There are parts of this that terrify me
I avoid questions like a mom avoids the room of a
Sleeping child
For fear of waking parts of me that existed once.
I don’t want to mess this up
By continuing to move at the speed of a freight train,
But we don’t have much time and it seems
That that’s the only choice we have.
It’s not the only choice we have
It’s the choice my body wants me to make
Because it’s been drawn to you in the way that a
Bee is drawn to a flower full of nectar
For quite some time now
And it’s hard to deny the powdery pollen that coated me as soon as I jumped in.
I don’t know how we got to this point
But I thank my lucky ancestry every day
That I get to fall asleep to the lilting tilt of your voice,
Botched as it sometimes is by the 976 seeming light-years between us.

You are fire.
Everything about you breathes passion
You are a fire and I am the earth underneath you
You let me see what you are made of.
You let me cradle you as you flare up and as you simmer down to embers
The earth is never afraid of getting burned.
But sometimes I am.
Your eyes smolder with a love that could melt boulders
And sometimes trust is hard for me.
I know that’s hypocritical but you’ll have to forgive me
Even the earth has many faces.
Mountains grow tall and intimidating
Creating walls that people make games of climbing
The mountains letting them think they won,
Even some of the hardest house a molten core.
Plains keep the earth close
Dirt suddenly under your fingernails and staining your clothes
Seemingly from nowhere
You aren’t sure how you let it get there.
With sand you can make the most impressive of castles
That will fall away as soon as a wave removes its foundation.
Sand has trust issues.
As soon as she feels your fingers falter
She’ll start to slip through the cracks
But at the same time she clings to you from another angle.
Following you home and turning your carpets to sandpaper,
Your floors into gross renditions of the shoreline.
Sand will make sure you can’t forget her.
And she’s patient.
Even as the ocean,
Turned red from the effort of reflecting the beauty of the sun,
Ebbs farther and farther away,
To homes on other shores,
She waits.
She knows that though she’s been left before, this time it’s different.
The warmth of the sun still radiates within her
Reminding her of that.
Telling her that maybe
Her fear isn’t so rational after all.

Sinking into the depths of your memories
For what seems like years
Only to resurface and find
You're braced against every surface
In the vicinity.
It's as if even your body realizes
Your mind is unsteady.

In your den, late one night
With no music,
You asked me to slow dance.
I didn't realize,
I should've known,
That was you asking
Me
To take it slow.
I was too busy
Falling for you.

She says
"I love you"
Like she invented the phrase

How,
In a life full of averages,
Are you so
Perfect

Even when we cared about each other with all that we had
We were still too into ourselves to work out.

~

I should've known we were in our prime
The brightest stars are in their ending stages.

~

I never thought you'd walk away,
And that was the problem.

~

I'm afraid to try to give myself to anyone now.
What if they take it.

~

You will never leave me.
And I'm beginning to get to be ok with that.

The tree is beautiful
But nothing compares
To the roots.

Melodies catch attention
But songs are empty
Without the harmonies.

Youth is sharp
But life is simple
Without the depth of age.

Teach me your roots.
Sing me your harmonies.
Let me be there to see the development
Of every crease,
Every wrinkle,
Every stupendous
Life-giving breath.

You are everywhere
And everything
And I miss you.

I knew you were
Too good to be true.

I know
because every time I hear the word "love"
My mind would jump to you
If it wasn't already there.

I know
Because every time you walk in a room
I worry that you can hear my heart
Knocking against my teeth.

I know
Because you can trace the structure of my bones
And tell the story of us.
But our story grows and so do I,
So do we,
To make room for more memories.

I know
Because for the first time
Since I became old enough to harbor an awareness,
And dislike,
Of my body,
I believe someone when they say I'm beautiful.

I knew
The day I unthinkingly referred to a place
That I had never considered more than temporary
As "home."
The only reason I could fathom
Is that it's where you are.

I've never experienced anything
As addicting
As kissing
Her

You didn't fight for me

Tutto quello che
vedo è il suo vi-                      
no tinto labbra.

Non so chi sia
più. Lo specchio deve ess-
ere disteso.

I wish you had no feelings
And it remained purely physical.
Physical is easy.
Physical is workable
It's tangible
It's intense. Particularly
Right now.
If we kissed right now we'd
Melt into each other
In the heat of the moment purely from
My desire for you.
Communicated through every nerve ending currently
Brushing your back
Brushing your arm
Gripping your neck.
Feelings complicate
They dominate
They make all above scenarios
impossible.
Because with feelings
If it happened,
You'd never let it go
And this would be better
Transient.

Scattered points and sharp edges,
A body never lies.
The spaces in between soft and
Warm and
Welcoming
It’s also in your eyes.
Crevices hold darkness and
Secrets hide within
Luckily you don’t have many
For some reason or another
You chose to let me in.
Every mole and whisper of a freckle
Discovered in the dark
Is another story, yet untold,
Finding them now
Is an art.
The hairs across your body
Took time for you to love
Sometimes shaving
Sometimes leaving
What once you were embarrassed of.
As comfort levels increase
And masks keep coming off,
Details ever smaller show,
More for me to love.
Little “flaws” and blemishes
A body never lies
Every mark, a part of you
Perfection in my eyes.

