure out all role models fall
But it broke you
And down you fell into a sea of your own discontent
The winter of 2014
Quiet brilliance never one to avoid a fight
You kick and you scream where you should lie back
And I loved you for it
Millennial abomination that you are
Spit your voice and chase her off your chest
Drink away the excess feeling and burn the rest
Don't you know that what the fire leaves untouched isn't your load to carry
Leave her along the side of the road for someone else to burry and pick up your megaphone and preach your gospel of self reliance on the streets
Born of Walt Whitman you speak of dependancy like a curse
But I know you need the stage to breathe I know you weak shouldered boy better than you know yourself at times
Though I only know you through the wall of your bedroom
I've watched you fight demons and cowards alike
Watched you been bruised and forgotten for years
Disciple of your innocence you were ignorant to the faults of your fellow youths
Pinned them up like prize fighters on your walls
Don't you know I watched it all
And one by one they fell
Unfaithful, thankless wretches and they took the life from you while you washed their feet
And you swore off dependency and trust for years on years and let it all go
And now it comes out soft and sweet through my bedroom wall
Let down and hanging around you sing for every ******* that forced their way in to your chest
It's a wonder you survived the rest
But here we sit after all.

For a second I remembered your scent
And I retreated inwards once more.
You don't simply leave you linger.

Real love is in the hazy curve of the earth lined in cities and streetlights
In men and monsters alike
In mountains and valleys real love finds you and forces its way into your lungs pushes out through your fingers and onto the page from your pen
Real love is in the depth of the action of feeling itself
Not in some petty lust or the need to be touched
The quiet yet resounding sentiment that if you don't find "the one"
Then you will be blindsided forever by the harsh hands of a thousand one night stands
You will be left empty in the kitchen sink
This I see and hear in the bodies all around me
And I've been ****** over as well as the next kid
Wide eyed and innocent young thing force fed brine and ****
I was in love with everyone and every thing that ever came near me
Blinded into submission in the ignorance of my youth
And I was taught that love was the feeling you felt when someone took you home or took you in
That love was an idea long lost in fairy tales and **** posts from your drunken ex at three am
And I got good at being let down time and time again by empty words or hushed sentiments spoken too hastely on the hardwood floor
I got good at learning to document a fleeting thought or moment just to try to keep some light in me so I didn't drown in the endless sea of my nights alone
And yeah the bottom of an empty bathtub became a second home but I have discovered that real love is as near as the grass under my feet
The cracks in the street the ice in my drink
There is a freedom and a weight in the weight of it all
so the feeling that they try to destroy when we're small finds a way
Through the pigment in our eyes to the countless times we are let down or let others down
The earth resounds that real love
Is in everything
And that you
Are apart of it all
And one day it's all gonna break

I was not built to contain affection
Burning blue in my viens
Late night ambition of being the one you think of in the early morning glow
Chasing your sleeved arms through my dreams
Warm
Uninhibited by nausea or fear
Falling free under the influence of fragile beginnings liberated by a fearless tongue I was not built to contain affection
Churning ocean of my stomach and trembling hands
The waves crash I'm maybe three steps away from collapse as I careen into you
This captivation of you
The way you breathe etched in to the margins of my wrists
The wordless refrain hangs hollow in my head: EYE CONTACT CASUAL CONNECTION EXPOSE YOUR WRISTS
I'm lost in the wonder of it all
I was not built for this
I was built to capture and release the swell of this ocean
I was made to fit into the small of your hand rather than hide in my own
I was not built to contain the multitudes of moments I needed to cross the gap between your skin and my own
I was not built to contain affection

You sit softly back into the faded couch
rain spills in dark blue slate against my forearms
Pale ivory lines of my skin align tenderly with your tangled teeth
You tell me that this is how we'll end
Dim and quiet icons of our generation wrapped in grey
But we laugh it off anyway
And I sing gods and monsters into your warm neck
Humble moments of my velvet intent
I lean into you
And the rain conceals the rest

Flickering
The future reads like an unfinished novel
Promising
Yet alluding still
I wanted to press myself within you but I can't seem to hold still
70 degrees in December
Tornado watch over the city
While the true storm brews within me
Nothing seems clear these days
What has been
What has yet to be
And the real mystery is what's inside and all around me
Shimmering nerves
Late night stare
You say you hate losing sleep but you stayed up just to talk to me
Maybe so I'll meet you in sleep like you meet me in mine
And I can't get the idea of your hands out of my head
Tentative yet reverent tracing the edges of my tender form
Warm to your touch
I am warm to your touch and it isn't much but
I can't stop writing your name
Trying to catch your curiousity through the mutual language of our entanglement
The constant question: affection
The weight of your eyes from across the room
or from across the concept of distance  manifested through the digital age
We're both romantics anyway
So we go as moths drawn to the flame
The light from another room
The candle left lit for a lover or child
The future
Flickering but promising
Uncertain as a tornado in the midst of winter
The future comes in waves.

