i want to show you how lovely my room
looks when i first wake up and the
light is pouring in through cracked blinds
but a picture doesn’t do it justice and
a response from you has become even
less frequent than a thought about
something other than you and your
tragically well put together writings
that never seem to be addressed
to me anymore but i think that
if i were to put a few more states and messy
goodbyes between us then you might
just find me interesting and worth
your time again

wouldn't it be useless
to ask you to take me back
after miles and miles of
missed phone calls
and 3 break ups

simply because i want you

it wouldn't work
because you just want a girlfriend
someone to hold when
the nights get too cold
and eyelids feel too heavy
you want comfort

i want all the pain
that is being yours

once, i liked a guy
who was good with his words,
a poet, if you will.
it didn't take long
to realize that was all
he was good with,
and relationships
were at the bottom
of that list.
now i wonder
if those two traits
go hand in hand.

it's not hard
only to want love
to write about.

take me back
to when love used to be
holding hands in a movie theater
and sitting next to each other at lunch
and writing their name on your hand
where no one got hurt too bad

as opposed to getting drunk
and sleeping with all of your friends

hands which have touched so much
but have held onto none;
it is you that i'm asking forgiveness for.

i can hear his sigh in the hum of my ceiling fan
and i can taste him in my coffee.
this isn't depressing, this is love.
i just need to drink more.

i like to torture myself
with the crippling thought
that if i still knew you,
and not just who i made,
i'd love you even more

your 90's dress sense
leather jacket
and bad hair bleach job
is all a part of someone
i have yet to know
but your eyes that
sink in above your cheeks
and the tiny gap
between all of your teeth
are the parts of you
that i can recognize as what
i'm still learning to let go of.

i prefer rainfall over
sunshine, and maybe that
explains why i'd choose
you over anyone else.
i always hope that
it's a beautiful day
wherever you are, and
all i ever want to do
is kiss your spine and
never apologize again
but my lips have yet to meet
the skin on your back
and for that
i am sorry.

sometimes, i think you live here,
in my marrow, in my bones.
there's a squirrels nest of
broken heart pieces and mirror whipsers in the dark
shredded and stuck around my ribcage.
you haunt my esophagus and sternum.

usually, i think you no longer live here,
in my fingers, in my toes,
but, can love exist like ghosts?
faded polaroids floating in air,
like where there's not enough ink
and the words come out blurry and smudged
and grey like charcoal-dust-fingerprints
on the page?
can love exist like that?
shadows of tall buildings stretching across streets?
can love exist like that?
i think it can, because there's charcoal dust
at the base of my spine
that still spells out your name sometimes,
and smells of chai.
you still know my weak spots,
and i still know where you're ticklish
i know where you bruise like over ripe apples
my spine remembers curving against your chest,
and i know your breath against my neck
your hands on my hips,
your lips on my lips
if anyone ever wants to know you, let me tell them
the noise you make when you get a new idea,
or the hushed sound of your breathing as you sleep,
the way your lips curve into a smile slowly,
or rush into laughter, there's no inbetween.
i'll tell them about your eyes in the middle of the night
when they bore into me like twin drills into brick..
and they will begin to know you.
it is funny that people can fall off of you and away,
drift back into the coils in your brain
that hold distant, but important, memories
moments of pure bliss, trauma,
you forget the names and faces you used to see everyday
for all different reasons, the universe has different plans
than what we'd like to see, couples are forced apart
sometimes gladly
sometimes reluctantly
and sometimes sadly
but there will always be a thread of you that
holds something on the other end
and usually it hangs off of you unnoticed,
but sometimes it gets caught with other threads,
or looped around an arm or a leg
and you have to remember,
try to remember,
for a moment,
i am on the other end.

maybe i'm just balanced
perfectly, for the moment
until i lose my footing,
end up at the bottom,
while you're safe on the
other end of the rope.

maybe i have false confidence,
i thought you'd have to
show me the way
but i'm sick of always standing
in your shadow
i'm tired of your blown up ego
maybe i don't need you
at all.

i tied a cherry stem with my tongue
i fixed your tie with my eyes closed
but i couldn't quite tie you down
and that didn't **** me
or make me stronger,
but i would rather either of those happen
than spending the next year and a half
hiding in a grave i have come to know
as my own bedroom.