Sometimes
I look at the blues and purples and pinks
when the sun is setting
and I like to think of you under the warm light,
laughing and drawing circles on my thigh with your fingertips.
The image doesn’t always last
because I remember that you’re too far away
for me to even reach for your hand
and I guess it’s unrealistic of me to think
that I could ever touch a star
that shines even brighter than the sun
but you make me believe in things like that,
you make me think that I could hold out my hand
and watch the stars bounce against my fingertips.
Everything is beginning to look like you,
I’ve started drinking my coffee black
because it reminds me of your eyes,
I can’t stop thinking about
what your voice sounds like
when you’re half asleep
and still in the moment between dream and reality.
I can’t stop hearing your mumbled “I love you’s”
or your quiet laughter.
I was always told that ordinary people
do not experience extraordinary love,
but you are so extraordinarily beautiful
and you make me feel extraordinary.
I want to be your afternoon sunlight,
your midnight moon.
I’ve never been good at telling people I need them
but the world would be so lonely without you,
and I think I’d wait until the universe collapsed in on itself
if it meant I could hold your hand in mine
without worrying that it might slip away.

you say his name out loud and you think you hear thunder but the sun is shining down on you like a spotlight. you remember the way his lips shone bright red and you think maybe this fire inside of you is only getting wilder. you think this aching feeling is only getting harder to compress and you don't know if you can stop your hands from shaking. you feel empty now that his fingertips aren't tracing paths along your collarbones and you wonder if you'll ever feel whole again.

he covers you with his body and his hands like he wants you to disappear from the rest of the world. he says he wants to keep you all to himself, that he wants to be the only one to really see all of you but you think that maybe he just wants you to be invisible. he wants to make you small, to quiet you down and keep you hidden so that you don’t have the chance to be yourself. he doesn’t understand that you were born to be as big as a galaxy, that sometimes you think your soul is too big to fit inside your own body and sometimes you need to let it out. you think about making your way to a different planet, one that’s far away from him and those hands that restrict you but you’re so vehement; you’re not sure anyone will love you and your noisiness.

I've always hated the beach but I've been going every week and soaking myself in salt water because I keep thinking I'll see him on the other side of the ocean. I like to watch the blues and greens beneath me and imagine it's his eyes. I look up at the sky and envision his fingertips dancing on my back like droplets, his lips running along my shoulders. Sometimes I think I can swim to him, like maybe if I held out my hand far enough I could reach him.

He tells himself that one day
he’ll be with the woman that he loves
but he will have to fix himself first.
He leaves her shaking on the bathroom floor
because he can’t stop his own hands from trembling
and he doesn’t think he’s capable
of picking up all of her broken pieces
when he is still slicing open his fingertips
trying to clean up his own mess.
His story isn’t one you would tell your children
because it isn’t one that ends happily.
Years later her long hair still appears in his dreams
and he can’t bring himself to listen to his favorite music anymore
because he swears he can hear her laughter in every tune.
He buries himself in other girls
whose eyes don’t shine nearly as brightly as hers used to
and he drinks whiskey every night
in the hopes of forgetting her name,
but he is afraid he will end up forgetting his own first.

Her hair moves effortlessly in the wind
and all you want to do is touch her
but she's too far away to even reach for her hand.
You swear her smile
could cure diseases or end hurricanes
or make your heart beat out of your chest.
You imagine she tastes like sunlight,
that if you had the pleasure to touch her
you would be left with stardust
on the palms of your hands.
When you wake up,
you will be alone in the wind
and her voice will be gone.
You don't like the way the song goes
but your fingertips will be hitting
piano keys in the hopes that
the notes will fill the silence
or maybe the hole in your chest
where your heart used to be.

someone once asked me what love sounds like and i remember thinking of your voice, or more specifically the way my name sounds coming from your mouth. when i think of love, i think of your laughter. when i think of love, i think of you. i like to think of your body like a universe and maybe i want to drown in that underwater city inside your chest. someone once asked me what love looks like and i remember thinking of your chest, rising and falling. i remember thinking of your messy hair on lazy afternoons, our bodies tangled together like two halves of a love letter. they say that everyone’s heartbeat is unique but if you listen closely enough, you can hear my heart beating at the same rhythm as yours, like you and i were destined to be together but i often become terrified because infinity minus a number is still infinity, and if i were to subtract me from you…you would still be you.