We didn’t bloom together the way we should have. We never eyed each other across neat soil; both self-conscious and self-righteous as we sipped the sun and, in quiet bursts, raced to touch the sky.  

We weren't planted by gentle hands in soft plots with room to stretch our limbs and shield our eyes, nor to bud in peace and thrive and find identity in both our own bold blossoms and as a pulsing piece of the whole lavish garden.

We didn't bloom because we erupted.
We running-start-swan-dived into stale dirt and were too close from the very beginning.
We didn’t sprout up straight; we snaked and lurked and left no bit of earth untouched by our vibrant, stencil **** fingers declaring ourselves alive.

By harvest we were tangled beyond repair.
By harvest I didn't know me from you and I liked it.

To be so entwined is lovely but depends on a balance
we could only begin to grasp.
To expand but not uproot requires perfect synchronicity maybe not beyond our years but certainly beyond our maturity. We spread out our emotions like tarot cards on a towel in the grass and reflected in your sunglasses I met the silent pieces of me.
In colorful, grim drawings those quiet, ugly bits floated up veins and settled under ribs.
They stayed silent. Until they began to scream.

And you and I- we didn't have the words;
not our own words that we earned and burned while stumbling across months and plains,
tripping over potholes and finding our feet quicker each time.
We had place-holders words we sang back and forth and splashed around and bathed in.
The words we spoke were profound and cardboard.
We were just reading lines, sharing identical scripts and an ache to be seen
so deep and desperate it was sinful.

We maybe shared the humid cling of regret; which hung heavy in stuck-air auditoriums,
it beaded sweat echoed, rolling down spines and turning blood to sticky wax as we whispered in the corner about the things we could say aloud while our minds never left the things we wouldn't dare.

We were mostly ill-equipped.
We joked about hurricanes
We didn't survive the first storm.

I want you to know you really hurt my feelings.
I want you to know you're the first guy I've given my feelings to hurt.
I want you to know I was terrible towards the end.
And I know that. But you gave up on me

You gave up on me at the exact moment I was giving up on myself.
Even as my tongue stung metallic and veins pulsed so hot and loud
through my eardrum that I felt I would explode- it was clean.
It was all remarkably clean.
and sterile.
There were no explosions.
No shattered plates, ****** knuckles or blown out voices
that scratched and rose in time with the sun.

Just a quick slash of rope-
an anchor cut loose and left to sink;
our secrets were set free to
rust over and collect algae.
We were suddenly off the hook
for any vulnerability we might have spilled
on each other in our fits of laughter
and hours of sleep.
A deep sigh of relief.
A deeper sigh of desolation.

The moment exists in sad yellow lighting that must have been added in restrospect.
I tweaked the floor of my memory too:
at that moment I was not wearing flipflops on linoleum- but sinking, slowly and barefoot, into chilly riverbed mud as it turned to ice.

I opened the door and there you stood.
You knew I had been crying and I didn’t try to hide it
it was too exhausting- running on fumes.

And I did expect something from you,
anything from you, that might dull the singed-dagger plunging
stab to my chest with each breath I gulped and spat .
I wanted anything that might reel me in from the cliffs edge
where my thoughts had carried me on horseback.

But you had nothing.
I watched your eyes swallow my swollen lips and pinched, glassy eyes
like a quick, sharp shot of warm whiskey.
Careful to avoid eye contact you slipped ‘**** this,’
under your breath and started to reach for my hand.

You started to, but then after a second suspended
you let your arm fall back to your body.
Head lowered, jaw clenched and you turned and fled with a new heaviness pushing down on your posture.
It looked painful and adult.
It looked like you finally felt the weight of our season.
And watching you go I shrank in lighter and thicker because I felt it too.

We are not going to get a happy ending-
not with each other and not right now.
Maybe not ever.
And that will have to do.
(Though I will miss your hand in mine.
I hope one day you'll remember being tangled with me and it will make you laugh before you cringe because I didn't like to be alone.)

If I wanted to be alone I would just go home.

it was strange, sitting there realizing we fought a running clock for almost two years. seeing what had once looked like forever become more like seconds, and knowing we lost, because we never could have won.