I loved you in the blue hour
Green eyes over the table
Clean laundry and winter haze
I'm obsessed with your half smile
Quiet intent this is fragile
But this is how I fall
Late nights spent wondering after your clean lines
Soft skin cold light and I cant get enough
Wonder where it lands in the morning
Tripping deeper under grey skies in the afternoons
And this is it
Catch up on various afternoons I get lost in your pauses
Rough around my edges you make yourself at home
We could live like this
And this just the beginning
As you tangle your hands in my spine we're tangling deeper into:
Disbelief lack of sleep as you're next to me
Sit back sigh in unholy feelings I'm green and gold to your touch
And you're dark blue and grey rolling in the wake of the year of instability
Well liked and rounded yet you're coming round me
The thought of you breaks me
And I'm six feet off the floor
We Clean up you take me out and tell them all I'm your girl
Summer nights and new wine tentative dependency is our world
And with every twist of your neck or subtle laugh I'm back at your hands
Open
Naïve
And brusing blush and wine
This is how I fall
Into your open hands
Cinematic and young
I can't tell where we're headed but I know just how I'll land
Even if I'm unsure of you I am who I am
And I'm yours for the blue hour.

We are biproducts of the same dust we were made of when we first began to exist
All the tiny mechanisms firing inside of us sending flashes of light contrasting with motor oil and ****
And I wonder where you are
cutting in red from the despondant blue cascading and coexisting with the atmosphere surrounging you
and as you light up you tell me that it's true
that even though I may feel it I don't need you
But we both know that I do
So we're out smoking in the backyard
Blunt hanging from your mouth like the icon that you are 
Sinewy and strong
But your own breath chases itself away from you and the feeling isn't far
The feeling that this,
This is all we are: meter and rhyme
And lately I've become increasingly aware of the pale in my skin
The ever present blush the need and fear to let the light in
The way that the clouds align with your eyes but I still get burned
You're dripping ash on me laughing you tell me lesson learned
You cant ever hold what you earned
So you hold me instead
And it's quiet lines chasing cars down the street
All the boulevards align with your ease and my crooked teeth
You tell me to love them anyway
You tell me what to do even if you don't know what to say
And I can't ******* breathe anymore
The garden is closing in
Flashing lights of neon green corresponding with red and blue along the arch of your skin
Tear me in two
While I tear into you
It'll all feel fine.

There is an immensity of life between us
in the cracks of the tar lining the streets of the new and the up and coming
in the cement foundations of  pieces of history torn down to make way for condos
in the luxury of the innocent
in the opulence of the well versed

(I was never brilliant or oblivious but I understood the weight of it still)
and still
there is life here
in the filthy river water we use to cleanse ourselves of modern day idealism
in the pedicured grass of the only wild space left in the city
in the eyes of the people who go unnoticed for years
in the hands of the business men devastating and deciding the price of our humanity
we swarm
we collect
we nest in this hive
we levitate and gravitate towards new heights and new highs
vowing to go up and over up and over until we revert back to the way we once were
nostalgia
a pretty word for dissatisfaction
tearing down walls only to romanticize their restriction ten years later
we build up to break down to reenforce what we already know
but yet there is a beyond
and yet still there is more
still there is life in the existential
still there in the thoughts between sleep and waking
still between the jump and the fall
still
and even still you take your forearm and run it along the curve of the earth surrounding this city
this coal eating monster washed with the dreams of a thousand drunkards looking for some other body to call home
and we call it home
with the austere buildings and mirror images reflecting bricks and soot
reflecting breath and sighs
reflecting life and death
and between it all
there is so much life
yes between us
there is an immensity of life.

