Dear J,
     What if we became friends again? What if we began trading music again, or sharing secrets, or reveling at mortal sunsets that last but half an hour? Sometimes, well, lately, I've been tempted to ask how you're doing, ask if you want to get coffee sometime. I wonder what we'd talk about, if we'd sit in awkward silence, or laugh in embarrassed stupor at the folly our cut up relationship is. Or would we just stare? Look at each other with wide eyes, sip our coffee and smile occasionally.
     Or maybe we'd talk like nothing ever went wrong, like we never stopped telling each other how our days went, or what new music we had recently discovered.
     But who's to know? We have never tried to talk again, not even said a tired hello or strained good morning. Out hands have never brushed, nothing but out clothing ever touching.
     Our heights are still finely tuned to each other, even though we're dawning on the second year of silence. Did we ever make a truce? Or did you decide that your confirmation of us never being friends again was enough? I felt so empty when you told me that; told me nothing would ever come from us. You claimed it was because we loved each other too much, and that we'd just fall into the same trap as before. And maybe that's true.
     Or maybe we would have stayed best friends who shared coffee and clothed and beliefs and thoughts. Maybe we would have gone down different paths; you a straighter one, me a less travelled one. But it would have been a path with you on it, so either way it would have been okay.
     But what if if we never loved each other like lovers? What if it was loving each other as friends, as siblings? We could have seen each other grow up over the past four years.
    We've become much more since we've last spoken. And we'll continue to change and differ as we keep the distance between us.
     And maybe someday I'll walk up to you, shake your hand, and you won't recognize me; because we've spent years shoving the thoughts of each other to the backs of our memories.
    We'll introduce each other, I'll smile and say I recognize you. You might look a little closer at me, smile awkwardly when you realize who I am. And then we'll continue walking our separate ways.
     And we'll keep the past to ourselves.

               Love,
                   Claire

I lay my head down on my pillow
          it is soft and down, a sheeps underbelly
I can't help but to whisper to the stars
          "how is the weather up there? come down here."
There's a breeze knocking on my window
          it wants to lie by my side and share warmth
A bit of snow catches in the drifts on the sills
          i can become a snowflake whenever i'd like
They tell me that the world isn't good anymore
          they tell me that i can't play god like I used to
I look up at the ceiling
          *and i let go....

The snow falls
   Silent as ghosts
Remnants of distant memories
And I can see you in the flakes
   Pale and soft

You whisper to the sky
   The memories are shouting
And cry for forgiveness
Beg for destruction
   Remembering hurts the most

The snow doesn't stop
   Persistent, unforgiving
You wish for oblivion
And hope that heaven is real
   The clouds are descending

And now the snow has turned to fog
   Silent as ghosts
It hovers and reaches down throats
Grabs hearts and fills lungs
   You can't breath anymore

You cry for forgiveness.

Dear J,
Sometimes I wish that I could still hold your hand or run a few fingers down your cheek and look into your eyes to see that you love me. Except I can't because both you and I have someone new. Which is what we need. As humans we need the comfort of a different person to satisfy the loneliness our hearts feel.
    But sometimes a puzzle piece doesn't feel quite the same way and when that happens we're left with gaps in our memories and small holes in the roofs over our heads. And the rain gets in.
    Do you miss not relying on medication and not wishing you were sometimes dead? Because I do. I wish I didn't always think the sun used to be brighter and I miss when I thought nothing was more brilliant than you. I miss when I could laugh anything because I was carefree and because I had you.
    Do you miss having me? I know it seems shallow and I know that when a puzzle piece does fit, you don't really want to take the two apart, but what if the hiccups in the pattern are worth the weather it brings?

A human can't fathom the extent of the universe
Unless they realize that they are created from it

Sometimes the way your eyes dance when I say your name
Or the way your fingers draw circles on mine
Assures me that you feel something for my broken soul

I think the universe was made for our eyes,
Made for our existence

And I hope that you know how endlessly
I feel for you
I hope you know that I would go to the ends of the earth
To see you smile

It would be a privilege to love you, my dear
A privilege to have my heart broken by you

It would be a privilege to touch you, my dear
A privilege to be burned by you

I couldn't imagine anyone else but you tangling my hair in fingers
Long and lean, strong and clean

I wouldn't rather any other human to taint my wasted lips
And scar my pale hands with heated fingerprints

It would be a privilege to love you, my dear
And a privilege to be broken by you.