Half of my stupid brain can
Logic it out,
How we got here.
The other
Half
Is ruthlessly sad.

Through everything you said to me
Everything you did,
I still blame myself.
I still see your pain.
I still worry.

You've always been more important
Than myself.
'Always' extends to now.

Don't worry, love.
I forgave you a thousand times.

Staring into space trying
To keep it together.
Eventually focus on the memory your eyes
Have rested on.
Pain seeps through the nothing that you had been working so hard
To keep.
Thoughts flood into the void that you had just
Emptied.

Driving back in the pouring rain faster
Than you should.
Slightly more reckless
It's a miracle you're alive
Half sad, half surprised,
The half that's kindofgladyouguess
Mixed in there somewhere.

Testing limits allows you
To breathe.
It's hard to remember how when your brain is a broken record
Stuck on all your recent failures.

Stumble in late
As has become usual.
Making it home to your roommates reminds you
What you haven't lost yet.
Keeping you going
For another day.

Up to this point it felt like
Even thinking about this abandoned lake
Would create sound waves that would
Disturb the ozone.
Now I'm left wondering
If your tone of voice is
The equivalent of dipping my toe in and
Realizing the ripples I see are
From two peoples' toes.

I want to have wrinkles when I grow old
From laughing at how funny you think you are.

I want to have terrible, achy knees,
From spending a lifetime dancing with you.

I want an arm that permanently curves
To match the way you like it when you lay your head on my shoulder.

I want a hand
That has forgotten what it feels like on its own.

I want eyes
That can't forget your face
And a brain
That can have conversations with the tone of your voice.

I want feet
That are forever warm from being shoved against your legs before sleep.
And arms
That always fit around you perfectly.

I want my lips
To always curve into a grin whenever they see you
And my mouth
To never forget what it feels like to feel yours against it.

I want to forget how many years we've been together
Because we've been together that long.

I want the scars to fade
The fears to dwindle
The nerves to subside.
I want the hurt forgotten
The walls to crumble
The lines to fade.

I want trust to grow
Words to flow
Ideas to sprout.

I want to celebrate with you,
Grieve with you,
Live with you,
Love with you.

I want safety and security
In your arms
Forever.

Like putting a hand on a bright red burner
Just to make sure it's actually hot
Isn't it funny how it takes something hurting us
For us to realize
That it's real.

I want to reach back out
But I don't even know what I'd say.
Don't know how to not scare you away.

When did I become so fond
of the blush and the delay
That comes as the result of a few
Good
Strong
Drinks.

When did I start to like having
An excuse
For the
Stupid
Things I do.

The burn of the drink
The blur of the drink
Blurs the lines
Blurs the memories
Blurs the feelings.

Was it when I started questioning
You?
Was it when I realized that I'd shut off
The feeling of missing you for so long
That it just stopped existing at all?
Was it when I promised myself to you
In a hurry?
The same way you gave me the ring?
Was it when I didn't acknowledge that I wasn't ready yet.

Or was it a long long time ago
Was it before I was even born
We all know it's in my blood
But I did so well ignoring 'my destiny'
For so long
For so long that I didn't care.

Did I not care?
Or was I just too worried about you and her to care
Was I just putting off caring
For the day that
I didn't care
Anymore

When did I become so fond of this haze

It's amazing
How even 9 months later
It's like you can sense when I'm feeling weak and
You can do something
From so far away
That manages to
Knock the breath out of me and leave me
Feeling empty
Once again.
It's also amazing
How obviously deliberate it is.
And how I know
I shouldn't care but how much
I do.

I have not fallen out of love with you
Or even us.
I have fallen out of love with myself.

Notes, melodies, beats.
Words, thoughts, stress.
Directions, vocabulary
English, Italian.
Nonsensical, repetitive.
Over and over and over
I never know silence
Until I’m with her
I never realized how loud my head is
Until I wasn’t with her anymore.

I feel like I
Lived a thousand lifetimes with you.
Yet we are apart, and
Have been
For a while.

Do you think in another plane
Our trajectory continued?

Of all the things I have,
The thought of losing you
Scares me the most

Babe....
Oh my butter patty.
She's right.
People don't change.
This side of you has
Been there all along I was just
Too in love with you
To see it.

I'm from the South, see,
So I spent my childhood in a church and,
Though I may not know much about religion,
Through the years I
Learned some things.

I want to worship your body
Like the men and women raising their
Thanks to the Lord on a Sunday morning
Until I've got you murmuring
"Hallelujah..."

