Dear old light,
old "what-if",
old "The One",

I wish I could remember more about our trip to Chicago. I think that I was so lost in the sheer lovesickness of it all. The long long days spent in that busy city, and the nights that I swear I could feel God inside me when we made love in our dreams.

If I had maybe paid a little more attention to the way you stared out at the lake and waited for the tide to take you, or maybe if I had taken more notice of the way your mouth didn't smile all the way, we'd be a different part of our lives right now. I thought I was the only one. I thought I was the only one.

I've asked the question so many times it's like the thought never leaves, but why did you keep on persuading me that I was your sun and moon when she was lingering on the back of your tongue while I kissed you with too much hunger and too little love? You should have left me alone, should have left me to starve on the side of my dimly lit road. But if I remember correctly, you devoured me with just as much greed as my body was willing to give.

I'm.....not as bitter. As I used to be. But that doesn't mean I'm not bitter at all. "I forgive you" would sound sweet coming out of my mouth except if I gave you that, you'd keep pulling more from the pits of my stomach and my heart. Or maybe I'd just keep throwing it up.

With some sort of forgiveness,
Claire
*(past regret)

Dear old lover,
old friend
old man-of-my-dreams,

It's late at night, although not late enough for it to be considered the saddening hour. I've missed you recently. Why? I couldn't tell you. It's probably something in the weather, in the moon, telling me "it's time for you to begin the missing again." Why you? Even more of a mystery.

We're talking again. "Talking." Sending messages as the strangest of strangers, as people who sort of still know all the secrets, who still sort of talk like maybe nothing has changed. Except now I construct my responses with the delicate intention of keeping my brick walls built around the space in my past dedicated to you.

I hope you're well. In the sense that maybe you still think of me every once in a while. In the sense that maybe you're forgetting how much you used to love me.

Sincerely,
Claire
*(past mistake)

I swore off love the moment you told me you were in love with her instead.

But it's impossible to swear off of something you contain so much of.

I give and give and give.

And even when I am done with the giving, I find something else.

I'll search through my veins and rummage in the depths of my lungs.

I am nothing short of selfish, except when I find someone who needs air more than myself.

And then, I'll breathe for them.

If you considered me a saint before, look at me as a martyr now.

Let's say...hypothetically...that you loved me
Would you have made it more clear?

Just for a minute...briefly...imagine that I hadn't loved you
Would I still have been left with all the ashes?

My heart is a plaything, I'll admit.
Your heart is a midsummer's evening, all delicate balance and heaving worry.
I'd like to think that I was a sort of awning for the rain that drenched you in sadness and fear that I'd cease to be your awning.
You were the rain.

Hopeless love is the most hopeful love there is in the fact that those who love hopelessly, are the ones who wish the hardest for the universe to make them both either the rain, or the awning.

I speak of you like god and that
is what sadness is like

Love is the constant notion that
your heart carries in its rhythm but
never breaths a word about to
anyone but your soul

If wishing you were here was as
easy as wishing you weren't then I'd
be wishing you out of your little
reserved room in my past as quickly
as I wished you in

To end it all, I'd say you were the
toughest thing I've had to choke
down into the depths of my war-torn
stomach but did that stop me from
swallowing all of your sadness
along with you?

*Certainly not.

Tonight
Is not great

My insides don’t seem to want to belong inside anymore
But rather out in the open
With all their grotesque beauty

My heart has decided it wants to crawl up my throat
Pry through my teeth and beat on the hard ground
Just for the sake of proving it still beats

I sometimes wish I could be more like my mother wants time to be
Smart and witty, strong but not too strong, and thinner
So she can tell me how beautiful her wedding dress looks on me

If you hear my screaming in your dreams don’t be alarmed
It’s only my brain tricking your own
Because it’s grown tired of tricking itself

I miss you

There, I said it.

I miss you like I miss being a child. So innocently and so tenderly.
I miss you like I miss crying in my bed every night. So harshly and so hatefully.
I miss you like I miss how watermelon tasted sitting on my back porch in the dead heat of the summer. So wistfully and so nostalgically.
I miss you like I miss hating myself. So forcefully and so violently.
I miss you like I miss playing with my dad in that small backyard with the garden and playhouse. So kindly and so gently.

I miss you.

There, I said it.

And I'll miss you for even longer than just now.
I'll miss the small speckles of kisses we left on the other's shoulders and chests and chins.
I'll miss the sharpness of the shadows cast on the wall by the T.V. at 10 o' clock at night when we're supposed to be anywhere but laying in each other's arms.
I'll miss how the vast city lights stretched out for miles and miles and miles, unphased by the chill of winter.
I'll miss the sound of your voice, the terribly velvet voice with the touch of agony.

I miss you.

There, I said it.

And it is such a lonely existence to miss someone who does not miss you back.