I look at you like you could stop the earth from turning
And cause great mountains to rise from nothing
Your eyes get soft and silly whenever you laugh
And my brain becomes tangled with itself whenever that happens

You look at me like I put the sun in the sky
And created the universe in one blink
My eyes get soft and nervous whenever you say my name
Because it sounds like heaven when it comes from your mouth

And I'm afraid because what if I'm falling in love again
What if I can't stop my heart from seizing up at the thought of you breaking it?
What if I have already fallen but you can't pick me up?

You're like a breath of fresh air

A breeze that carries hope and promise on it's currents and holds a scent similar to freedom

And those eyes of yours

When I first saw them I thought that heaven had come down to kiss me on the lips and tenderly caress my worried cheek because God was all I saw in them

Your hands are so gentle

Like the flutter of a delicate bird and the breath of a fawn as it takes it's first steps, unsure and unknowing, afraid to break what cannot be broken

And sometimes I can't help but to wonder if love is real and kind and patient after all like a blooming flower or a ripple of water

Because seeing that tenderness in your eyes is eerily real to me, which is unusual
But it's something I could get used to looking at

Things are falling apart fast
My friends have become sparse
Am I really a falling tree?
My family keeps telling me that I am
Worthless
My mother says she's disappointed in everything
I've done
Doesn't she know that all I've gone through life doing
Is trying to impress?

They treat me like I am a rolling boulder
Scattering like scared sheep
Whenever I say a word
They say they're done with my ****
But I can't tell what I've done
To wrong them

I'm tempted to claim death of my emotions
For the sake of a heartless cause

With hushed mouths that brushed when they talked
They whispered like thieves stealing from the Garden of Eden.

Little did I know
He was stealing from my chest
With nimble hands that flittered delicately over quieted lungs
And eyes that acted like they'd seen tragedy.

And she only looked at me
Smug, grim, a hair-width's away from sympathy perhaps

But my stomach wasn't used to handling his sweetened breath
Throat constricting around a word
Oh! what a word!
One that brought mountains upon the heads of ogres
Upon the tusks of boars and piggish men

Wouldn't you have assumed I might as well be dead
Because you stole my heart as if it was on it's last beat
It's last wild attempt to leap from my chest


Alas, my throat was tied around love,
A simple word
That rained hell upon the heavens and
Dread upon a heavy hanging ruin

Please don't abandon me
I can see the hope fleeing from your eyes
Fleeing from me
I know I'm a mess honey
But please
*Please don't abandon me

You told me you weren't ready for a relationship
I sighed and smiled
Said it was "okay, you're fine, darling."
I heard you laugh lightly, mutter something about being hurt
Expanse of silence followed by a few more sighs
A handful of whispers
A gathering of exhales
And then we moved on in conversation
You talked about drumming
And I laughed
Stared at the ceiling and thought about you
Missed you
Even though you were technically a phone line away from me
I remember speaking
But I don't remember what I said
Maybe I said you were a boy I could love

The stars fall from the sky and up comes the sun, full, bright, so present
Birds echo calls that have been repeated for so many years, it's almost cliche
And the world is still sleeping
And I am still awake...

White men are shutting down the movements that create free country, free people
And boys aren't learning to not ****, they are learning that women tailor to them
Politicians banter about birth control and women's issues they can't understand
And I am still awake...

You are falling asleep, words stuck on the precipice of your bottom lip, hanging
And the moon is rising so high in the sky it could burst through our universe
The sun is skating down the curve of our atmosphere, sliding, slipping
*And I am still awake...

sweaty palms and white faces
freshman freshmeat
the urge to learn long gone
the will to gain anything besides some anxiety issues
long gone

high school students are crazier than phsyciatric patients in the 1950's
did you know that?
senioritis sets in prematurely
and by 12th grade, it kills

am i ready for real life?
probably not
being a final year student doesn't make me any more prepared
except
i'm learning how to manage my stress levels
by binge eating and crying every night

so yeah
you could say i'm ready to go back school

Somehow I thought I could be six feet underground and still love you to death

*But I've figured out that once you're buried that deep, you can't dig yourself out.

There's a lonliness starting to settle in my bones
And it can't possibly be from you
no
yet as i'm writing and praying to god to give me something to forget
you still cross my vision
an imprint against my eyelids
a flickering of candlelight perhaps
a twitching of muscle, of sinew
a small heartbeat

we used to know each other
and now i can't tell if you've become a greater man than you used to be
or a smaller boy

A whisper of tinted
Love
Rose coloured glasses perched precariously on the bridge of a hooked
Love
Sliding lower
Pushed back up with a drug ridden shaking finger
Who knew how fragile a balanced ecosystem could be?