I traced your quivering lips
with my shaky fingers
& we stood
speechless,
teary eye to teary eye,
& realizing it was ending,
we parted
for the last time,
turned
& walked away
on our love.

I should have to peel you off of me, but instead i'm trying to hold on to the remains of you.
Every last piece of you.
All of you.
I want your fingers running down my spine, your hands holding me, you loving me.
But your mind is somewhere else, your hear is with someone else.
Does she love you? Better than i could.
Does she make you feel good? Better than i could.
Because i adored you, all of you.
She has to peel you off of her, i have to hold on to the remains of you.
Every last piece of you.
All of you.
And i cannot let go of you, because if i don't i will never get you back.

But what are chains? I hold myself in this place.

We were friends but i wanted more,
I wanted you whilst you wanted someone else.

I wanted you to touch my skin, more than you wanted too.

We could have intwined in the bedsheets together, but you were already in someone else’s arms.

I wanted forever but you wanted forever with someone else.

You left me with nothing but memories and the smell of you on my sheets.

You left a stain on my soul an ache in my chest.

I was addicted too you,
and i was a faint memory at the back of your mind.

I fell in love with you when you weren’t willing to meet me halfway.
I wonder if my clingyness, sadness drove you away,
to someone else.

And im still stupid enough to care, because you are you, because nothing else matters to me more than you.

You only cared to fill the space of loneliness from your last whilst you waited for your next.

You left a hole in my soul.

I left you with the satisfaction of knowing that i will always be there no matter what pain, suffering or upset you have put me through because i care too much to forget you.

Oh cursed soul,
that you be,
something I dont even believe,
In, but in pain filled ignorance,
I lack the eloquency  to describe,
Even a little bit accurately,
This hateful being,
This lie of a perception, I cannot wake from,
A matrix, a coded line, I find myself,
Stuck in,
The suffering of a thousand lives and worlds,
Reaching out to you, reading this,
Lying, lying, as if the words mean,
Anything, anything, No!
Yet then, I always realize circling back,
To the histories invented by past selves,
hence, influencing who I am now,
the dark corners I look forward to in the future,
The lack of resposibility, The blissful youth,
Mixed with the pain of wisdom,
And the teachings and overview,
Of going off a cliff, only to jump back on,
And run off again,
Yet, then, again I find myself looking,
In my heart at the gun, the gun of release,
Oh that I dare say,
all humans should seek.
Crazy, crazy, John,
You are crazy you say,
Aye, aye, as all we are,
Sanity is insane,
Reason is,
2+2=4, Because.
I am the because. I am the order.
I am the chaos, that puts that electron there,
And your synapses connecting there,
Oh I'm the breath you take,
Before that **** and ***,
You faked,
Little one, little one,
I am much older now in lives
Than years, I consume throwing myself away,
The self, the soul, the non existence,
Oh it is existing and it wont leave me,
And all this because,
I saw her kissing that man,
On the cheek.
Alas, that is the bane of every God and Demon,
Since nephlium, To love a human,
A mortal, the code in the matrix,
The variables for the x,
That turns your reason and logic,
Into guess work and soulbreak,
I drone on,
Where is the end,
That is the point! Dr. Seuess,
Take your money back, I know the places I will go,
Oh I've seen it now for a while, and boy do I fear,
The blank page, the unwritten line,
The truth that I've been trying to hide,
From who?
I've lived long enough.
I would like to die.

Five years ago
I knew an 8th grader
who felt ashamed for who he was
who felt constantly out of place
who tossed and turned at night
     with deep enough despairs
     with ideas of throwing it all away
     with plans for those actions
     with no dreams, and only one long nightmare

Three years ago
I knew a sophomore
who finally just started to accept it
who reached out and tried
who thought everyone felt the same
     with only blank stares for replies
     with only confused "friends"
     with no family backing
     with no true "inner circle"

Last year
I knew a senior
who carried the burden alone
who perfected his mask
who finally learned how to hide
     with perceived success
     with sarcasm and quick jokes
     with pushing everyone away
     with justified fear of opening up

This year
I know a college freshmen
who is struggling for acceptance of himself
who brags of the physical scars
who is afraid to reveal the deeper ones
     with walls as big as he could muster
     with iron bars to conceal what is beneath
     with pandora's box within
     with that same scared kid locked inside.