I don’t know how to contain you with words.
you’re captivating,
you’re heat and brightness,
and I want to hold hands with the lightning.
you are gentleness and passion;
you are fragile and genuine humanity.
you look at me like healing
and for once I can look someone in the eye
I have lost so much but you are redemption,
you are warmth from the inside out like black coffee.
I knew from the beginning
that you are made of cracks and pieces;
you’re a shard of what you used to be
but light still reflects through broken glass
and I still think you’re wonderful.
I’ve learned a lot from life
even in the short time that I’ve been here
I know that you can be
a lot of different things
for a lot of different people
but it is so incredibly refreshing
for who you really are
to actually be enough for someone
and I’m more interested
in the fact that you have a heart
than the fact that it’s damaged.

I go through each day
aware in the darker corners of my mind
that you are wrapped throughout and around
every part of me that is alive.
there is a setting on my brain set to your name
there is a hum in my ears
that oddly resembles your voice when you first wake up in the morning
there is a vague tingling on the tips of my fingers
that mimics the silk fabric of your skin
it’s as if you painted the freckles on my body,
you molded its curves,
you dipped each strand of hair in color
and stenciled my irises with your reflection.
I will hold you,
as you have held me.

it feels like you are too much,
and I haven’t decided if that’s good or bad
my mind is so full of you
it feels as though I must hold my skull together
with nails and plates of bitterness and anger.
there is no such thing as a new sky
nitrogen and oxygen react to paint the same colors every time.
that is the stability of science
and the doom of a heart that has been broken.
there is no new love.
uniqueness is addiction.
am I allowed to be afraid now? this late in the day?
who would grant me permission,
the flash of lightning that stops my heart
the same way your gaze does?
you’ve replaced my blood
it is now you who decides
how much oxygen reaches the tips of my fingers
and the back of my neck
and everywhere else your touch could grace.

I am breaking into your mind.
I am taking you over.
you are absorbing me like a sponge,
and I am leaking out with every thought.
how do I taste?
do your lungs buzz when you breathe me in?
does your skin tingle as if I brushed it?
I know your spine still shivers with the thought of my fingertips
my whispers still make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.
the sun’s rays will warm you as if I am there,
the green of the grass can’t compare to my eyes.
I am in your veins and you know it.

I never wanted to feel helpless.
I never wanted to feel
like I could swim an entire lifetime
and not cross the ocean drowning my ability to save you.
I can’t care for you
in the way that I want to
and I can feel it ******* the oxygen from my blood.
I can feel it tightening my muscles,
dimming my vision.
I feel everything so acutely.
I can hear your bones breaking for me
in between your silences and stutters
I can see your mind bruising for me
in between your scattered thoughts
I am not crazy,
you are not addicted,
we’re just unsure
and insecure
and we have too many band-aids on our hearts
to see that at least they are still whole

I take too many photos of darkening skies
this is how I survive without you.
this is my small talk existence;
this is my lingering surface tension.
this is how you take months to say goodbye.
this is how I am never in one place for long,
this is my unsettled mind.
*this is how I am losing it.