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.

Do you hear that? Hear the heavens wishing they weren’t so far away from you? Angels fall all the time, you were no different.

I can see the stars even from trillions of light years in the past, or is it the future? Either way, wouldn’t you want to be one too if you knew how empty their orbits really are? I wonder what they do with all the silence.

I still let the universe decide things for me. If the floodlights outside my window turn off in the next two minutes I’ll go to bed. If they don’t, I’ll lie awake in tranquillized agony. The sleepy self-deprecation I catch myself whispering into the thick darkness doesn’t seem so rigid at two in the morning. It’s….soft.

If someday the concrete of the road decides I’m no angel, I still hope I can hear the heavens wishing they could ******* pain on silvery tongues.

Let me re-introduce myself to you.

My name is Being Terrified of Love.
I shiver when I cry and I breathe too loudly when I sleep.
But you already know that.

My skin is cold most of the time.
I have an uncanny ability to disappear into any blanket near me.
But you already know that too.

Sometimes my eyes don't know how to focus on you.
My lips turn white when I get angry.
And who am I kidding, you've known that too

Let me re-introduce myself to you.

My name is An Old Lover Who Still Loves You.
I hardly ever cry anymore and my hands hold my anxiety.
But

*you already know that.

When I get nervous
My laughter comes
In short bursts of
Wasted air and discomfort
When I get nervous
My eyes don't
Stay still on yours
Or his
Or hers
When I get nervous
The sky decides
It's better suited in my
Lungs and my ribcage
When I get nervous
My hands itch at
The surface of the moon
And the surface of my
Face and hands
When I get nervous
The anxiety held between
My fingers breaks
Into three thousand
Small pieces of frightened
Nights
When I get nervous
It's because I'm
Terrified that I'll end up
Like you

*I'm afraid that
The stars above won't coo
My name when I'm crying
Out your touch

It's late
The air outside is heavy and dense
And the sky is a soft blanket

The sidewalks are the only indication it's raining
And the fog that hangs under the streetlights
Casts a shadow

I still hurt

This body I inhabit
It's seen 19 years worth of wear and tear
Mostly tear

I tell myself that this skin covering me
Is beautiful
A protector of my being

But I do not love it
I don't love this body I live in
That I breathe in

It's made me feel insecure
Afraid of my innards
Forced me to cover it

I do not love my stomach
Or my thighs
With their unappealing size

I do not love my arms
Or my ankles
With a little too much extra

And I do not love my skin
A road map of acne scars and
Fresh stress breakouts

I no longer want the body I was given
I don't want this thing I live in
Give me something I love

I've thrown my body to the wolves more than once
And come back to find their teeth still embedded in my shoulders and my thighs and my neck

When the night is darkest, the moon is the highest and I want nothing more than to drown in lust covered sadness

If the lights were a little lower and my skin a little brighter would I consider myself ethereal?

The dreams that I've been remembering are the ones I'd rather not think about, but without them maybe I'd be a little happier

When winter hits, my bones will deteriorate until they contain no more than stars and remnants of you, until they exist only to those who touch my face too roughly

I'm not delicate by any means, but if kinder hands had cradled my aching laughter then maybe, I'd be a little happier

The rain falls in heavy sheets sometimes
And sometimes, it floats like the snow of an icy mountaintop

Leaves and trees and branches and grass give out their last breaths
Drying breaths, colour and lack thereof

The air always smells warm, even when it is not
Like the beginning of winter and soft caramel

Wind makes its home in the lofts of pine groves
And clears the shadows of thick foliage

The mornings are awake and alive and cold with winter
And the afternoons hazy and content and cozy with the leftovers of summer

Some forgive easily, and some
Do not.
Some deliberate why they should forgive,
Others deliberate who.
There are people who should be forgiven
And many who should not be.
There are those that think they should be,
And those who believe they shouldn't.
I, forgive slowly.
I ponder why I should forgive.
I do not forgive easily,
But I have forgiven those who deserve it.
You, are not one of those people.

Things that nobody talks about:
The desperation of loving someone who doesn't love you
How the sun feels warmer when you've spent a year being cold
The feeling of weightlessness after crying yourself to sleep
When he stares long and hard at you and smiles softly, making your eyes feel shy even when you are not
How people who used to exist in your orbit still take chunks off of your surface, even when you've taken so many hits you hardly exist.

