You were never good with names.
I swallowed your every attempt of choking my name
through our lies up your throat with a smile.
Your smile holds every last bit of my happiness
and now I wonder why I haven't been happy.
Oh, right.

You are the mismatched sock in my life.
You were hardly there; but when you left-lost for good-
nothing was right.
Replace my my heart now. You took that too.

But I'd rather feel you through this pain
than feel nothing at all, because then at least I know it was real.
I'd rather remember you as teardrops
because at least I'd feel you on my skin again.
I'd rather hear you in my screams
and speak through pen and paper
than to realize;
you're gone.

Since the first day I met you
I've compiled a list of ten things that I wish I could tell you.
ONE: I wish I could wipe that stupid grin off your face whenever you mention your ex-girlfriend because if she's your past, I'm your present and to be honest I don't know what's coming up next, but God knows that I will fight for you. That somehow, some way, although God managed to create the sun and the stars in seven days, you gave me a life's worth of love in the first two seconds I met you. Arms outstretched, eyes not quite reaching mine, your stride as you passed me in the hall was brisk, you looked as though she ****** my name from your lips,
you looked at me,
you smiled and said 'hey'.  You see, there are moments in your life you know you will remember as your mind grows old and fades into nothing, and that was one of them. You said a three letter word in my general vicinity and until today I crave the three worded sentence that will validate everything I wish I could say in the three years that I have wanted to know what you sound like at 7 in the morning.
TWO: I want to **** the name of your ex-girlfriend from your lips because it's just another reminder of everything I'm not.
THREE: I'm sorry I'm not her.
FOUR: Let me backtrack, I'm sorry you can't have her.
FIVE: I love you.
SIX: I don't think I could stop if I tried
loving you. But I can trace my name into you as many times necessary for it to make an impression, indentation on you.
SEVEN: and I will choose you every time she didn't. I will choose you at 2 in the morning and you can't sleep. I will choose you when you are drunk and everything that I'm not falls out of you. I will choose you and hold onto you as though it is the one thing in this life I am meant to do.
I will choose you until the sun doesn't rise and ice freezes over the world because there is no way possible that I could get cold feet when I am with you. Wrap your arms around me, smile, and wake me up in a way words can't, until I am singing with the birds, "good morning". I will choose you, I will choose you, I will choose you. I will choose you when you can no longer remember my name and all that remains is her.
EIGHT: Don't text me at 3 in the morning. Call me, or better yet, come visit me so my dreams don't have to be dreams, they can become a reality. Dreams are great and all, but I'm not about the material, fictional, idea of you. I want you like how I want my tea; pure and without all these little filters. You see, love to me isn't always about the physical. Teach me how to paint and I will paint your name onto every part of me that doesn't remember your touch. Teach me to see the stars and don't stop until I can speak in angel.
NINE: All my poems are about you. The way you are set in an irreversible state of gratitude and how God must have spent two years longer on you just so he could paint each mole on your body in hopes that I would be there to connect them. Or how you never try to stretch too high  so your belly doesn't peak out of your shirt, and wear sweaters in the middle of summer when it is 30 degrees. If you see him, you'll know it's him. He's probably wearing his favourite outfit; heart-shaped sleeves and stars for eyes.
TEN: I wish I could tell you that I see your face in rain clouds and write you into every poem, hoping that you'd somehow find a way to become closer to me. I wish I could tell you that I'm not much of a poet, but you are my favourite poem. You give me writer's block, reminding me that you have to work for what you love, and that if your really, really, really love something, you can't will it into being.
That love is harder than you think it will be, and sometimes it will be messy, and will feel like it's impossible to write again. But all those poems were just practice, helping you get to a new level you never imagined you could get to. You see, in every poem I write I hope to find a better understanding of how you have the audacity to love when everything in your past tells you otherwise. Why your lips are like the composers to my melody, we make the best music. I wish I could tell you that it feel like my heart plays jump rope whenever the ground splits in two and my name slips passed you lips, just before slapping you across the face because not even God could have made my knees fall to the floor and beg for mercy. I wish I could tell you that I am horrible at math because there isn't a number large enough to quantify love. But if I really, really needed a number for the things I wish I could say,
it would be
one:
I love you.