I don't write about you anymore
 At least not like I used to.
I used to feel you through your veins
Used to know you as ingrained in the fabric of the earth
All saltwater and spit like the love you always wanted
Like the love you set on your brow
But I don't write about you anymore except when I'm trashed at three am
Sick of all your talk and the way you put on that shadow when you're begging to be seen
And I do.
I watch you and your perfect teeth talk **** across the room
You say you're happy when you're drunk but I know it isn't true
You're just happy to be apart of something that feels bigger than your skin
Petrified by infinity you don't let your finite nature sink in
You are a biproduct of your generation.
Pastel perfection and ****
Everyone's dream girl
Until you're alone with yourself
And I don't know which is sadder
the way you laugh just a little too loud when the joke wasn't that funny and wasn't directed at you
or the fact that I've been sitting on the floor for an hour and a half and the closest I can come to explaining how I feel is "*******
 you never knew me
and you never wanted to"
And it's all I can do to just be near to you at this point
Listen to your hot breath fill the room with bravado and your parents beliefs
You said that people should do whatever they want as long as they're happy
And then turned back around and voiced how concerned you were about your brother's new habits
Just as long as no one judges you or your drunk Snapchat stories you post with your new friends who you'll be tired of in 3 months time
Everything is temporary but nothing seems to stay constant with you
And sometimes I think about how I used you write about you
Your wide eyes and moon shaped face
Heart of the ocean I was reeling in the high tide but now I'm stuck on land again
And even if it seems strange I don't want to go back
Back to when I used to write this way
Back when I was interesting enough for you
I want to sit on the floor in front of you
Hear the words on your tongue
Watch the ivory of your teeth meet your forced smile
I want to be here right now and drink in every ******* drop of your apathy
So I can remind myself who Ill never be
And watch you disopate and collapse
So yeah
I don't write about you anymore
At least not in that way.

And even at night I still wonder if it could have been you
all those lightning bugs and stars we chased
Burnt fingers and summer nights alone
It meant something
Even if they're nearly memories now
And I don't think I'll be able to shake it:
The thought of you
Quiet and pressing like I used to wait for my mother's attention
I'm still strung up on bottled affection
Don't you come around me
We'll never be small again but I still live on your porch
Won't you invite me in?
Won't you finally let the light in?
And even though I know it would never work
I still talk about you to god and my friends
Still wonder after your wide eyed innocence and boyish gate
Still moon after blue lips and mud encrusted shoes
I still wonder about you
Memories of dinosaurs and changing leaves
Bath time and the scent of cigarettes drifting off your mothers hair
And as we grew so did the distance
Traded dinosaurs and race cars for new addresses and opposing forrests
Towering ideals of the oddity we call home
But even this can be bridged by melodies sung at tender hours of the night in your attic
Only we can say we spent the last breath of 2014 singing a madman's hymns
Only we can tangle as we do through fumbled melodies and timeless sentiments
And even still
I wonder if it could have been you

God's green earth runs full between us
Late nights spent sipping on new wine and dreaming of all the ways we capsized
I don't sleep in anymore
I just chase your memory down the hallway
And I memorize all the lines you were so proud of
Rolling off my tongue in admiration of your thin limbs and Forrest mind
It's a shame the cancer stars hung low over you
In a way I guess it made sense
Retreating to your best friend sleep less and **** up
It's a pretty thing to grow up
It's a pretty thing to love the moon girl after she leaves you to gather dust
It's a pretty thing to have given your all only to find you turned to dust
Right down to our devotion we are the same
Steeped in isolation and dead leaves we were born out of the same fabric
And though the wall runs through our hands it's still thin enough to hear you sing
And I save all your shimmering tunes in the hymnal under my bed to sing for a better day
And in a different way
I'll chase you down again.

And I think it's time to face facts
That I don't really want to meet anyone new.
I just want the friends I had back when who folds what what time are you coming if you're even coming at all
was all that ever mattered
I just want you.

You can't survive on energy drinks and all nighters alone,
You need someone to love you too.

I don't talk too loud when you're with me unless you **** me off
Running your **** mouth as usual about something I've said or done
But at the end of the day you're still my ride home
You're still my long sleeved skinny thighed glass tongued *******
Quick fade slow trip naked in the front yard
And though you were quick to slam the door
I still advocate for your movement: slight reckless and agile
But understand this:
Even in your leaving there is poetry
Even in your exit there is beauty
And no amount of it's profound meaning was lost on me: even when I'm open I need you.
So don't worry kid
even if you slow down or **** up I'll still be home to let you in
Yeah I'll let you in so we can ******* about existence or let the light out on our skin
You thawed sandwich bread on the patio
And I cleaned my bedroom floor
You talk it big and I'll never ask for more
And I know she broke your heart like she broke my heart running off with the wrong one once again
But if you drive me home I'll be your home and we can finally start to begin
Again
This is for sitting on our mother's floor
Again
This is for i40 and our weekly commute
Again
This is for the days we spent running only to run back home again
This is for love
And this is for you
And I'll love you, you skinny ******* until the fabric of the universe breaks beneath us
And I'll love you until you begin to love again
And after all this time
I Guess I need you.