Things that nobody talks about:
Even when you've moved on, even when you've found someone who loves you more, even when you've discovered better things, your skin remembers things best forgotten.

The outcome of a baseball game
Is obvious
One team will win and the other...
The other has to lose.

But what is the outcome
Of a match between
Us?
Is it even?
Is it fair?

We already competed
Once.
I would like to say
We were young,
Stupid, naive.
But we are the
Same age.
The same selves.

You've begun talking
To me again.
Why?
If you're hoping for
A rematch..
Well, the outcome
Won't be any fairer
Than it was
Before.

Tonight feels off. Like I do not exist. Like the lightning in the clouds could come down and strike my heart and make it feel less apart and more whole.
     The lightning bugs are so thick in my backyard that I can’t step
     outside with having to brush them off my arms. The grass glows
     everywhere and the owl sitting in its usual branch shades its
     black eyes against the green flashes.
My street gets deadly quiet at about this time of night. The street lamp hums a little and the crickets whir until the first rumble of thunder sweeps through, but then all is nothing. It stills with its grey cat slinking into the grey pavement and disappearing, looking everywhere with its yellow eyes, all sunk in their sockets.
     When the wind comes howling up the street I swear it’s crying,
     not just whimpering. It’s telling the trees how much it aches.
     How much it wishes the world would stop pushing it into the
     valleys and the canyons where it cannot fit easily.
A storm doesn’t prefer to ravage branches with its gentle fingers. It doesn’t prefer to shake my shoulders until I can’t help but cry. It prefers nothing.
     Would my house seem less hollow if I were more full? Would
     my bed seem more inviting if I knew what dreams would greet
     me?

His name was
Dakota

A tall boy with braces
and long hair
that I couldn't help but
love fearlessly

His name was
Dakota

And sometimes he
went by Kota
or Kotabear but to me
he was Kota

His name was
Dakota

He was a boy who
knew what it was like
to hurt and to
love fearfully

His name was
Dakota

A boy who loved someone
else at the
same time
he was loving me

His name was....

The morning was partly cloudy, misty and golden with the hint of a sunrise in the sky
Rain came in like a quiet friend and left with a suddenness that shocks even the most familiar
And evening rolled across the concrete with the smell of grass fires a couple states away and hazy beauty
The distances shrouded in a fine layer of imagination that makes clouds seem like abandoned structures
Makes the sun seem a little more sleepy than usual and the horizon dusty and ready for the night

We are the explorers of a sunrise waltz;

I am swirling sand and playful creatures.

You are the land we believed was mythical.

the days that are toughest
man
they're tough
with loneliness
that seeps between
my sordid grasp
lays upon the dirt
squeals with pain
hurt and disgust
disdain

i never think
about the next tough day
because they come
one right after
the other
bleeding
smearing together like
the lovely
canvases artists cry upon

loneliness wasn't
pretty to me
until the day you left
because the sky
had been blue
the night was
calm
and you were still
so so
heartbreakingly beautiful
to me with
your terrified eyes
and frightened mouth

the days get tougher
and sometimes better
but mostly
just more
and more grey
they blur
and swim in front of me
passive
tame and calm

you never knew
just how
much someone
could love you
until she
held your hand
kissed your frightened
mouth
closed your
terrified eyes
for you every
night
   *and i learned that sometimes loneliness is the best someone deserves

What kind of love is it?
In which one comes away from it
Feeling as though they just wasted
Their adoration on the wrong person

*I wasted my devotion on you.

There is a boy in my theory class that looks like you
His nose is gently sloping and straight like an arrow
Just like you, his hair is deep brown and smooth, straight
And his lips are bowed and soft pink, covering teeth a little too big for his mouth
But perfect for his face

There is a song that reminds me of you
It's by Tame Impala and makes me think back to the summer
When you drove around with me in the passenger seat
You hand covering my bare thigh, sticky with sweat but immovable because I am yours
And I loved that

There is a kind of day that reminds me of you
Sunny and breezy with the taste of freedom lingering in the currents
It slips between my lips and makes my voice laugh and my eyes water
Because the sky was never so blue than on days like that, days that slid through my hands
Slid through my fingers

