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.

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

don't ever go up against my heartlessness;
you'll lose every time.
I lost every time
that I tried
to be anything real,
anything substantial
I'm a ghost
and I know this
I'm a ******* shadow
and all I can do
is follow something real
pretending to be something real
but when it comes down to it
you can't hold my hand,
you can't hold me
I'm baby's favorite flight risk
I'm america's sweetest poltergeist
screaming
and stomping around
like a child
who didn't get her way
and now she's all fire and blood
all messes no one can clean up
she's a fallen angel,
her blast radius is her halo
and she'll drag you down with her
any **** day.

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.

sometimes things glow a little,
most often when I’m not looking
like little holes poked in my head,
little circles of sunlight shining in a dark place
you let me grasp at you because you are my reality
you hang me around your neck
and many days I would call myself a noose
but you still look at me like I grace your head
and your heart
and the space in between
I’m so heavy, I’m so much,
so much,
so much,
too much.
yet, you carry me.
you hold my cold hands
and kiss them like they don’t break you every night
I want to hold your head in both of my hands
kiss your forehead
your nose
your cheeks
your lips.
let me love your humanity gently.
I see where the outline of your heart is slightly off,
I see where something was erased
and redrawn just a little differently
I see where experience tinged the world for you
and sometimes I just want to take permanent marker
and write
I LOVE YOUR SWEETNESS, I LOVE YOUR IMPERFECTION
on your heart
so many times that
maybe
you start to think that love is a good thing,
that you are a good thing,
a blessing and a pleasure.
I will kiss your knuckles even when you turn them blue and purple.
I am not here to fade away.
I am so tired
and you feel like
the most beautiful, peaceful, permanence.

My heart plays hide and go seek
Sometimes to get away,
Sometimes to see if you’ll chase it
Sometimes we sit in the corner
And listen for your footsteps
You’re all “Tell me what hurts”
And “I’m here for you. Patiently.”
And I’m watching you
Out of the corner of my eye
Unsure, uncertain
Waiting for the last straw,
For whatever will push you away
But you’re here now.
You’re still here
And sometimes there’s only an ache
Where my heart is supposed to be
Because it’s busy getting wrapped up in you
I’m getting so wrapped up in you
I'm strung out like
I bought you on the street
And thought
“I’ll try it just this once”
You never try it just once,
I couldn’t try you just once
You’re in my veins,
People can smell you on my clothes
I can’t wash you out of my hair
I can’t scrub your fingerprints off
God and I don’t talk anymore
But if we did
I’d beg him to let me keep you.

it makes me want to be reckless.
driving my car too fast,
drinking too much,
I’m throwing it all out the window.
I know this has a hold on you.
what I wouldn’t give to hold on to you.
my hands ache like you’re already gone,
like “please let me touch you just one more time”,
like “it’s gonna be too quiet without you here”.
you’re the only thing I care to listen to lately,
and now that I know what you taste like,
now that I know what your skin feels like,
I don't want to feel anything else.
I hate that I fit so easily with you,
I don’t want to trust it
and it scares the **** out of me.
there’s so much of you
and I want all of it.
I want all of you.

here’s the thing: I never expected to have to let you go.
you were ripped away and here I was memorizing your favorite things so I could surprise you with them, here I was drinking my coffee the same way you drink yours.
it all follows me around, you know.
you follow me.
I can’t go anywhere without running into you.
you know you were the first thing I looked forward to-
I mean really treasured-
in forever.
I talk tough. you haven’t known me long enough to know that.
we’ve all been hurt, and we all use our pain differently.
I built a ******* fortress out of my heartbreak.
half a bottle of ***** later,
I can’t remember why I let you in so quickly.
some part of me really wanted you, I guess.
still does, I guess.
but here I am holding my heart in my ******* hands like a sacrifice.
my heart has better places to be, I hope you know.
I hope you know.
I spend a lot of time trying to talk myself out of you.
I ask other people to talk me out of you.
everyone tells me what I want to hear but it only clears my conscience. my mind is made up.
my idiot mind knows full well what it wants,
my heart knows what it wants,
it seems these days like they’re ganging up on me.
I’m tired of answering for my heart and its recklessness.

I’m not sure what to do with this feeling.
I sit across from it in silence. I drink about it at night.
my heart aches and my brain is disgusted with how easily I let this happen.

Oh, how easily I let you happen.

He kissed me
and pulled away
and his cheeks were damp,
when he asked me why
I told him
"I don't cry, I never have,
and I wouldn't cry in front of you.
But everything feels
a little too sharp today,
so if you wanna hold me longer than usual,
that's fine."
If we're being honest,
none of this happened.
I'm in bed pretending my loneliness doesn't have a face.
I'm trying to sleep
but I'm unraveling into your hands.
There's blood,
everywhere,
I can't tell if it's mine or everyone else's.
My vision is red,
my skin is red,
and I thought that wanting someone
so much that it hurts
was a cliche
until I felt this literal ache in my ribs.

