you are a diamond and there is a speck of eyeliner winged out and smudged on your cheekbone.
even diamonds have flaws.

we are driving down a narrow highway onto a bridge and you snort when you laugh. i'm dreaming because i don't think real life has an 8mm film reel collecting all the times we felt like we were flying. when we felt like we were in a movie and we were heroes. we were royalty and when you smile, it feels like heaven. it feels like all the gold in the world has been poured into my veins, it feels like good drugs and good friends and a good life.

i have sunglasses on my face and a thin tan line on my shoulder blade and your freckles dot your eyes more than any alphabet, a play on words, witty banter, your solid, subtle smile with parentheses near your cheeks.

when i think of you, i think of cherry chapstick, a whole pizza to ourselves, and your glasses. i think of hope and fate and destiny and love, not the kind of love we hear thrown around during friday night football, but the kind of love that doesn't burn out. the kind of love that resembles crystal and fun times and the things that quiet poets write about after they drink ***** for the first time. the love that keeps its infinities hidden under its sleeves, like the pen ink on your arms under your sweater.

i think of flowers and cigarettes and laughing and smoking and crossing everything off of our bucket lists, running to little rivers and giving new life to old constellations, telling prophets our stories; we became royalty, we became the night that our friends dreamed of.

maybe it's crazy how
two people can come together
and leave
and then come together again
just by coincidence

the girl
that found
herself in
your eyes
has left
you in
the dust.

the girl
who said
she thought
she couldn't
love one
has left
for you
for herself.

the girl
has not
cried nor
will she
because she's
strong and
cares more
about herself
than you.

I wrote everything in orange ink.
I wrote our names in the margins of my notebooks
and I have dreamed of our futures.
I wrote of our wild times, kissing strange boys,
making wild jokes, falling for boys we were ashamed of,
our cigarette eyes, and ***.
I wrote it in orange ink,
"Life is wild."

Your arms wrap around my body almost as though they were meant for each other
But listen, listen to the sounds of the stars and the hum of the crickets and the echo when I tell you this isn't something I want to run into
I don't want to feel so empty, but the feeling of nothing in me has become so pleasing
Hence why I've stopped eating
Hence why I've stopped dreaming
Hence why I've stopped believing and
I love the smell of your cologne on the inside of my shirt and
I feel so much pride when you do something right, but
I have a reputation for falling for fuckboys and
I have a reputation for breaking their hearts as much
as they've broken mine