i keep looking at the moon
and i wonder why i can’t reach her,
why when i hold out my hand
all i am met with is darkness.

i want the ocean
to swallow me whole.
maybe drowning
would be better than this.
maybe the waves
will fill the emptiness
inside my heart.

i have learned to look deep within myself.
i have turned every corner, every crevice,
swam underneath every deep-end inside my body
to explore what i am made of,
and yet i still feel like i don’t fully know myself.
i have so much to learn, i have so much left to see.
i know now that i am in control of everything.
all of the stars shining inside of me shine
because i tell them to,
but i must learn that the brightest stars die the fastest.
i know now that the reason my hands shake
is not because i am weak,
but because i have so much power inside of me
that my body doesn’t know what to do with it all.

i wonder if he knows that his eyes shine like starlight. i wonder if he knows that his voice alone makes my heart race, that the words he strings together to form perfect sentences make my knees crumble beneath me. i want his fingers to trace lines against my hips like braille, his lips finding the perfect spot on my neck to make a home in.

i call out his name and i wonder if he can hear it from way up there, on the other side of the solar system. can he hear my heart beating for him? can he see how much my hands shake when i think of his smile?

my name sounds like a song coming from his mouth and i start to believe i am dreaming. i start to believe i never really knew my own name until he said it. i dreamt about him again last night and i swear i can still feel his hands on my skin. i can hear his voice in my head so clearly and it sounds like wind chimes. it sounds like the kind of melody that was made for me to keep playing over and over again until it’s all i can hear.

the way he looks at me reminds me i’m alive, but i think that if i were to blink he would disappear. if i stop saying his name, will he forget what my voice sounds like? will he forget my name as quickly as he learned it? the truth is my hands could never compare to the way that so many galaxies have kissed his cheeks. i am far too forgettable. i remind myself that this fire inside of me could burn an entire kingdom and it is only getting wilder, it is only getting harder to compress. he has hands that could carry the weight of all the worlds combined, but i am afraid he won’t have enough room for my heart.

i'm wondering what makes your head spin and what makes your eyes light up like the stars that come out late at night. i can't stand the fact that you can't see that even the sun shines for you. you've got my heart in the palm of your hands and you don't even know it. i want to know the names of your favorite songs and i want to know what makes you think of someone so much you decide to write about them. i want to be the person you write poems about. i want to occupy your every thought and i want you to see me as the ******* center of your universe because you're the center of mine. rip open my chest and take my heart because i don't need it anymore, it's yours. it's been yours since the very first time i laid eyes on you. you never saw yourself as something beautiful but baby, god himself probably bragged to the angels when he created you. i don't always believe in god but sometimes i think he put you on this earth just so i could touch your lips with mine and trace the outline of your hips with my fingertips and i promise i will spend every day for the rest of my life trying to repay him. i'm not very romantic and i never believed in love but there can only be one explanation for the way my heart beats against my rib cage when you say you're addicted to me and if this feeling isn't love i don't care what it is, i don't ever want to go on without it.

what if i told you i am tired of this unrequited love story? i never thought those were romantic.  you were once so fascinated by me. you always thought i was the most interesting, always thought i was worth picking out from the rest. your hands always felt gentle and soft against the endless pages of my mind and you were always excited, always waiting for the next plot twist. perhaps the imagery just wasn't real enough for you, the metaphors not as creative. maybe you decided that the characters inside were far too predictable. i keep thinking you'll come back and read between the lines and realize that i am truly worth rereading. but now even when you come back you aren't really here. i'm just another book on your bedside table, waiting to be picked up when you want to be reminded of what used to be.

you keep looking up at the clouds
and wishing you'd see her face
because you know
she is too soft for this world.
you tell yourself
that you tried your best to hold onto her
but the truth is
she was never in your grasp to begin with.

There are so many things I want to tell you about, like the times I've written your name down over and over in the hopes that it would lose its meaning. I look up at the sky and I wonder if you look at it and think of me, the way that I think of you. I keep looking for you in the cracks between my fingertips, hoping that you are still hiding somewhere near. I know that you were too bright for me but I would risk going blind if it meant I got to keep looking at you.