There is a certain type of feeling that comes with my memories of you
It hurts and it burns the back of my throat
And it sometimes makes my skin crawl with regret and grief
But it also feels sore and delicate because my heart is so tired and heavy with these memories
With these reminders

There is a boy in my theory class that makes me think of you
Sometimes I stare at him for too long and watch how he laughs at a joke
And sometimes I feel my face lose its shape and seep right through the palms of my hands
Because even though he obviously isn't you, he looks exactly like you and makes me remember all of the times I kissed you while muttering love
   All the times I hugged you tighter than you deserved
         All the times I laughed too hard at something you said
               All the times I thought you were my one
And there's this word that reminds me of you sometimes
    *pain

We're happy and we're sitting in our socks and underwear
And the light from a flickering television screen is casting our laughing shadows onto the wall
And i'm smiling because we're suddenly children again with bowls of cereal
And we are throwing it into each others' mouths, missing more than we are making
And on the television a comedian is telling jokes
And we are having giggling fits because i snort when i laugh and you keep making faces at me
And we are suddenly dead faced, staring at each other and we somehow know we will hurt someday
And we will leave a scar somewhere on the other because love that kind doesn't always have to be kind forever
And i am hoping that you hurt me instead of me hurting you
And suddenly we're not saying goodnight anymore
And the nights spent in our socks and underwear, in our jeans and sweatshirts, in our coats and mittens, in our t-shirts and shorts are the scars that we left
And i still am sitting here hoping that i do not harm you
And you are sitting across from me hoping that i do not harm you
because suddenly i am not laughing and i am not tracing your face with my eyes
And you pick up your pants and your shirt and your baseball cap
And you slip into them in front of the flickering television screen that makes our shadows look like they are dancing
And suddenly, *you leave

a friend, a smiling stranger, a dark corner waiting for the stars to come out

think about him all the time
obsess, mull, chew on
think about how he loved her more
about how he was never happy with you
about how he used you

see other people being happy
wish for the same feeling
know that you won't ever be that way
god never gave you the ability
long for that bliss

eat alone, sleep alone, be alone
loneliness was never optional
make it your home
your bed, your living room
make it your kitchen floor with cold tiles and ***** socks


think about him again
and again and again and again
think about him leaving
and think about him loving her instead
and think about his smile with the dimple on the left side

think about what it was like to be happy
and don't go back

Your lips were kissed by angels
And your sweet, sweet smile stole the breath from my lungs

Your hand was so soft, yet so unforgiving when it wrapped itself around my neck
You choked the love out of me, strangled the words from my mouth

And I stood there while you did so

The mortuary stopped accepting bodies when it saw what you did to my heart
The coroner no longer wished to see how love could destroy anything

From the smallest, softest, most delicate petal of a flower

To a foolish heart with no more room to do anything but bleed

Stop making my head ache
And my bones quake

The sun hasn't shone in weeks
Because of the shadow you're casting

Sometimes I think that I see you out of the corner of my eye
But I realize I am mistaken because when you left this time

You  took your coat with you

My dearest,
   Some things end too soon, while others continue on without reason or sense. We were somehow both, yet neither, at the same time. And I'm not sure how that can be, it just simply is.
   I loved you. Truly and deeply and so, so beautifully. The sky was never bluer than when I was with you. The wind never warmer. And the world never more tolerable, than when I was looking at you. Seeing you, was like taking that first breath after diving to the bottom of the pool. It felt so refreshing and comforting, because once you've held your breath for so long coming up is like seeing things brighter than before.
   I think that the concept of love is sometimes a bit misconstrued. We see it as the ultimate goal, the one thing that a person needs to feel before their life is over. We see it as something either hot and heavy, tension and want at all times. Physical attraction. Or we see it as this pure and lovely sort of love, the kind where there is never an unhappy and bitter moment, where the sun always peeks its smile around corners to illuminate it.
   But rarely do I hear anything on the love we had. Ours was again, both. It was full of the hot and heavy, the late nights and the lazy afternoons spent together. It was also the warm and hazy kind, with the innocent morning coffees and the evenings with blankets around our shoulders and heads resting on chests. It was arguments and disagreements. It was bittersweet goodbyes and hesitant good mornings afterwards. It was feelings and thoughts and memories and it was so, so much.
   It was also you moving on while I stayed behind. It was you standing up and me sitting down. It was you discovering more and me losing everything and you still loving and me also still loving. But the wrong person. You.
   And sure, your sky is now bluer and your winds have turned into gentle breezes, but the clouds have started rolling over that gently smiling sun of mine and the gusts of friendly wind don't stir up the butterflies in the pits of my stomach anymore. How can love be this when it was so much more?
   I guess that what I'm trying to say is that love is never one thing. It is never just love. It is also gladness and regret and happiness and sorrow and it is building and destroying. And love isn't kind, but my god, it's so addicting.
   You've stopped being what I wish on stars for, but you haven't stopped being someone I care for. Not yet.
          Claire