I don't know where it came from
Maybe it was the unusual warm air in November
Or maybe it was the need to be known
But at the mention of you
Or the faint glow of another window
I'm spiraling back into:
Blood drive river bank lace your fingers into my hips
Cold air nausea never even been kissed
But don't you know I want you more than ever
Don't you know I'd like to try?
But I'm only everyone's open arms
And you're their American icon
Strolling through winter wheat
Blond, strong and smirking at me
And I'm hiding in my skin
Insecure and inexperienced and I know exactly why
Petrified at the thought of another drive home alone
Tender at the thought of trusting
Be gentle with me
Only after I'm bruised deep blue
Walk home with me
Only after the lights are shot out and you've faded back to gray
I have no stomach to explain passion and no armor to field my family's questions
Just the burn of my chest under my thin jacket
And the warmth of your hand on my skin
And I met you at the blood drive and I let you under my skin
Deep red they bled me dry as I gave you all I had within
I'm alive but I'm weakened
And you put the color back in my cheeks
And you supported me all the way home
So maybe I spiraled into this
Maybe I'm still scared from the nights spent sleeping alone
But in the warm November air
I'll let you in
Spiraling again.

maybe it was the light reflecting off the water that made it all feel surreal
the long drive the slow dive
the weight of unspoken want
we shed our clothes and bore our skin out into the night air
and we told you not to look knowing full well that you would anyway
but anyway
here's another night spent in proximity to another life
secreted away in city lights and manufactured stars
you lifted me over the fence just to carry me until morning light
pale
open
blunt.
vulnerable in the dark water
flash junk imagery of your hands on my waist
gold and black and crystalline in the low light from the parking lot
your visual stimulation an ever present hum in the background of the moment
we broke in just to break out of routine
six of us small thin and brittle in exposure
connected by the weight of unspoken want
just don't leave it for too long
and I told you not to knowing that you would
you looked and I fell and they laughed knowing it was the slow burn all along
and I know that on the ride home you'll wait for glimpses of my figure illuminated by break lights
and that I'll search for your arms in the darkened car
but for now it's the light reflecting off the water
and your iconic longing
the type that sets a lover into eternity in photographs and sighs
thin wrists and thighs
this is the long drive and the slow dive
and six feet under isn't so scary in a swimming pool
dark blue and numbing the weight fades away only to resurface along the arch of my spine
reignited by your hands cautious and thin
and the waves tumble in
reckless son sick coughing up blood like I need this
nervous soul set alight in the waining darkness
you'll catch me before they catch us
and I'll be the first to confess
that it was the weight all along
exposed and half dressed faded in the wave pool
the long drive the slow dive
the weight of want in your arms.

