The aftermath is what gets me
The remnants of
The picking up the pieces
How it is
two years later and I still am

I lost myself without realizing
after trying to move forward
I never made time to confront things
It took me months to notice that I had been missing

How do you get over
something you never really got over?

How do you move past
a moment thats still living in yours?

I tell myself it doesn't bother me
That I only remember when I lay in bed at night
Or walk for a while
Or think for too long
Or hear someone talk
Or breathe
I only remember
when I think I'm starting to forget

The mess I'm still sweeping
isn't a good enough story to tell.
It has yet to end.
I will be cleaning as long as I'm here,
I know this.
Two years later and I still am
I still am
I'm still here

there are too many people writing about the moon tonight,
too many hearts lonely from the thought of her greatness,
wondering how it is possible
to love something that makes you feel so small,
that in comparison,
renders you insignificant.

this is how it was to love you.
this is how it is to still do.
to look up at a sky that is too big to notice you
to imagine a selfish lover as the vastness in which
too much attention is granted
this is how it was,
this is how it has always been,
this is how it is,
loving you.

there are too many people staying up late tonight
to watch the atmosphere unfold its secrets
open-eyed anticipating some kind of beauty unfrequented,
I will not be one of them.

waiting is a chore I no longer perform
willingly
the only galaxies I admire
are those I create.

there are too many people writing about the moon tonight,
and I have become one of them.

Smells like the smoke coming from the 24-hour 711 next to the fright train
like the walk home from the part time job past the house he used to live in
like the cookies we made but never ate
like guilt slipping from cover
like I almost let it show
Sounds like daddy's cancer
like driving on the freeway with no music
like not speaking
like I don't know how to
like every ride home from the hospital
like the fireworks we lit a few months back in our front yard
like the mistakes I called choices
Feels like the first boy I let have me vulnerable
like the meeting of hand to face
like shaking shoulders into apology
like the forgiveness crawling from his lips
like my tongue unfurling with remorse coming too easy
like my voice echoing I'm sorry
like it is something I will always be
Tastes like swallowing a pill backwards
like Fireball mixed with the thick of cough syrup
like holding back a ****** nose
like vicodin dust between broken teeth
like waiting for another winter
Looks like leaving the front door open for the air to come in
like the snow building a cast around our insecurities
like it's never been this cold before
like this Chicago is a stranger we never loved
like the ****** he tried just once
like how once can be enough to **** us
like all the questions we never got answered
like when will the branches stop cracking?
what makes a flame keep growing?
and why are these memories still
breathing?

The night you died
I held my breath in your honor
or in anger
I can't exactly remember, only
a dropping of the gut, the swollen amalgamation of numb and comprehension and
more confusion than I have ever swallowed whole before

I hope you cursed yourself when you realized what you did
your hand closing is a picture I played a million times in my head
your eyes rolling back is one I tried not to but
every time my eyelids met
I saw yours gasping for air

Your mother, a glass vase splitting on hardwood floor
I can promise you she is still stepping on your pieces
the truth is I know you never meant to cause damage
the breaking is just what happens when so much is left behind

When the rabbi said your name
I thought about laughing, how
you certainly would be at the seriousness of it all
the level of despondence floating
in the room
the oxygen, thick in its lack of,
a density unlike any other

I remembered the time we got high on one of the holiest days of the year
I thought maybe this
is god playing a joke on us
I thought maybe this is
just his sick revenge, an attempt at humor but
there was nothing funny about your leaving

For the first few months
losing you was drowning every night in my sleep
and waking up alive the next morning
friends asked what it's like
to have this gap of almost stretching inside of me
I asked if they had ever accidentally touched something hot
and to recall how it felt when the burn started setting on their skin

Most days I miss you without trying
some days I don't think about you at all
there is a life that is full without your being in it but
it isn't mine to call my own
I am forgetting your laugh like a song whose words I can't remember

Today is your 22nd birthday,
facebook had to tell me
there are no shots being taken and nobody is making a cake
today you would have been another year older
I wish you could have stayed to be it


-from the one who loved you

Loving the addict is
an addiction in itself
Learning to digest
all of the sharp pieces that
come with it
Apologies and how
they lose meaning
after the second
Loving the addict is
as much of an art as
the hiding is, as
the covering up, as
the forgive me
After some time
I love you and I'm sorry
start to sound the same
letting go and withdrawal
become an equal amount of
swollen
and coming back is
more relapse than any
tangible substance
Loving the addict is
a guilty habit growing
inside a dark closet
feeding the plant until
it becomes animal,
ravenous
love and dependence
are both diseases that
share the same root

But being the addict
is always an attempted break up
It is avoidance at
its finest
It is ripping apart
strings of a rope
with chipped fingernails
in attempts to
cut loose ends
It is sawing pieces of
wood with bare skin and
trying not to get a splinter
It is leave me
It is don't go
It is I am trying to not destroy
everything in my path
It is painting with
heavy winds and rain
hoping there wont be
a mess to clean up
But mess is as inevitable
as the art is creating
And love and addiction
mix like oil and water
nobody is perfectly
capable of cleaning
up correctly
So we leave in a pile
to return to later
Coming back is
more relapse than any
tangible substance
that has ever
existed
and mercy is more perilous than
we'd hope it to be

All of my belongings are strewn across the floor
lone socks, piled clothing, a book of poetry
the carpet is covered in empty bags and pens and pieces of notebook paper filled with lines I couldn't finish
I never found the right words to

I know I should be putting my life together
folding and storing and cleaning
I should be fixing the chip in the wall or doing something of importance
there are too many boxes I still haven't packed, but
all I'm thinking about is how to get you back

I should be moving out of this house into the next but
I'm wrapping myself in these same red sheets wishing you were sinking into the mattress with me
phantom feeling skin that isn't touching mine
longing like the hungry heart I always claim to not have
but here I am, starving again
insatiable

and when I leave I wont miss the salt in the air or
the sand building hills in every crack of the room
I wont miss the ink stained sunsets much
or the welcoming breeze that morning wakes me up with
I wont miss it at all

not the sound of waves or the way the moon looks when
everyone is too busy to notice
the stars and how they peek out during the vacant of night
not the crawl of sunlight through windows and
the dance the curtains do when the door is left open

not even the sounds coming from the alley outside in the middle of sleep
or the scratch of cars along the one way street
I wont miss it, I promise
there's no point in missing what I can always come back to

but I will miss you
I will the way I have for however long I haven't had you here
for whatever city you're in today
for whatever heart you're casing inside yours
for whatever one that isn't mine
how ironic it was that you used to be just a few blocks down the beach
now we're more than miles apart in distance
I wonder if your thoughts ever find their way to me

I buried too many feelings in the sand  
leaving seems an easier feat than digging up memories
and I don't think there's enough time in the world to get to where I need to be to be okay again

all of my belongings are strewn across the floor
lone socks, piled clothing and a book of poetry
the carpet is covered in empty bags and pens and pieces of notebook paper filled with lines I couldn't finish
I never found the right words to
I'm starting to think I never will

if
we **** like
we're in love and
we love like
we're just *******
?