It's strange how
A 30 year smoking habit can be broken in a few months
But an 8 month habit of loving someone
Takes forever to unlearn

they say that i'll get over him
but when they say that they aren't thinking about the same things as me

about how he moved on inside of two weeks after we broke up
and how i had loved him unconditionally for the past 9 months of my life
or how he knows my secrets and i know his and that's what trust is, right?

he wasn't mine
and i think i believed that he was for too long
and now it's turned into a habit

he stood in front of her, his back against his car, one hand in a pocket, the other in his hair
he bites his lip nervously, she looks frightened
"Hey, I'm sorry but I guess I just don't feel the same anymore." he mumbles, apologetically
she folds her arms in front of her, and just whispers 'no' over and over again
he turns away from her, doesn't make eye contact, doesn't brush the stray lock of hair behind her ear
his car door clicks shut behind him, and nothing stirs but leaves as he drives away
she stares after it, shocked, frozen in place, before sinking to the curb underneath the white-blue streetlamp
the hourly train hustles by on its tracks and the murmur of voices is distant
she wraps her cardigan tighter around her middle and only stands after she's sure her stomach is back in her  body and her lungs remember how to breathe
slowly, she walks back inside and the outside continues as it usually does, and she is falling apart inside

she still remembers the way his voice sounded
and how his eyes looked under florescent light
blue grey and sad

my being aches
from the top of my head down to my weary and worn feet
in every spot your fingers have ever trailed
my skin feels battered and bruised
and in every spot your lips have ever landed a kiss
my bones feel broken
even when the time comes where there is not a cell on me that you have touched
i will feel as though you brushed against me not but two days ago
i am so incredibly sad and my insides hurt
and i can't throw up the pain inside my chest because it's decided it's hollow enough to make a home

i can think of a thousand reasons why i shouldn't love you
but i can only focus on the two reasons why i should

there was a letter stuck between the pages of my journal
that i forgot i had
it was from you

you had written to me how much happiness i gave you
and how you would do anything as long as it was with me
you told me you loved me

i cried when you gave it to me and now i'm crying as i'm reading it
thinking about how i put so much stock into the scribbled words
how i took it as a promise that you'd always love me

and i promised that i'd never leave you

i kept up my end of the promise
so i'm giving you the letter back to let you know the deal is off
i'm still here saying "as long as it's with you..."

The stars said " I love you" and moon said "Me too"
And Jupiter said "Whoever does not love is only a fool."

The sun said "Be bright", the earth said "Be bold"
And Venus nodded, saying  "Find yourself somebody to hold."

Mars circled a little closer and said "Do not waver"
So Uranus smiled gently and said "Don't let others see you quaver."

Neptune told you "There's so much to see"
And Mercury said "It does not take much to know you are free."

So Pluto called out, saying "There's much more to know!"
The universe agreed, and said "There's more time to grow."

The Milky Way murmured "Keep your love at your core"
And I looked up and said "I will always love you more."

Do not hold a grudge against yourself
For not forgiving the one who hurt you most.
Forgive yourself instead,
For letting them turn around
For letting them stand up as you sit down.

If they cannot handle your brightness
Your darkness
Your heavy
And your light
Then why feel bad for instead keeping them at a distance?

Do not feel as though they should be forgiven
Just because they shouted a halfhearted "sorry" from a distance.
Do not hold a grudge against yourself
For not forgiving the one that made you hard to the world.