Rapid fire heartbeats sitting pretty on your floor
desperate to disappear yet longing for you to look over my way
typical.
and i'm twisting into the rug dreaming of a way out of here
overflowing in the empty bathtub hopeless obsessed with the fears I don't yet know
grinding into the concrete my open back with flecks of gravel and a skin full of bruises
oh don't tell me what the news is
I just want to disappear into this
and I destroy my walls and build them up again about three times a week
unclear and dissatisfied
lifted by my own skin set your fire into me
my sister and my brother gone on the open road
I don't care if it hurts I still want you all the time
and I watch others climb into another's skin and I can't seem to find the bottom of my glass
floating on something else
I write what I feel and that's all I can offer
no one loved the ****** poet
they just watched her wasted in the corner of the room
sitting pretty spitting blood
sitting pretty spitting blood
sitting pretty spitting blood
let it all go now
I'm not what you wanted and I never will be
I'm not going to haunt you or leave you wanting don't you see
I will be gone when I leave
and I will dismantle every bone in my ******* body if I can't have you
because lord knows I can't handle another disappointment
spiraling clean into the drink
just like I watched her from my satellite
just like I watched her prove that she was it all along
just like I watched her watch herself move
well I tried for years to get her attention or to pin her down but she never settled
so I settled myself down deeper into the cracks of my kitchen floor
scared shitless running down her street
don't give me the pill just give me the beat
and I'll run it out
I'll move it out
but I don't think I can go without you
want to dismantle your body in my mouth
run my fingers through your lungs and bring you to life
I think I could do it
I think I could
and my friends don't know where I went
leaving early staying out late dripping black gold in solitude they say I'm cold in my attitude
but I don't even remember my old name
just the constant call of
TAKEMEHOMETAKEMEHOMETAKEMEHOME
from every passing stranger on the street
I'd be lying if I said I didn't love them all
every one with pink in their lungs and ice in their glasses
severed twins of the lover left unknown
I'll still be there in the morning drunk on your **** carpet screaming that I need you to feel
until I glance at the door
and she comes again
she comes in waves of soft pink and promises left along the sides of the road
and she moves like the girls in the videos to keep from what she knows
and she'll sink her teeth into me
I know she's not real but she bites at my ankles and claws at my lungs
she won't stop till she takes the very breath of life from me and leaves me to rot
but it isn't so much what she is as what she's not
she revels in it all
and brushes my hair before bed
and I think I can see just beyond the morning light
I think I can see just beyond her smile
and I know that this time is my time and I won't be back for a while
raise myself out of my weekday and loose my phone
drown the nightmares out learn to be alone
I think I could
I think I could do it
but for now I'll suffer
moth wing heartbeats sitting pretty on your floor
desperate to disappear yet longing for you to look over my way
typical.

The suburbs are growing all over the wilderness I used to watch pass by from the passener side
The glimmering dream of a generation reborn in the new frontier of romanticized  pop culture
The suburbs weren't made to live in
They were built to sing of and pine over like some lover changed with age
So in this new age
As the generation who swore to destroy them but now idly builds them back up again
We will stand tall in our lyrics
Dreaming of late night rides and sneaking out of our parents home
To distract ourselves to conceal the fact that we are all inherently alone
And I
In my young blood and bravado
Will put another brick into the walls.

this isn't so much a poem as it is me just trying to catch my breath
the weeks fly by and my friends are already packing their bags
the great unknown lies just ahead and their exit plans are finalizing
and here i am
weighted and thin
winter already purging any signs of pigment in my skin
I'm just trying to breathe
until I can walk outside of my house without instantly regretting everything
I don't have time to process anything
and certainly not prospective affection
but here you are anyway
thin like I like them
blonde like winter wheat
and I know it doesn't mean anything
but I couldn't sleep the whole night after we first spoke
contemplating all the ways I could get to you
cataloging your tweets and analyzing the time it took for you to speak
where you've been all these years and why we never knew each other sooner
I do this all the time
chase your imagery on my bike
stay up late and try to find you in bits of the city
and this isn't so much a love sonnet as it is just another waste of space
unattainable and shimmering and new
tinted golden and blue
god I want you now but I always do
and everything is changing but I still feel the same as I did when I first started writing this
so don't look for resolution
don't look for some cosmic statement about how this is how we were meant to be
or some pretty sentiment of unrequited love
because
this isn't so much a poem
as it is me just trying to catch my breath

even when I'm chasing someone else
I'm still trying to get to you.
You'd think eighteen years would be enough to shake this.
whatever.
I'll still see you in my sleep.

you are leading me softly
into deep blues and tangled sheets
quiet impressions of your past loves and their crooked teeth
while you, hang me in yours:
golden molars set on a house of cards
(This dissipates and collides)
and you don't breathe you smoke
pouring grey all out into the empty space
skin meets air meets time meets space
you spit ash and I reevaluate
the space between our hands
spiraling again
you tell me to open my eyes and take it all in
your hands on my waist
my hands turning tight
catch and combust
collide and spark your apathy
I burry myself in the face of the ocean
swirling slate hushed under the seabed
the wanting comes in waves as I'm drifting after you
this longing eats holes in my favorite shirts and breaks like the wings of the tender creatures of the night
wasn't their fault they were just drawn to the light in your teeth
and the feeling compels that as the waves break neither of us can remain
I'm just tripping after
deep blues and tangled sheets
quiet impressions of your past loves and their crooked teeth
just hang it and hang me in yours.