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.

My eyes are sore and tired,
I’ve watched so much disintegrate in my hands
And now my hands are empty
I don’t trust them to hold on to anything of substance anymore
Like it's their fault, like I can blame it on them
Like I'm not a flight risk with an affinity for loss
I spend too much time
Trying to be more important than I am
And it’s wearing me thin
All the way down to skin and bones,
And if you took apart my skeleton
You’d find bitterness in all the cracks and spaces
And speaking of space
My chest is a black hole
Always consuming light
Never radiating it, it seems
I try not to wake up to emptiness
But please understand, it’s hard to avoid
When you’re the one who fills the space
And you’re not here

they just won’t shut up about you.
all the little tapping sounds of raindrops on the window,
the leaves shifting
and the world moving on without us.
it doesn’t seem fair.
how dare they all move on without us?
it doesn’t seem right that the sun can rise
like you’re not gone.
how cruel of it to ignore the loss.
even the moon wouldn’t tell me what to do about you.
it looks more and more like I’m in this by myself,
like I’m going to have to dig through all of this myself.
I’m just a little lost, and a lot lonely,
and so stuck on nothing.
that’s the worst part of all of this, I think.
I’m spun up like a hurricane over a lot of nothing.
I’d wait forever for this nothing, though.
maybe that makes it something.

Love is here in my hand.
I keep it close, I keep it warm
It's mine and I don't like sharing
It's been broken and glued back together
Shattered and pieced back together
And that's where love and I are the same
We are shards.
We are sharp
We slice without thinking,
Without trying
It is hard to hold love's hand.
It is hard to hold me.
I've walked down so many streets,
Driven across so many state lines
With love in tow
We've searched for places to stay together
But sometimes love and I get separated.
Sometimes I don't see love for a long time.
Sometimes love and I fight,
Sometimes I flat out don't want it
Love keeps ringing my doorbell
But I stay in bed
And hope that it leaves

something about this is quiet.
it feels as though
I’m in the eye of the hurricane.
everything is swirling around me,
and I can see it all
but it’s so much quieter than it should be.
it’s unsettling.
sometimes people look at you and you can feel it.
you can feel millions of thoughts,
and they’re racing past you
way too quickly for you to keep up with.
I don’t try to keep up anymore.
I’m in the eye of a hurricane
of thoughts and feelings
and I’m taking my time taking in the view.
as long as I can see you, I’m okay.
I’ll be fine, I just need to be able to see you.
something about your steadiness,
something about your consistency.
you are what I look forward to.

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'm hung up on this human being
this masterpiece
this warm-blooded,
glowing,
complicated,
kind pair of dark eyes and open hands.
I'm stuck on the boy
whose gaze can bring hurricanes to silence.

Does it make you uncomfortable
to think about
what's inside of you?
All packed together,
sealed,
no extra space.
So where am I supposed to keep
all of this emotion?
I learned from my dad
how to keep my feelings
in a shoebox
under my bed
I know
that I need a better place for these
and I know
I don't have any room for them in my heart.
I can tell by
the way they rise up in my throat
every time I see you smile
when you think I'm not looking.

I'm not used to love like this.
Maybe you are,
but I don't think about that.
Actually
I think about it all the time,
it may as well be background noise,
little soundtracks
all laid over each other,
all playing in my head at the same time.
They love to sing
little songs of my unimportance,
of my inadequacy,
and I spend a lot of time shushing them.
I don't ask god
for much
mostly because
I don't think I deserve it.
I ask him
to let me keep you.
I beg him,
this is all I've ever wanted,
I say,
if you give me one thing
in my lifetime,
please make it this.
I'm holding this love
with both hands like it's glass,
like I've never held anything
more precious in my life.

"It's crazy to me that I have all of this inside of me... and to you it's just words"

I think it’s time to stop worrying.
I’ve been consumed with fear,
with thoughts of having the floor drop out from under me,
with memories of that day.
you don’t remember that day like I do.
but here’s the thing-
I’m giving too much to the future.
I’m stealing from my present moments.
they might be the only ones I get to keep,
and they deserve more than to be spent fearing an uncertain future. here’s how I see it.
the best way for me to be okay
is to take this in its simplest form.
what I know for sure-
these are the **** facts, nothing else-
is that I have openness with you.
I have found a very distinctive,
very pure happiness
and I am lucky to have found it.
I’m going to keep it
for as long as it will stay with me.
does that mean I don’t catch myself
wanting the complicated, tangled mess of feelings
that would knock me down in a heartbeat given the chance?
No, I want it.
I’m human, I’m selfish and needy
and I’ve found something wonderful
that I want to keep.
I am practicing my self-control,
for better or worse.
I am practicing disciplining myself,
for better or worse.
without them I would’ve kissed you already.