I'm wasting moments
Waiting for you to come back
Here I am

i.

I intentionally failed to wish you
a happy birthday this year,
though I know significant dates,
hours, moments, people,
by heart.
I still search for you in boys
I mistake for bandages,
the ones with eyes almost
the same shade of your hazels,
lips resounding your laughter,
resembling a wisp of your smile,
But they aren't you.

ii.

Sometimes I pretend you're dead,
because it's less painful
to stop reaching out into voids.

iii.

My mom still blames you
for everything that preceded that year.
Though you probably had no idea what happened
when we stopped talking altogether.
Can you believe it's almost been three years?

iv.

My dad wonders who was my 'one that got away'
Though, I'm pretty sure he knows
it's you.

v.

Remember how I mentioned Sylvia Plath?
How most everything she wrote
brimmed with melancholy?
How I loved every single word?
Especially that piece
where she talked about expectations
and disappointments.
You'll never know that
up to this day I still think
people are selfish enough to
always, eventually turn into the latter.
Even you.

vi.

It's sad I never got the chance
to tell you about Ted.
How she loved him so much,
she just had to dive headfirst
into the flames-- burning herself,
what was left of her--
after she found out
he never really loved her
the same way
she loved him
in the first place.

vii.

truth is,
some of us
never learn to accept
the love we think we deserve.

viii.

I don't know if you still read my poems
or if you still think about me,
about us, sometimes.
Every time you fall asleep past eleven,
a part of me hopes you do.
because I always remember you--
in birthday candles, red ribbons,
off-tune voice records, golden arches,
concrete sidewalks, pedestrian lanes,
the last flickers of city lights
softly fading out of the blue.
I remember you
in everything, in everywhere,
in everyone.
It's useless, no matter how much I try to forget.
No matter how much I just want to forget.
I want to forget.

But, how could I?

When forgetting means forsaking
the very memory of you.

You're a beautiful mystery clad in gorgeous enigma.
You're poetry that looks good in a skirt.

There's an orchestra on your tongue, playing the sound of your voice like a melody I can't forget,
matching the tempo of the drums in my heart
and the broken strings of my violin compliments.

You are a notebook, a yearbook, a sketchbook, a burn book,
every facet of you written in swirling cursive,
rhymes and famous signatures snaking between cinnamon hair and cleverness.

You are a pen running out of ink,
bleeding dry in Barnes and  Noble Moleskin journals,
but that's okay because I have more ink,
and you can borrow whatever you want from me--
store it in the heart you stole if you're bored enough to hunt my words for the pieces.
You have the key already.

You're the first dream of the boy too scared of nightmares to sleep again.

You are the taste of honey and cigarettes on the lips of the first girl that boy ever kissed,
because she was a rebel and he needed a hero
who wore boots instead of Mary-Janes
and band t-shirts instead of blouses.

You are the rose he drew when he was bored,
an outline with potential,
mysterious, entrancing, incomplete,
not yet ablaze with the red of desire
because he was never good at finishing things.
You are a dictionary. Your picture isn't just under "beautiful."
It's under "dangerous" and "witty" and "myth"
because Medusa bowed at your feet next to James Bond and Edgar Allan Poe,
and you're too good to be true anyways.

You are a poem, a telltale heart beating inside a lesson in vengeance,
temporary only because nothing gold can stay.
You've walked past where the sidewalk ends (certainly the road less traveled by)
and come back far more darling than any buds of May.

(You are the paperback novel he read under the covers,
the flashlight only bright enough to show paragraphs,
and every new page unique in shape and form
while the text remains the same.

You are the raw words read aloud by the daring poet,
standing beneath midnight moon,
the power of the throne,
the breath of a whispered promise falling upon the ear,
the warmth of kisses on the cheek,
the passion of all hope there ever was in trust and truth.

You are the fire in lightning,
the sparkle in the snow and the glitter in the rain,
the fierceness of the wind and the gentle, soothing peace,
the blazing chill of winter and the roar of summer's heat.)

But you're still a mystery.
A beautiful,
beautiful
mystery.

perhaps it is a curse when you feel too deeply
there's no way to pluck your chest from your heart
so it weighs you down completely

and so the stories are true: life is not all magic
when you're eighteen it's easy to forget

but what is life if we don't let ourselves feel?
being lovesick, feeling heartache
is what reminds us we're real

Your gaze on someone else
while mine's always been yours
Numb my feelings, mute my heart
I don't want to feel for you anymore.

This is a rebirth—
I will bid farewell to all this hurting,
I will shed this skin along with what I once felt,
and leave a little thank you note on the fridge
for all the bad days when I felt like sinking into my bed to disappear.

This is a reincarnation—
I'll revel in the familiarity of days long gone like past lives,
I'll listen again to the songs I loved when I was fourteen
and perhaps find new meanings,
I'll search for the innocence I lost to time and age,
and hang on to every bit of soul and memory I can muster.

This is a renaissance—
Little by little I shall rediscover my body and heart,
My soul will awaken with curiosity and be fuelled with a lust for life,
I'll fall in love once more with the world in a different light.

This is the revolution—
It's the dawn of a new age of knowing my own worth.
I have allowed myself to feel and hurt, to love and lose.
Like rebuilding a fallen civilization
I will step forward defiantly and vulnerably,
I will love myself and live unlike before.

I remember my last love letter to you and how I apologized for being more ocean than girl, more suffocating than soft. I remember promising my reflection that I'd stop my heart from overflowing and I'd try to loosen my grip on you. I remember waking up the next morning and finding my heart on the front porch - beating and bleeding. Nothing too sentimental attached - just a plain old 'sorry' as if you had only bumped me by accident or forgotten to reply to a text. I remember trying to shove it back through your mailbox and your shaking head standing at the window. I remember waking up to everything smeared and hazy for two weeks straight I never knew morning from afternoon.  faded rose that used to be bright scarlet. I remember being pink for a while. It took me months to wash your stains from my walls but soon I was stark and white. Naked and empty. But at least you were gone. I remember swearing to never look at red again. Let alone touch it. But it's knocking at my door every morning and banging on the windows all night long. I try to ignore her singing but sometimes I crouch at the keyhole and hum along. Sometimes I stand clutching the key in my prettiest dress.

Last night I grew too curious. Opened the door just a crack. I saw love crimson and crying in my garden corner surrounded by empty bottles and cigarette buds.

I saw you drunk and tired

We gave up at the same time