There's a fire in his eyes that was never in yours
His mouth sets in a grim line when he concentrates
A straight and narrow path that traverses the curves of his face
However, your lips were molded into a perpetual smile
One that simply wound about various edges and holes

And I'm thinking that it's time I differ to the straight and narrow for once
Maybe it will be more friendly

Grab my arms and pin them behind my arching back, bending and bowing towards you
Like a willow tree caught in a mighty squall

Lay a hand on my stomach, hold me still, silence my sighs of pleasure
As audible as a whisper of something to come

The feeling of pleasure peaked high and strong, beautiful and strong
Like a wave of northern lights shimmering miles above the ground, strong

I need to feel like you want me as bad as I want you,
Because right now I can think of nothing besides you making love to me

Beneath guilt ridden stars and washed out constellations

Seeing you sad makes
My stomach hurt

The way it does when
I'm anxious or stressed

Chin up lil peach

I'm here for you the whole way

*And it's just the beginning

you make my heart feel
like it's being submerged in sweet agony
and tender love

it's such a contradicting feeling
that one would think it hurts

but it reminds me that you chose me
and i'm choosing you too

A flit of fingers
Across delicate curves
Gentle folds
Webbing surfaces

There
*Then gone

There are forgotten words hanging over my chest
Dangling like freshly shattered glass spread across a navy quilted glass
Glittering in the sunny heavens as they fall and spray painful reminders
Of the past into the still air
Heavy hanging fruits of our labours so long ago
A sigh
A touch
A vague impression of your body pressed into mine from those days we spent
Sometimes the words fall
Impaling my heart and my eyes fill
Unbidden
With happy tears, or liquid anger clouding memories of golden laughter

Watch out for those
They hurt the worst

Days like today were days when I knew nostalgia
Was just a fancy word for revenge
Today felt like it should have belonged in a summer a year and a half ago
One that belonged to him and I together

It felt as if I should be over at his house, sitting in his basement,
A foot and a half apart on the couch playing Black Ops
Me jokingly
Him sarcastically

It felt like a day when we should have been pressed up tight
On his piano bench, him laughing at my aversion to playing in front of him
Laughing because he hauled the piano all the way from his room
Because I wanted to play and we weren't allowed alone near his bed

It felt like a day that we should have been heard from the back of his yard
The sky endless before us, the same as his eyes
A blue expanse of settling sun and waking moon
A sky with laughter in it's deepest reaches

It felt like a day where he would be laughing at my smile
Grinning at me with a crooked hitch in the corner
And I would be blushing back and giggling like chimes
Both of us brushing our arms together as means of making sure we were real

And both of us looking
Looking at each other and living and breathing and being.

It felt like a day that we were both loving.

I have figured out that when I am sad
I am so filled with words that I can hardly contain that sadness

But when I am happy,
There's nothing left to say

And I don't know if that's numbness
Or emptiness that makes me mute

i tried pulling new boys closer to me so that
maybe i could feel some semblance of how things used to be
but none of them felt the same as you
and i think that's what hurt me the most

I repeal my previous statement that love prevails
Alas, it does not

I had wanted to make sure that you knew how much i would always love you
but looking back, i wish i had said "i hate your guts" instead

"I'm sorry darling but it just won't work
the feelings I feel do no more than lurk.
Those words we said so long ago
might be interpreted as nothing but show.
I love you, darling, I really do,
but I can't keep saying that it's me and you."

She had eyes like storms and
Words that fell from puckered lips
Like hail

*She was me

I've found out I find too much beauty in too many people

There is the gentle curve of my sister's mouth, the delicate grasp in my tennis coach's fingers, the a lilt to a boy's voice in my Spanish class that makes me feel alive.

The entire world is alive with this beauty that wracks through our bones in tumultuous waves, lifting us from our feet and tossing us high above the things we should pay attention to.

The way a person's eyes brighten when they speak of their mother or how a pair of legs work in harmony to walk is in itself a small victory to our short humankind.

We live in shadows, our faces cast in a blackness only describes as ignorance.

And something so simple as pulling aside that veil of blissful unknown is how we plunge ourselves into the abyss of loving the small details that our eyes roam over.

The way a child breathes when they are excited, how a grown man cries when he comes back from an eternal war, the seamless laughter of a human dear to your heart.

So fall in love with every blink and every drop of spilled ink that splays across the skin of a hand.