The truer answer to your question is that I ask myself every day if I'm still in love with you, or if this is just the friend version of our sunlit love. There was a chunk of time where I was relatively certain I wasn't, but for now the jury is back out. And I'm so extremely glad that you're happy, and that you've found someone, and I know that this is why you aren't visiting, but this is part of why I want to visit. To see and to know, ya know? But regardless of these feelings that may or may not exist, I will always love you and I will always love us, in whatever form our relationship is at the moment. This isn't me asking for change and this isn't me asking for attention or trying to be melodramatic, and you don't even have to answer or acknowledge this, but you asked. And the truth is...this is my reality.

Getting over her is like
An addict
White knuckling their way
Through recovery.
Just when you think you're better
You get a whiff,
A glimpse,
A fleeting memory that
Breaks you and
You relapse,
Only to start again.

Some days
I am so over you that
I could look to the sky and thank it for
Relieving me of the extra weight
Finally.
And then sometimes I'll hear a
Five note sequence come on the radio
And it's like it played the keyboard that is
My heart and
Opened the door that
Always belonged to you and
I can fall to the earth with
Memories
And longing.

Forward
Back
Forward
Back
Inhale
Exhale
Inhale
Exhale
Deafened by the air whooshing past your ears
Or by the thoughts scrambling through your head?
But no, you're here to tune those out
Pump forward
Lean back
Only enough silence to hear by at the crest of each arc
Trying to ignore it all
Only mildly successful
Inhale
Exhale
Forward
Back

Whenever I think of the phrase
"Thoughts fill my head"
I think of you
Because you're the only person for which
That's ever felt literally true.
Thoughts of you are akin to a sponge inside my brain,
Pushing out,
Swelling up,
Eradicating the possibility
For any further thought.


What's more
It feels warm,
This fullness in my head.


As if anyone could've told me,
But I wish someone would've said,
That when you find the one
Who makes you feel like this



Keep her



Or for the rest of your life



You'll miss her.

I have to tell you.
I have to tell you all.
But I don’t know how…
I can’t find the words to say…
To tell you…
That I’m not who you all always thought
I was.

I would lick your sweat off you just
So I could taste your salt

Her beauty hatches butterflies in my innards.
I lost my breath the first time I saw her
And every time after that.

I remember the way your words felt
As they burned into my heart,
And the way the look in your eyes tasted
When it gave me cravings
No one else can sate.

Sometimes I feel like my heart
Beats in another person's chest.
Like I bleed
From someone else's wounds.

It is time
For me to do unto you
What you've done for me.
For me to stop making you a priority.

It is time
For me to decide how I want to
Look upon the past
And what light
Or darkness
I want to carry forth
From here on out.

It is time
For me to look at myself
My fears
My flaws
My insecurities
My habits
My....

It is time
For me to remember that it hasn't always been like this
That I
Haven't always been like this.

It is time
For me to decide
Who I'm going to be.

The clock has been ticking
And I've been standing still.

i'm out of tears and out of hope.
your grace period has ended
and still no word.
the sleep won't come but i see no reason
to get out of bed.
we were perfect and now
pictures
memories
and a pain inducing toothbrush
are all i'm left with.
maybe one day
the hunger will return.

i can't say i didn't see it coming
but that doesn't make it easier.
for feeling so empty
i've never felt so heavy.

I want to kiss you when you're smiling.
It seems like you hold the happiness of the universe
In the lines at the corners of your lips
And if I kiss you maybe I'll get a taste.
So far it seems
That it's been working

Words plummet from my mouth disconcertingly.

Does water think about what it's doing
Before it goes over the falls?

If we find ourselves disappointed
It means we wanted more.
If you admit to being disappointed
You admit to having wanted.
If I've disappointed you
Will you say it?
Will you say that you want me?

My heart still crunches when I think about you. Your imprint has not faded. Not clearly, nor fully. Will you ever know how close we were?

They said the hunger would fade.
How laughable.

I'm worried.
Concerned because
It seems our definitions of
Forever
Are different now
Where once they were
The same.

Once
"Forever" meant until humans went
Extinct.
Now I fret.
It seems
You've actually done it.
You've moved on.
And
I'm still here.
Even though you told me not to be.



Will I always be?

There are so many things about us
To be afraid of
But when I look at you
All I notice
Is that our eyes
Make love.

Our eyes make love when they meet
And you never look away

I've always said you were my sun
And I stand by that,
Ves como nada puede tocar el sol?
So I always wondered how I,
Your lowly earth,
Could have done so much damage.
And that's when I realized
I'm not earth.
I never have been.
My soul has always been a fire's greatest enemy
Fluid.
Capable of drenching you to the bone.
I don't know how I missed it
You can even see it in my eyes
My soul flows like the blood in my veins
Like rivers through the country side
Like the water from the firefighters' hose.

Always moving
Always adapting
Slowly changing those things with which it has
The most contact.

You feel like a song that
I grew up knowing and loving
But haven't heard in years.
I can remember every word
If you give me a chance.