It's hard to forget you
And not just because I remember the way you made me feel (happy)
But because I remember everything
about you.
I remember the way you pulled me up into your treehouse and showed me your childhood, littered with cigarettes and beer bottles.
And the way your hands shook when you would touch me;
As if they were bottles of spray paint and my body was a blank wall.
I remember the way you would ramble on about nothing
Because you were afraid I'd get bored in the silence.
Yet talking with you was effortless; like how you once started a bonfire with gasoline: instant.
I remember the way your eyes always told different stories than your mouth
And how they looked when we sat by the river playing with cattails.
I remember the energy I felt when you made me break a window in the abandoned house
And the nostalgic sadness I felt when I broke the empty bottle of liquor in the same room
Alone.
Because I can't forget the nothingness in your eyes when you ended things
Or your steady hands that I was no longer allowed to reach out for.
I can't forget how you uncharacteristically said so little,
Dousing the flame I was trying so hard to keep alive.
Or how you so easily walked away
as though everything I ever remembered about you
Was really someone else.
I can't forget how you crushed my heart in between your hands until it turned to dust.
And now all I can do is spend my days writing your name in the ashes in cursive

We are faults; we are despairing flaws that blemish the surface of our revolving sphere with the intent of making reparations.
We collapse entire cores of foundations and tear down freshly plastered walls with family portraits and decorative ceramic angels hanging from stainless steel nails.
We destroy entire civilizations, coating citizens in molten lava from a volcano that never overlooked them in the first place, leaving future lovers stepping over their remains unknowingly and blissfully clueless.
We are natural disasters; we tear through corn fields, bring down windmills, and rip shingles off of roofs while toddlers sleep soundly under quilted blankets.
But moonlight shoots through your veins and sun burns from the crevice of your chest and I can't help but cup it in my hands and put it in my coat pocket for safe keeping

Some girls have flowers in their hair.
Some have forests.
Some girls keep their head under water their whole life
Refusing to face the sky,
Closing the curtains, and telling the sun they are not interested.
Not today.
Some girls have heart beats like morse code.
But you won't get the message unless you're close enough.
Some girls wish on stars that only stare back,
Some stare at the blinding moon until it's beams shoot out their fingertips
Brighter than city lights.
Some girls have mouths full of gunpowder.
Their "i love you"s will leave you breathless, wondering whether you enlisted or were drafted into this war.
Some girls have eyes like pesky fireflies you will try to put in a jar for when it gets cold.
They will fly too far out of your reach.
Some girls have eyes like swimming pools, and you will bravely cannonball into their depths.
Some girls have flowers in their hair.
Some have forests.
You have wondered too far past the garden's gate.

I closed my eyes and all I could see was you walking in front of me.
Our feet stepped to the same rhythm and every time I stumbled over stray roots popping up from the soil I winced as my tempo no longer matched your steady drum beat.
As I struggled to keep up you slowed down, reaching for my hand, leading me further down the path. I didn't know where we were headed and I didn't care. Your smile planted daisies in my lungs that made it hard to breathe, yet every time I inhaled I could taste their sweet aroma.
Your hand in mine transferred your bright energy into my arms and made me feel safe and whole for the first time.
I opened my eyes and you were still there, staring at me. Your eyes were wild, looking at the new world before you.
Millions of years of natural selection culminated in the way you used one side of your mouth to smile.
I could feel pollen multiplying in my chest, making it difficult to open my mouth without flower petals escaping.
You took them and wove them in my hair like secrets but the wind tangled the words and now I'll never know what they are whispering to me in my sleep.

Be my morning coffee.
Pull me out from under the covers and burn on the way down.
Two sugars.
Put a spring in my step and twitch in my fingers.
Be my afternoon cigarette.
Be my long awaited break from reality
Light my eyes as I take each drag of you and keep me warm.
Stay on my lips and let me inhale every last bit of you.
Be my nightly sleeping pill
Envelope me in your grasp and take me elsewhere.
End my tossing and turning and plant dreams in my head so real I can taste them.
Until morning