There's a smell, that rolls in with the budding dogwoods and the billowing thunderheads of Spring.
It says "I am familiar. Have you ever heard of Deja Vu? She is my sister."
Imagine if the creatures that live in the wood could speak the prophecies of the coming season.
They say "Listen to the rain in all of its glittering brokenness. It knows more about falling than anyone else."
You and I could lay in the grass for hours and let the smell seep into our pounding hearts and still, I couldn't memorize why you ever fell out of love with me.
Maybe the rain does.

When I saw you, laying in the dead grass, my eyes glued themselves to the yellow of your hoodie, to the flower patches that adorned the back of your denim jacket, to the long strands of deep brown hair that escaped and tangled around your hidden face.

I hardly remembered that your eyes were more blue than grey, and that your nose was the prettiest part of your face.

Your voice hadn't touched my ears in a year and a half and I'm not sure what I was expecting when I looked down at your dozing face, and saw the same boy that I kissed nearly two years ago in that dim basement.

When you looked up at me from your nest in the grass, I forgot that I hated you for the better part of last year, I forgot that you pried my fingers from your heart and flung me away from you, I forgot that I had learned to unlove you.

What's funny about love is that it sticks in the ridges of your fingerprints and sews itself into your eyelashes, seeps from your pores like sweat.

It makes a home in the recesses of your lungs and the minute it's reminded that it tangled with someone else's love, it uncoils and reaches through your throat, out into the open air and towards that boy that broke it so long ago.

When we said goodbye, I said goodbye with friendliness, with a smile, a wave, a turn of the shoulder.

You said goodbye with nostalgia embedded in it, with a smile, an openness that made me flinch, with a hug that made my arms want more and more and more.

You are a familiar stranger to me, someone that my heart knows but my mind has forgotten.

When I hugged you, there was an uncomfortable adoration between us that has never escaped from our mouths to begin with.

It's been a while
Since I've sipped from the warm lips of that coffee shop we loved together
In case you've forgotten, I like to try the chai of every single new place I go, to see if it contains the same wholeness as the others

I've learned that I do not show affection like I used to, with grabbing hands and tender eyes
No, I pull the tendrils of adoration back into my throat and coil them between my reserved palms until I have someone to dress in my gentle love again

At this point in time, I do not miss anyone as much as I did a year ago
Meaning: I might still miss him but I've forgotten what it was like to wring my happiness from his grey eyes and his dancing laughter
Meaning: I've mustered up all the strength in my weary heart to forget the videos of us being so in love it hurt

My smile comes easier now, not like the glaring sun on a summer day, but like the hesitant shimmer after a rain shower
I can stay awake for longer because I don't wish to sleep the days away quite as much
The nights bring me comfort in the sense that they know more about being lonely than even I do

At this moment in time, I am not a girl like you knew me, small and dependent and bossy and too independent, all at once
I am a bigger, warmer, friendlier, meaner, tougher, all at once
If before I was a lamb, I am by no means a lion, but I am by no means any less than a star

i. when i wake up my eyes are new again, if only for a brief second. the haze of lingering dreams makes the soft light coming from my window look like it has no edges. the remnants of the love i felt for you in my sleep whisks away into my pillows and back between the folds of my blankets. it keeps me coming back to bed, keeping me slumbering amongst the fog of feelings i no longer know.

ii. in the moments before i fall asleep, my brain boards a canoe made of fireflies and wishful thinking. the Giver of Sleep rows us both through the doorways to nightmares and archways of fantastical dreams. we drift on the currents of the dimly lit room my body lays in. when a door slams somewhere down the hall, the canoe shudders, the Giver flinches, lays his hands on the water to still its trembling. And allows me to sleep.

iii. the closest i've come to feeling like i'm flying is when my body thinks it's hurtling off a cliff before i fall asleep. the yank of lucidness tugging on the nape of my neck reminds me that for a few hours my body will come as close to dying as it ever has. my heart doesn't want to slow, my brain doesn't want to dim the currents. my synapses aren't quite prepared to go quietly.

iv. being awake has never held as much appeal to me as being asleep. you reside in my dreams, not in my arms.

v. i usually remember a lot about my dreams, but i never remember the laughter. is there ever singing laughter that the people of my imagination let loose in a burst of happiness? maybe i just never dream of things that are truly happy. maybe my mind wants a break from being pleasant. maybe it wants to be sad.

i. the snow is cold. the ocean is cold. the universe is a vast cold that sinks into your bones and demands that you give it all the heat you can spare. you were cold to me. distant. unwilling to do anything but try and take all the warmth you could from my hands. i've wondered why my insides have felt icy for the last two years. but it's because you never gave me back my heat.

ii. running is a lot like loving. it makes you hurt and it makes you sore. it makes your lungs feel like there isn't enough air in the room. the difference between running and loving, is that after you're done running, your body forgives you.

iii. nobody knows how badly nostalgia can hurt better than i do. some days it grabs onto the top two branches of my heart and does nothing but sigh into the nodes of my lungs that it hurts. some nights it lays down beside me and falls asleep in my arms. those are the nights that i sleep the soundest.

iv. they say that people have soulmates, that everyone has someone. but what about the girl sitting in the corner with her eyes closed and her headphones in? does she have a destined someone? i would have like to believe that our spirits were intertwined. but mine hasn't touched yours in months.

v. i wonder what the planets feel like, being securely lost in space? do they fear their demise? is the quiet of nothingness as deafening to them as it is to me? imagine being that large, but feeling so incredibly small amidst the billions of imploding stars. imagine feeling so incomparable.

i. that coffee shop is still one of my favourites. your hair was shorter, at least in comparison. i remember that you always got a macchiato, and i always got a ***** chai. i think that we started falling in love then. it tasted like that chai; new and full of so many things.

ii. i'd like to think i'm soft and beautiful, like the skim of creme on the top of your coffee. i think that i started out like that, rounded edges and gentle quietness. i think my words used to come more easily, dashing off of my tongue. but now, my mouth is hardened cliffs and bevelled hillsides. i'm not the creme.

iii. you're the happy sweetness of cinnamon on fresh bread in the morning. the sun that spills over your browbone tastes like familiarity and comfort. the mornings would be better with you.

iv. if you are like the wind, then i am the candle.

v. you're favourite animals are cats and i'd say it's fitting. they're slinking and shadowy. but outwardly, they're soft eyes and lithe. just like you.

i. the world doesn’t know what time is. it has no sense of lovers falling apart after 3 years of loving. it doesn’t feel the clocks turning or the people ageing. it lives in a quiet routine of breathing and sighing its discontent into the oceans and into its angry volcanos. and it continues turning without the notion that its rock show age far before its waters do.

ii. do you regret what decisions you’ve made? looking back, i really wasn’t the one for you. but that doesn’t mean i didn’t try my hardest to believe we were all that existed. when you look in the mirror, does your reflection let you know that you’ve lost a little too much? I could have told you that myself.

iii. dogs like dying alone. it’s some sort of ancient pack instinct. weakness is hidden, death is quiet and discreet. i wonder if that’s why people start separating themselves before they shut off. death is a lonely thing. especially when all you have is yourself. the least you could let me do is hold your hand.

iv. you left me in a few short words and a text. you didn’t come visit me. you didn’t even give me the half-hearted dignity of a phone call. were you with her as you broke my heart? was she dousing you with shots of whiskey, telling you that it was the right thing? if you got closure, then at least one of us got what we wanted.

v. i’ve never been left behind by a bus or anything. i don’t miss my opportunities very often. but you were the first thing to ever leave me behind. even when i yelled and waved my arms. i’d never missed an opportunity until i started missing you.