My life has become a series of fragments
seperated by cups of coffee;
stacks of dog-eared books fade
to lecture slides and surprise tests-
flash forward to scratchy nylon polos
and "please hold, Jeff is busy"
until the lights turn down
and I hit empty,
only to refuel with a lukewarm cup
of the house blend.

Yesterday you picked
up the candle
burning by my bed,
this smells like a memory
you said, and my breath skipped
because the last time it glowed
was the night we learned
how to touch in the dark
while my mom slept upstairs.

Its shadows danced
across the walls
as we caught marshmallows
in our mouths,
and laughed our way
through 16 almost kisses,
by my count, fueled on
by the intoxicating smell
of our only light.

We watched the sunrise
through the tiny window
in my inviting basement
before I helped you sneak out,
full on promises of "tomorrow"
but it's been three months
since I've seen you
in that candle's light,
and I watched you sniff it
one more time before handing it
off to her--
*does this smell familiar, babe?

In the forgotten corner
of my junk drawer
I found the remains
of a love poem
I once tried
to write for you,
and I remembered
a different life,
back when you cared
and I said I did too.

At the graveyard
Where six generations
Of my family rests,
A retired caretaker
Spends every Monday
Tending the flowers
Marking the graves
Fresh enough
For people to care.

Sometimes I watch
Him plod along
Bringing life
To the dead
And it seemed like
A sweet metaphor
For the way you
Nursed me off the edge.

Messy break-ups
haunt song lyrics
and bitter poems
about unfaithful ex’s,
even history books
talk of jilted lovers
and the wars they waged.

But letting you go
felt almost too easy—
it just makes sense
you said one day
over the vanilla shake
we split each week,
and I couldn’t disagree
with logic like that.

Your mom bought me books
about mending things
I barely read,
because maybe
our steady love
was never really
a matter of the heart
after all.

I’d rather watch you run barefoot
Through the summer grass, chasing fireflies
And pulling a monster face
To make your little sisters laugh.

Show me the way your eyes light up,
Your breath skips,
And your whole face is transformed
When a kiss catches you by surprise.

Let me see your persistent heart,
Chipped and broken,
Stopping and skipping,
But relentlessly beating back against it all.

Underneath the ironically dim light
of the neon-inspired bar,
you line up for a picture
and struggle to disguise
a misshapen smile—
perfect, I call it
and you call me insane.

But your mirror can’t show
how my skin tingles
when your cheeky grin
catches me across the room,
or the perfect fit of your lips
pressed against mine.

Sighing, I look
at your close-lipped smile
and think of the gap
you painfully hide,
a small space just big enough
to be perfection redefined.