It's supposed to feel this way
sitting quiet riding high
the slow burn
the weight of another's hand on my thigh
it's supposed to feel like this
tracing my forearm along the curve of the earth while the party rages on inside
I'm spinning fast
all orange juice and half smile
caught tripping on my own two feet
and you say that we're the same
white hot like the lines of your teeth
you were always so willing to devour me
copy paste impress
the effort of becoming effortless
it doesn't make any difference
because no matter what you say
I know you know what you're doing
so I hide outside
scrape constellations into my mouth
run ragged down your street in my socks with my closest friends
laughing numb about my aggression and burning bright with white noise
It's supposed to feel this way
picking fights with myself in the half light
tearing my teeth out just past midnight
it's supposed to come in waves
youth
forever in four years of closed doors beige walls
and all those fake friends
will burn out hot and fast like dying stars
you'll slip away into forever and I won't miss you even when I think about the blue days
on the edge of the city catching streetlights in my chest
I won't miss you
just miss what I thought you were before I realized that nothing is forever
and we are not infinite
not even a little bit
not even when you play that song or say that thing that you rebloged at 2am that you thought would make you seem deep or intellectual
we are not infinite
but you were apart of my forever even still
so when I climb out of your windowsill it isn't because I'm trying to look like the kids in the videos
I just need to catch my ******* breath
just need to walk with a couple of people who know me
just need to trace my forearm along the curve of the earth
don't worry about it
you'll burn out soon enough
after all
it's supposed to feel this way.

too little too late I sat out watching the embers fall from your bedroom window
and I saw the green glass that falls now across your eyelids
veiling the light and keeping the shadows at bay
and in this
I have begun to realize that every self defense comes with its own side effects
as I watch you seem to not recognize your home
the empty streets bare the same resemblance to the love you used to accept
just let me fill the cracks in your concrete
and the holes in your gate
but we sit side by side not saying anything at all
watching the ash and counting the seconds
or at least I think you do
But whatever is left I will sit and smoke with you in the park
and I will be the slam of your car door as you leave

and it's taken me two years but I think I finally get it
it wasn't the forced laughter or the radio silence
it wasn't that every time I needed you, you never picked up your phone
too busy talking to God as usual
while I was screaming his ear off about you
you
and your white teeth and ambiguous intentions
you caught me numb on your kitchen floor
laughing in your old clothes when we're alone together praying that this time this side of you would stay
and for once you do
until there's someone new to impress or I just need to talk to someone at 1am
apathetic until something in the way of my being applies to you
and just like a kid you'll sit me down line our pieces up and try to convince me we're the same
you shoved the pieces that wouldn't quite fall into place under the couch and color coordinated and combined with no true knowledge of the picture
just like a little kid hell bent trying to please a parent
you tried to fit your life in mine but you never quite realized that I am not a puzzle and you are not a part of me
and it's taken me two years but I think I can let you go
I'm done driving to your house
I'm done watching you on social media intently trying to understand who you are and why the hell you do what you do
and it's been two whole years of passive aggressive talk contrasting quiet afternoons on your floor or blue nights spent driving around the city
it was below thirty but you let me roll my window down and so I could breathe the frigid air and tangle my wrists in the power lines
it all boils down to a simple statement:
you were there until you weren't
until it didn't revolve around you
you didn't want a friend you wanted an adventure like the pictures you pin on your wall
like the mindless **** you fill your head with to appear tragic and interesting
and I understood when you brought your new friends to my birthday
unannounced
uninvited
cold
and I saw pictures the next day of them in all of the places we used to frequent in the summer when I gave up on substance and just wanted someone to be with
and I know that the world belongs to everyone
but those nights belonged to us
quiet
secret
hot blue in a sea of navy and gold
like words whispered into a lover's shoulder
and when I saw the pictures I just kind of knew
that you never understood a ******* word of anything I said when I talked about how moments like these inevitability fall through or the cracks of existence or whatever
and you left early because they wanted to go and I smiled and said it was fine
you didn't get it
but I think I do now
it's only taken me a couple years or so.