You gave me a guitar string heart.
Every word you played me with reverberated in my chest
making me feel like I was something worth listening to.
As though I had the power
to drop the crescendo of your eyes,
to mine,
and love you to the beat of your favourite everything.
I was wrong.
Now all that's left is an out-of-tune guitar
that hasn't been played in two years.

You made me feel like I
was something someone could actually
picture themselves being able
to love.
But I'm not.
I am baby teeth,
training wheels,
and first loves;
things we thought we needed.

A friendly reminder that I want to be yours
in your ever present state of bliss and intrigue.
I want to sit under stars
and feel the warmth of your arm on my neck,
as we sit and ponder the possibilities of you and me.
I want to hear your laugh as a welcome home,
good morning,
good night,
hello,
but never as a goodbye.
With laughs and minor accents of home.

You remind me of airports, plotted plants, dogs,
and Saturday morning cartoons.
I remind you of puns, the smell of paper, and your favourite movie.
But I want to  remember you lying on he couch half-asleep
curled up with a pillow
and disheveled hair covering your eyes.
Remembering your sweatpants, long hair, paint stains, and stickers.
Sneaking sandwiches and comics,
text messages, and knowing smiles,
tight hugs.

Just a friendly reminder, to remember me when you leave.

Subject to the inadequacy
as result of one faulty gene that resides within me,
I smile.
I smile with teeth too large for my small mouth,
and dimples like caverns
that remind me
that some holes are meant to be there.

His eyelashes flutter against my cheek, awake,
and I can feel the two years away from him.
He is rainy days and the first snow fall of the year.
He is the first time I lied to my parents,
he is the summer carnival,
and the 3am shoulder to cry on.
He comes when he is meant to come,
and leaves when he is meant to leave.
But that doesn't mean that when he does,
it doesn't hurt, because it did.

And then I realize
that no matter how tightly
he can hold me,
or how many poems I write,
he is the last fallen leaf of autumn,
and I am the first frost of winter.
Almost,
but not quite.

Unwillingly,
I will spend the rest of my life
looking for something that cannot me found.

The way you never cease to smile,
the way your nose wrinkles when you're confused,
or the way you grip my hair when you
fold me into your arms,
and laugh to hard,
and get too close for comfort,
and manage to brighten a room
without doing a thing,
and never understanding the use of a semi-colon.
Or, how you could never seem
to write your sentences correctly
and end up rambling on and on
until I can hear your thoughts through cold lips.

Can I just say,
I will spend the rest of my life,
hoping to find another you.

But maybe,
just maybe,
he comes back,
and everything is for the better.
Late nights, between flights,
early mornings between shifts,
and mid-afternoon talks about comic books.
Maybe he comes back,
and maybe we're okay.

Maybe he never left
and he still loves me.
Maybe he wants to be with me,
no matter the distance,
years, or people
telling me otherwise.

Maybe,
just maybe,
he's still mine.

It would be an honour
to have my heart broken by you.
Tell me you miss me,
and I will bleed every promise you've carved into my smile.
You were never really mine,
so tell me why the **** losing you hurt so much.

You were never good with words.
I didn't realize that what you meant was
you could never say something you actually meant.
I get it now-you were never good with the truth.

I see the stars in your eyes
and the universe in your smile.
I wish I understood
the secret of the galaxies,
just so I could understand how someone
could make me feel this way.

I died daily but you resurrected me with every good morning.
I'll tell you that love plucked me like a guitar.
Love made me feel beautiful, but I only got played.

I'll tell you that love cannot do math
because if he did, he'd know that
subtracting himself from the equation would leave me a 0.
I'll tell you that love is a game of tag.
They always end up running away.
I'll tell you that love has engraved his name on my soul
and when I die I'll only see the mark that he's left on me.