Happy birthday.
I hum under my breath the tune.
What are you doing?
How are you feeling?
Happy birthday.
You are the same age as me.
I try to be inspired.
I try hard to remember all the memories I’ve had with you.
What did I do when I turned 23?
Do you fly around this place?
Could I spend just five more minutes talking to you?
We could talk about 23 years we’ve spent here on this rock in space.
Happy birthday.
Words get tangled up and I can’t continue.
I can’t help but think, are you warm?
I keep thinking you’re in another room.
Happy birthday.
I’m not sure how to get this message to you.
Is there an answering machine in heaven?
Happy birthday.

Maybe we met in a past life
The only way I could feel this way
Our souls had to be intwined for what feels like eons
Twisting and kissing you and me
And I’m convinced
Whether my face was this or another’s
You would find me again
And again

Today and most days I feel as though I want to fuse myself to you.
I desire to entangle myself in a passion so divine it’s above our power.
I want to pledge myself to you under an old tree your father planted, and become a bonded two.
Say our vows beside the flowers you grew up next too.
I want you besides me forever, I pray you want this too.
Oh please I hope you do, for my deepest wish I’ll depend upon the stars.

The lovers nest in a symphony of four parts perfect cacophony.
They undress together knowing opum two is the well rehearsed dance of hot baths and touching.
Knowing the other so well it’s just choreography.
A dance of dishes and kisses before work.
A memorization of a love language perfectly created for intimacy.

I should have left
when you told me I was nothing
to sensitive
When you only wanted me
without my clothing
Should have known
When you twisted my words
To make me feel as if I were to blame
Gaslighting and grooming me for your own
eating my soul
Touching my skin
Making me feel so ******* alone
I hated myself every minute
But still couldn’t pull my hands away
Skin and body and bone
I was yours
I knew you were wrong
Yet still I knocked
Every time I heard your voice
Every time your hand manipulated mine
I broke like glass
Each shattered shard
embedding into my growing places
Making even breathing backbreaking
When I stopped going to classes
Stopped talking to friends
stopped eating
I should have understood

i have forgotten
to linger 
in love 
with you
in a past life
wanting only 
to be found worthy 
of your affection
revere your touch as holy
like goosebumps 
in the italian sun
to write melodies
and ballads
and captions
not of purity, not of beauty
but of how you make me feel
forget all the rest
all the fighting
all the ugly
all the words
we didn’t mean
for i am ill 
when you are not around
and it is poetic enough
that you are broken 
yet you are
what makes me whole

In the nights when the stars come
And heat from the sun is almost gone
You and I go for a walk
The world around us falls fast asleep
But we are content
in eachothers company
The moon high above seems to whisper
kiss her kiss her
And so you do