I'm filtering you through the crack of light that universally seeps through all hotel room doors at the tender hour of 3am.
That is to say,
this isn't a sonnet of love
Or an overly romanticized image of a 21st century youth,
This is realism
In that I am trying to process everything around me like it will disappear tomorrow
Sipping tepid cola watching the day fade through the trees
Losing track of time or when the hell I'm supposed to be anywhere
Because lately I've been going no where
Tracing my veins and driving in circles around your block
Trying to remind myself that though we live in an infinite universe,
And though we are all alone in our own skin
we're still connected through the cracks in the concrete and the curve of the earth.
And I think about all the river water I drank in trying to get to your shore
All the time I've waisted hanging just outside your door
And I know I tend to get stuck on the little things like the songs we sang or the arch of your foot
But I'm just trying to ******* process you so I don't have to spend one more night on my best friends couch staring at my skin wondering where all the time went,
Wondering if I had cleaned up a little better
then my mind wouldn't be so spent
So I'm staring into the light coming through the hotel door at 3am so I can filter you out of my chest and onto paper
So if I disappear tomorrow
I can know your memory for today.

I think I've always known that you were headed for the stars.
I saw it in your eyes when you were young on the front porch playing your junior acoustic guitar
heard it in your voice when you made your mother laugh at the party
felt it in your arms in every hello and goodbye hug when you held me close just like I always wanted.
so yeah,
I've always known about you and the stars
and I think maybe, you saw the same in me
I don't know.
it was just in the way you always begged me to sing with you even though I was shy and your parents were drunkenly laughing downstairs
it was just the way you always asked endless questions about my year
and everything in the way you listened,
stupid smile on your face like you couldn't believe I was in your house
or that I was looking at you,
or maybe it was the way that you were always challenging or pushing me to live a little
and yeah it was the stuff of kids
but in my mind the lighter you forced into my hand meant so much more than just the snap of firecrackers in the dark
meant more than just the prospects of burned fingertips and ash
or the way you always managed to get me up into some tree or on some rickety old swing even though I was so afraid of heights
and you knew you were the only one who could do that,
just like you always have.
Because maybe you knew that to get where I was gonna go that I needed someone to remind me
that sometimes you have to go beyond what you think you are capable of and do the thing that frightens you
I always admired that in you
and that maybe you saw me too
so yeah
maybe you knew about me and the stars
just like I knew about you
and we've seen the world of our youth together
through dinosaur days and saturday morning cartoons
our mutual love of laughter connected us and grew like ivy between us covering the spaces we had left uncharted by the innocence of youth
you wanted to be a comedian and I did too
only if I could make you laugh like that night by the fire
we were young and skinny and wild and oblivious to the true nature of things
and it was small but it was good
so yeah
I mean I've always been in awe of you
and after all these years on your front porch we've come so far
your mom gave up smoking and your dad is cancer free
your brother got a girlfriend and you bought a car
so you can drive
and drive
and drive
and drive away
leave the small town you've hated ever since you started school
so you can drive to find your dreams and some girl to take your heart away
and after all is said and done
when you've broken the charts
gotten your name in lights
and seen the world with a thousand scars running deep just under the sleeve of your shirt
you'll find yourself hung in the stars
just like I always knew
so yeah
I mean I've always hoped that once you were there in the stars
you might look around and find me there too
and its a roundabout way of saying things
and it's different for me too
but
there was this band that we listened to that one summer in your kitchen while our parents were laughing about some video in the next room
and in about every single song that this band wrote
there was this one sentiment that was echoed,
and that has been echoed throughout the modern world countless times to the point of abstraction or sickening obsession
but
the way it sounded that day in the kitchen with seemed really really great
like we were the first to pioneer this brave new school of thought
and that the simple lyrics were insightful and new
though I know you probably don't have any memory of this
but
I think I needed to just let you know


that
I think I've always known
(that you were headed for the stars)

Lately I've been thinking about becoming bigger than my body
I've been processing you through **** demos on my phone
Through grey skies and empty bottles
Through blank stares and perpetuated silence
( I used to need a rhythm to write but the white noise in my head seems to work)
I've been turning corners and changing lanes
Doing the dishes and doing my time tangled in empty sheets
And it seems okay
As long as I'm not by myself for too long
Because if I let the white noise in I'll be swimming in black till the weekend
I'll numb myself in neon shades
White hot and weighty
Glimmering image of the silver screen dream
Spent shadowed twisting out into the intersection until I remember that you are not the same as you once were
And I am not the girl you needed
I'm just processing
And working on becoming bigger than my body
More than my bones more than my skin more than my gender more than a character in someone else's life
More than a thin wristed timid thing weighted down by years of neglect and indifference
More than a pair of wide dim eyes
More than myself.
I'm sorry I didn't call you back.