i never ran out of words.
i'd see the night sky and i could describe it in a hundred ways --
i could say it was the ocean reflecting the twinkling lights above;
or maybe a moonlit path now visible through the waves.

i'd feel the wind brushing my cheek
and write about how it tousled my hair into messy tendrils--
how it plays with the leaves one moment
and the next leaves them astray under warmly-lit streetlamps.

oh i could write for endless hours
about disasters, impossibilities, probabilities
and i never ran out of words.

there are twenty-six letters in the alphabet and they never failed me.

but then i saw you.

you're not supposed to be this mean
to the person that you love
you aren't supposed to be so
passive-aggressive
who hurt you
when your heart was still growing?
it was not me i was not born

i'm sick of writing poems about you
but nothing else invokes the same extent of emotion
you make me so
ugh
insecure, unsure, unwell
but then
you smile at me
or tell me we should hang out soon
and i pour out words

tell me
    in  every  trial
  we'll  always   get    through
           make    me      believe
                     that     forever      is        true

  to leave  me
       you   will   never    do
     tell    me,
            until      the      end,
                   my      love,
                           it's      me      and        you

tell me
    what  our   love  can   do
                tell     me
         that    red    can      be         blue

tell me
     you  love    me
    tell   me
          you   care
         tell  me  when  i    need     you
             you    will     always     be       there
                   tell   me  
                         to      kiss       you
                             so     we        can        both          fly

                       ­            tell      me,

                                           my           love,

                                                    *the  ­           most            beautiful              lie.

i remember the way love used to taste
it crept up my sternum, crawled up the back of my throat, strangled my tongue, and leaped out of my mouth with a trembling, shaking "i don't know how to feel like this anywhere else so please let me stay"
although there was an eviction notice stuck in between the door and the frame but i didn't open the door, to leave, to see it
and i used to look at people who could find something good and run from it and wonder how they could possibly do that when i ran to every doorstep, pleading for someone to let me in and planting my feet firmly into their ground as soon as they did
there are pieces of myself in every corner of these rooms, every crack in these walls, clumped in bathroom sink drains and i understand now
the more love you give that is unrequited, the less you have to give out again

and i'm only a few drunken, empty i-love-you's away from running dry

i am afraid of fall and winter.
i am afraid of the dropping temperature.
the trees slowly withering.
i am afraid of the short days.
and the dark mornings.
i am afraid of reliving the memories we made in the fall.
and how we broke in the winter.
my heart goes cold like the weather.