The cars hiss by on the wet pavement
You stand and watch, invisible, still, and quiet.
A raindrop hits your nose and rolls off the steep cliff of your bottom lip

There's a dog, jogging past on soft paws
Water arches behind it's wagging tail
Wet fur sways under its belly

The sky is splitting above you
Lightning unaware that you are standing in the exact spot
It would like to strike

But you move a foot to your left
And it continues on with its angry rumblings
A continuous murmur in the clouds

People pass by and look startled your way
Because their shoulder happened to greet yours
But what they cannot see they fear

And the night descends as you stand on the bustling street corner
The shops close down and the lights dim to accommodate the darkness
And you stand invisible, still, and quiet.

she worried about everything
the weather and her outfit
whether or not she packed enough food for lunch or too much

and she worried about him

she worried about his health and how he drove after a night with friends
she worried about his lungs and his teeth and his brain
and what her dad would say when she came home smelling like smoke and
worried that he wouldn't have enough time with her

she loved him
thought of him as this supernova that had just opened up in front of her
this great expanse of opportunity and future and present and everything she's hoped for

and so she worried about him until she did not eat
worried until she all she wanted to do was sleep so she didn't have to worry about worrying about him.

but he was the best thing I had ever worried about.

be strong be weak be what you'd like. nonetheless you will still be human and you will still be unsteady, visible, tangible.
when the goings get hard and the wind seems to be tearing through brittle bones
say to the face of the sky that "I am not afraid! I am not afraid!".
the sun might dim a little and the birds will fall from the sky until nothing exists besides a sighing moon.
some say that when you grow older you grow wiser but maybe it's better to be curious and oblivious, always questioning, always wondering.
say to the others that "The world has been tough but I've been tougher" when they ask you why you are bitter, why you are sad.
expensive things will get you far if you have the money to spend but a velvet lampshade covers the same amount of light as a heavy heart, keep that in mind.
being bruised and battered makes you look used and abused and it seems like being tarnished was never a good look.
and people fall and stand and fall and stand again, but staying down was never a bad thing when it came to war and peace, sport and game.
a bruise is a flowering of contained pain, internal bleeding, concentrated blemish that spreads amongst dim-witted people.
visit me when i'm old and grey and wrinkled and tired and yelling at the top of my lungs "I'mnotafraidI'mnotafraidI'mnotafraid!" slurring and shivering.
the most exquisite thing about a  a person is their inane idea that they were prepared for the moment when the shades draw and the moon smiles sadly at their watery eyes.
the lull of the ocean will be enough to push you into sleep.

If I'm to die
I want my paintings all burned
And my pictures all torn

Because to remember someone like me
Is small and meager in comparison to what the world holds

If I'm to die
I do not want you to cry
I do not want you to mourn the loss

Because my eyes never shined as bright as yours
And I couldn't smile as often as I'd like to

If I'm to die
I do not want to fear the aftermath
I wish the people who knew me well

Because I loved them all and I wish them to forget
That I ever existed

that i do not miss you
would be a lie
because i still find you in the trees
and in the new blades of spring grass

to say that my heart does not hurt
would be a lie
for it aches sometimes
with the knowledge we will not speak again

to say that i wish to forget you
would be a lie
because remembering makes me stay away
from your broken smile

but to say that i still want you
would be the biggest lie of them all
for i have found that the shade of your eyes can be found in other things
and your smile can be matched with a storm

A bird does not fly because it wishes to get away
It flies because of the sole fact it has to in order to survive

Why must we think that flying is only to get away?
To escape and be gone?

When in fact, we could see ourselves flying in order to live.
Only then, can we think of being unchained from the ground.

A fox sweeps through the pool of light cast from the kitchen window
A soft woosh following the empty air

The trees are telling the sleeping birds secrets that the birds will never keep

The floodlight on the neighbors garage flickers nonchalantly
Wayward branches waking it

A car drives up the street, motor mumbling complaints about the cold
The driver holding a cigarette between *******

The streetlamp shivers in the stiff breeze
Light swaying over the ice-tarnished pavement

A stray cat tumbles across the driveway, swift feet tripping sensors
The floodlight comes on

And the house is sleeping
Groaning and shifting and snoring and sighing

The floodlight flickers then clicks off

The sky

The sky looks so sad
A mix of sleet and grey snow
Falling in parallel lines and diagonal lines and
Blowing into the cracks of the shed door

And the pattering of this sleet
Resonates in my head
Like a distant memory that wants to resurface
But can't bring itself to cry

