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The shirt laying on top of my wash basket today wasn't mine.
But, I remembered the moment when I took it off of you late Saturday night as I held the white material between my fingers.
Sparks flying in between heated kisses, trailed down beating chests,
as clothes became fewer the closer.
Savoring the comfort of skin touching skin in our short time alone.
I clung to you then,
and now, I'm left clinging to your ***** shirt that still smells like Old Spice and home.
And laying in my dorm alone,
your shirt held to my chest,
I realize that we both want to go home.
The thought of you making time for others,
and not me, kills me because I was
your best friend and you are still mine but
somewhere along the way, that phone line got cut.
And maybe I missed the memo that the alarm on our friendship began beeping and you woke up
while I was still sleeping.
Or that the clock struck
midnight, leaving me sitting in the rotted remains of our childhood.
How is it possible that the added days of us
became so replaceable that you "Don't understand how you made it through until you met, blank."
I don't see how this recurring trend became a thing,
as if recycling friends as if they didn't
exist is okay and how
"I've been busy"
equates to making everything just fine.  
I would have settled for a text just know whether or not you would be the next in line with every other person
I had dared call "friend".
How did we go from strangers
to sisters, to you not caring, and me just staring, waiting for you
to make a move, but knowing it would never come.
To all the girls who's "friend" only understood the word "end" and to all the people who inspired this, I'm sorry you did.
The saying goes that men in the Army do more by 7 A.M. than I do in the entirety of my day, and waking up to you already dressed for the day while I am still
wiping the sleep from my eyes reminds me that your job isn't as simple as sitting in an office eight hours a day.
There is no preparation for the trepedation of waiting
for the call to come, "We need you to ship out."
There was no manual given to me when
I fell head over heels for you, that you,
my brave reservist, may actually take on foreign soil,
combat boots running, and how I, back on
home turf, am to remotely handle your absence when I can't go more than a nights sleep without your voice in my ear
and your arm wrapped around my torso.
This is the curse and blessing of a military relationship.
Holding you a little bit tighter in the night yet still waiting for the bed to be empty, keeping you hand in mine while keeping an eye on the phone.
And most importantly knowing that if that day comes, I'll be waiting for you when you step off the plane.
I'll be waiting.
I dare you to
unearth that old oak box
I long ago buried
in the labrinth of my mind.
Turn it over in your calloused hands and
pry open its rusting and resisting hinges.
Plunge into my darkness,
my Pandora's box.
Crack open the lock on
my pained memories,
ancient whispered words,
long forgotten smiles.
Understand why I guard this
box with sword and shield.
Then snap it shut and padlock it
before your demons escape too.
Rough version but just something that came to me.
When you kissed me
every galaxy,
firework,
and supernova,
Exploded within me.
and in that moment,
I understood the hype.
How a kiss can set
your soul ablaze.
How it can make you
forget
that life wasn't always
so perfect.
How your lips on mine
put a smile on my face
for the first time in months.
How one simple connection
brought me back to life.
Falling in love was the easy part.
But none of the teen romance novels you've read could have prepared you for what comes when you stay.
The After.
You learn quickly.
Learn to love the constant back and forth and the everlasting yes and no's and the late night phone fights.
Stay in this after with him even when the door was open for escape in the before, when every part of your being was left intact.
Love the boy who took ever last ounce of space in your heart. The boy with emotions as ever changing as the seasons, who bleeds his nationality and carries his heart tucked into his sleeve.
Love the boy who became the Heathcliff to your Catherine.
Learned to love this After because whatever these souls are made of, they are the same.
It's been so long since I posted. I've been running this around my head all night. I'm dedicating it to one of my favorite authors, Anna Todd, of the After series and to the man I'm learning to share my After with.
You're the type of guy that makes me
want to write poetry.
So, here I sit at two a.m. on Christmas Eve,
shrouded in the shadow of an unlit tree,
wracking my writers blocked brain.
Your lips feel like home and hot chocolate
with marshmallows beside a burning fire.
Your hands take me back to the fall days
where I fell as quickly as the leaves around us.
Kiss me without a mistletoe and don't break away
until the new year rings its way into existence.
Hold me against your ugly Christmas sweater
and be my person worth melting for.
I want to make you my new tradition.
I couldn't be cheesy if I tried...but he makes me want to try.
I kissed him today.
And a tiny part of me wished that it
would have been you.

Then I remembered that
your fingertips never wrote
novels down my spine
and your voice didn't
sing melodies into my chest.

You never understod
the stories written on my wall
and on my skin.

In that moment,
I realized that we were
a fairytale;
always trying to be something we never were.

But this with him...is real.
And sometimes, it seems,
the better stories are the ones
we write for ourselves.
One.
My first kiss was a country boy.
His dorm smelled like coconut and summer but
three days later, he told me
he didn't want a relationship.
Two days after that,
he stopped talking to me.
He used me.

Two.
I kissed a boy
whose intentions were never
what I thought they were.
He had hands that wandered
and lips that didn't quite fit against mine.
That was our first and last date.

Three
I thought I loved him.
Young and in love, I let him
touch my heart and my body
and I thought we were forever.
But his hands were too big for mine
and he left me, like all the rest.
But I don't miss him.

Four.
Late night Snapchats that led to drunken kisses and roaming fingers. And regret.
I still think about it.

Five.
I was 19,
and he was gentle and slow.
He held my face as if I was porcelain,
beautiful and fragile.
After, he held me close to his chest
and I could hear his heart
beating with mine.
*Perfect fit.
I fell in love with
the way your hand found mine
in the darkness.
How it pulled me
closer to you, was just proof  
that gravity and God
were showing us that we were
indead created for each other.
As if we two
very similar, yet very different
puzzle pieces
could together make a beautiful
puzzle that is ours
and ours alone.
Dedicated to the one who God and Gravity brought me.

— The End —