I let Cupid carelessly aim an arrow at an apple on my head.
I never thought about how all of the targets he hit may have been accidents.
About what it would be like to pull the arrow out of my chest.
I couldn't stop the bleeding
and he didn't know how to patch it.
I realized then the dangers of putting your heart in the center of a crossfire
hoping,
hoping
the child with the arrow would spare it.

I loved you so much my heartbeat shook the heavens,
how dare you tell me I didn't love you hard enough?
This was supposed to be that soft love.
The kind that caresses your face like a light breeze.
It was enough to shake your soul
like it was rocking you to sleep.
I wanted it to soothe you
and leave you breathless
all in the same moment.
I wanted it to be as fierce as an earthquake
that shifts all of the plate tectonics back into place
as if it were fixing a puzzle.
I wanted it to be as loud as a pin drop
in a dead silent room.
I wanted silence with you.
I wanted the screams to echo through your mind
like I was standing in the middle of
mountains and valleys
yelling to God all of the love stories
I wrote about you.
I wanted you to listen with your eyes closed
and your mouth open.
I wanted to feed you gentleness on a silver spoon.
I wanted to love you.
I wanted to be enough.
But your eyes were always as big as flying saucers,
and your heart only ever the size of a needle hole.
My love was never meant for you.

I am certain I fall in love just to watch them leave.
What better way to fill a hole than through writing?
I was never much of a gardener,
everything I watered died right before my eyes.
But I learned that if I planted a seed
right in the void in the center of my chest
and watered it daily with soft love and strong words,
I could grow something bigger than he ever was to me.
This is for the ones you have to make into poetry
because it's the only part of them that stays.

This is what it feels like.

Scorching summer day, windows down, music blasting.
You never wore your seatbelt,
Hair always whipped around in the wind,
Teeth always reflecting off the hot summer sun.
You were always wild.
Never following rules,
Always bending them,
Always till they broke.

I admired that about you, I could never be like that.

This is what it feels like.

Fast cars in cool summer nights.
Breeze caressing our faces like a
Lost lover coming back after a long winter.

This is what it feels like.

Tires gliding on pavement.
Feeling joy kissed
And eager to be young.

This is what it feels like.

Bright lights flashing,
Horns blaring,
Tire skids.
A pain so sharp and swift like the crack of a whip.
Glass popping,
Seatbelt burns.

Black.

This is what it feels like.

"Accident on highway 610."
Static.
"One casualty. Female."

Static.

This is what it feels like.

"We are gathered here today to celebrate the life of..."

This is what it feels like.

Mourning love and loss.

This is what it feels like.

I know heaven would treat her well.
I can only imagine it smells like lavender and
The lights are so bright,
Yet  so soft it makes you feel like
You're in a dream world.

I miss you.

But I know sometimes when it rains and the
Clouds part open in the most curious of ways
When the sun shines through the breaks,
It's you telling me you're alright.

I know now there's no fear of bright headlights,
Only a captivating eternal glow
Captured in the lens of forever.

And I imagine when the rain is warm and rolls off of my arms

That if you touched me,

This is what it'd feel like.

Love is a fickle word.
I learned in anatomy today that the heart
isn't shaped anywhere near the way
we thought it was when we were kids.
And I've spent years trying to put bandages
on a wound that couldn't be healed
by short term romance and desperate company.
It turns out loneliness isn't an easy hole to fill.
But I still throw piles of words,
one on top of the other,
into the void;
hoping to make a poem that will take up the space.
I wonder how many times
someone can wake up beside you
and forget you're there
before you start to wonder when it was that you went missing.
Since when is it called letting go
if they were never holding on to begin with?
Here's where all the lost loves go--
hopefully they find home in one another.
                                   •••
This is for the ones you have to make into poems
because it's the only part of them that stays.