I can't remember what the sun feels like on bare skin
And bare legs and bare arms
The rays of UV poison soaking into pores and crevices of swim suites
Like the leaking of water through the cracks of the road

And you are laying next to me on the bed
A shaft of sunlight slanted across your cheek
Outlining the bridge of your nose and

The gentle curve of your bottom lip is like the ***** of a ski run
Ongoing and smooth and dangerous and daunting
And I want to conquer it

I opened a book
And it contained you
A big picture with such intricate lines
Curves and dips and angles that wove through each other

I read through the paragraphs that described
Your hair and blue-grey eyes and crooked smile
The ones that held the secrets of your laugh and
The softness of your skin

And I read through a page or two that told me how you
Smoke and drink and sometimes had a little too much fun
And I loved you all the same because we are all a little flawed

And I hope that you someday open my little book
Skim through its pages and read about how I
Was sad and sorry and a little under the weather
For the better portion of my high school years...

And I hope that you love me even more....

I will look at you out of the corner of my eye and smile, perhaps just grin, because you are beautiful and you are my human being. That’s how I’ll prove it.

I will wake up during the night while you are tossing and turning and I will lay a hand on your cheek, trace patterns into the skin of your back and whisper kisses into your eyelids. I will tell you how lovely you are and press my lips to your temples, to your jawline. That’s how I’ll prove it.

I will keep giving you glasses of water when you are sick and running a fever and I will force cup after cup into your hands when you’ve a little too much to drink, because hangovers can be a *****, and I don't like to see you hurting. That’s how I’ll prove it.

I will braid your hair and run my fingers through the knots until the strands are like water and silk and I will tug on it ever so lightly. That’s how I’ll prove it.

And I will crawl in bed beside you and kiss the hollow between in your collarbone and I will kiss your chin and both of your shoulders and breathe you in because your skin is so soft and warm. I will rest my cheek on your chest and listen to that heartbeat, strong and low and consistent because to hear you being alive makes me alive. That’s how I’ll prove it.

And I will love you. I will love you. I will love you.

That’s how I’ll prove it.

A child
Has it's small hands wrapped around the throat of the world
The clouds are at it's beck and call, serving up dripping ice cream cones
and kittens playing with yarn
High up in the sky
And the wind is there to serve, to cool a sweaty face or push a small red kite
Ever higher

We are at the mercy of the storm after we lift our fingers from the gasping
Esophagus of a dying sun
Our lives will wither our bones will crumble
Because of all the rain crashing through them
Like the excess water running through the storm gutters

And we can't prevent the stars from burning out but by God we feel like
we could save an entire galaxy from the certain death of time
Just like I can see the suns dying in yours yet new ones are igniting
And flaming
And fueling
To bring this internal shine that lifts the hearts of angels
Of angels



Please
Bring your hands to your ears and cover them with your palms
Do not listen to the voices of thousands, child
For we are one people and you are one person
One atom amongst this mass of writhing bodies
Writhing DNA

Talk strong stand stronger
Because sometimes the wind will try and knock you over
Try and shake your hollow bones
Your steel bones
Your transparent frame
It will shake your roots and pull at your hair and tear your confidence

But be firm. Be soft and hard and small and large
Be everything you want others to be.

I don’t know if you realized this but for most of the night, I looked you; looked at your profile and your fine, straight ***** nose. Looked at the curve of your forehead and delicate indent under your cheekbones. I couldn’t get enough of this beautiful configuration of atoms sitting next to me.

And for most of the night we laid in our seats and we were always touching, A hand, a few fingers, an arm or our heads. And your warmth transferred to me, and mine to you. We were these two small stars amidst the glowing sea of city lights spread out below us. And we stayed like that for hours.

After all of this, I can’t believe that a person like me would be so lucky as to have found a person like you. Because you are the moon and the small flakes of snow that fall silently at night and you are the hushed whisper that I wish I could hear saying “I love you” at night.

Because I would say the same thing back.

We rescue heartless wolves
Then fear the crime of saving them

And once upon a time we were both the sunrise and sunset
But the land that we believed was mythical ended up being real

I am made of playful creatures and constantly swirling sand
You are made of delicate glass and tangled hair that slips through my fingers

But together we do not belong
Because the flowers we grew are making a pathway

To carry our imminent death
Closer