Love the birds that rise with the sun and the dogs that groan with content and happiness.

For they are the embodiment our race and our lives.

We will be known as the century of timeless freedom that allows our minds to feel as if floating through space wasn't such a slippery grasp.

Find the beauty within yourself, for before loving others, your self must feel as if it belongs.

I always saw you as a pair of bright blue eyes and
A keeper of beautiful words
    
     *You saw me as nothing but a bleeding heart with a rough touch

There are tress falling down around me
I'm getting cut with their branches
Leaves tangling in my hair and getting caught in my throat
I'm gasping for air, choking

Lightning is striking the ground a mere two inches from my feet
I can feel the electricity sizzling through my bones
It hurts, baby
It hurts

I can't help but to sit down sometimes and wish
You would walk into my room, baby
Say that I'll be alright
Lay a hand on my arm and leave

There's so much crashing down in my life
But I want something solid to hold on to
An arm, a hand, a neck to drape my lifeline around
And that's just the problem, baby

I can't depend on anybody because
I always strangle the trust from them

Dear J
   Some things happen for a reason, but I'm not quite sure our happening had a reason. We were like the collision of an asteroid and a comet, both sailing through space in opposite directions, looking for somewhere to land, to feel embedded. And for an instant I think we both felt that, that feeling of love and inviting comfort, a place to lay a head, someone to belong to. But it seems like for some different reason, we could not keep that feeling.
   Whether it was because the alignment of universal truths directed us on our separate paths or because we were meant for different planets, I'm not sure. Maybe looking into each others' eyes and folding our hands around hidden galaxies wasn't our destiny. Maybe it was yours instead of mine. I can't tell why we ever intersected. Some might say fate, destiny. I say it was because we both needed to taste freedom and hope and most of all love.
   Our happening wasn't backed up by truths or reasons or anything in between. It was set precariously on the precipice of a steep cliff, dangling by ******* and strong set jaw. We hung there as if nobody was there to catch us at the bottom, we hung there as if we would never see the light of day again if we let go.
   You let go and believe it or not someone broke your fall.
I, however, am still falling.

Of all the things one should remember about who they loved
They remember the way their hair fell across their face
On that one windy day
They remember the way they smiled when they saw the mountains
On the trip you took cross country
They remember how they loved to love them
*They remember how they left

Some things weren't meant to be

*i guess that included you and me

The sunlight filtered in waves as bright as the hope in her eyes
Clouds had been cast away and for once the blue of a new sky shone
Like diamond

Sometimes there's a feeling called love
It's similar to affection but not quite
Love is like the arch of a rainbow that stretches from horizon to horizon
It fills space and takes up room so that all else is consumed by this light
This color
Love is like a fawn being born on a windy summer day
The newness of it is shocking at first and then grows in something so sweet
And tender
Love is like the bursting of a dam on the brink of a lake or river
Nothing can quite compare to the sound of crumbling concrete and
Rushing water
Quite like the breaking of a heart on a chilly winter afternoon.

How could you possibly know what I'm feeling?
You are a train wreck with two legs and lungs that can breath.
I am a fallen tree whose branches are still reaching towards the sky.
Theoretically we should both meet our demise.
Yet here we are.

she's better than you
he's better than he used to be
you missed out big time hon

better luck next time

Dear J,
   Happiness is a relative thing, or so I've learned. There are different versions of it. Your happiness probably differs from mine, which is most likely the reason we don't talk anymore. Your happiness didn't mesh with my own, causing some friction that lit a fire, at first starting love but then flaming into contradiction. That's okay. Happiness being a relative thing keeps us all from enjoying too much of one thing.
   You see, as humans we always expect that the people we love most share same interests and ideas and joys. However, this is wholly untrue. The most compatible couples have completely different opinions on what makes life better than others. This ensures that we have a wide variety of happinesses to choose from. If we were stuck with one our whole lives that happiness would eventually become nothing more than regularity. And that's another reason we became nothing more than acquaintances.
   Our happiness became so norm that we abandoned it in hopes that a new joy would come along, taming the fire of contradiction. When nothing was directed our way we instead became bored. And that's also okay because a little boredom reawakens our old happinesses.
   So I guess what I'm trying to say is, I hope you found your happiness. Whether that be the way the sun falls on her laughing mouth or the music you write or the poems you read, I really hope that they make you see what life can be about with this happiness in it. I loved you so much you became my happiness, and then you outgrew the position. Become someone else's happiness now.
              Love, Claire

I fear you*
For you are golden lions and
Dozens of silver stars