when i feel i'm lost,
i look for you
instead of
myself.

maybe that's my problem.

the golden month of summer
we're recovered from the semester
we spent making fun of each other
i know this because of the way
you are holding my hand
in this moment, i am begging
for someone to ask what love is
so i can tell them something like
"you know when you hold onto
something for too long and your
palms get a little sweaty and so
you let go of whatever it is?
i feel like that right now, but
it's more like his hand is
sweaty but i'm grabbing tighter
like a plead from a door frame
begging for the slamming to stop
yeah, my palm is sweaty but
i cannot let go.

2 years later, here i am
my hands are clenching themselves
into fists, my palms are sweating
but i've developed this habit of
not letting go of anything
and i miss you.

i've found myself awake to see the sun rise for 3 days in a row.
i want to believe it’s allowed me to remember there is still
pureness around me but it only exhausts me.
purity is something i never fall asleep alongside.
i keep eating strawberries before 7AM.
there is an empty carton of eggs on the counter
that i didn’t cook for myself.
someone told me i look very beautiful when i wake up
but i think that depends on the amount of heavy dreaming i fell into.
when the sun rises tomorrow morning and i catch it, as i most likely will,
i have a message for it. i want to tell the sunrise that first impressions are everything.
if it mattered in the first moment, it matters now.
my sheets are twisted in the way you could never mess them up.
you can tell me the same thing over and over but it’ll still sound new.
everything still tastes like you. you are still the pretty boy.
you are still the sunset i nap right through every evening.

does she even start forest fires when she blushes?
"she sets the whole world on fire"
i'm going to be sick.

i am only fragile in the
hands of someone i love
that explains why i can
come home, call you, and say
"i'm tired, i need to be held together"

that's when you wrap your
words around me like the
warmth of my favorite blanket
and i wither into nothingness,
return, and repeat the process

i woke up this morning
wishing i hadn't
and the sky wept for me
then revealed one of the
most vibrant rainbows
i've ever seen.
i couldn't look at it
because every color
is someone i used to love
and god, red is painful