I could have sworn
that my heart stopped
and my skies fell down,
the grounds swallowed the
trees and mountains in,

the stars disappeared to
thin air,
and the sun decided to
give up on life, too,

when you left
me.

And when I am lonely and withered soon
Remember me as I am now
With flowers in my hair
And stars in my eyes
Soaking the moment dry
And loving with my whole soul
You you you.
Now is forever for me, and I still intend
To spend it with you.

You're not just a chapter,
You are the whole story.

New world, new life.
This one should be
Colder.
Inside I've stopped
But stopped like a machine with something jammed in the gears
The idea of motion presses on
Grating against itself
Mechanisms I don't understand have stalled
But growl low with their metal fury,
Growing hot.
I am paused, inside,
A picture on a screen, shifting between one second and the next,
Parts of me pixelated and blurry with interrupted action.
It feels, too, like my chest is being filled up with cotton
Packed tight
To keep the gears from grinding in their desperation to restart.
It feels thick.
I am slowly becoming less hollow
And more... muffled.
This feeling
It's wrong
It's dangerous
But I watch it continue and make no move to stop it.
The mechanisms must be protected
Even at the expense of the work to be done.
Until I know if there will be damage
Nothing will move inside of me.

I don't know why I love you so much.
That was never the plan.
It isn't safe, to love someone like this
And I always knew it.
But the way your hair curls down your cheeks when you've fallen asleep and it has escaped its pinnings
The way your eyelashes leave shadows down your cheeks
The way your eyes sparkle when you laugh
You hit something so beautiful and painful in my heart.
The way you are,
Everything about the way you are
Just tears me open with love.
When you cry, I long to wrap you in my arms and protect you from every pain you inflict on yourself.
It pulls me toward you, this need to show you with my skin that I belong to you.
Resisting it carves out a huge crater in my chest
As if more and more of me goes to you by the second
But I can't follow it and make myself whole again.
If I do this, if I succeed in these next few weeks,
If you continue to love me
And relearn how to touch me
It will have been the hardest thing I ever did for someone I loved.
If I smile at you and show you how happy you make me
And manage to hide how broken I am,
If I can survive it when you turn away from me in bed,
And pull away from my touches.
I've always said that not reaching for someone I adore
Is an act of unutterable love
And it has never been more true
Because you used to reach back,
You used to crave me like I crave you
Not ***, but closeness, oneness.
I live alone.
I have always lived alone.
And not for a second have I liked it.
I can count on my hands the number of times in my life I've felt at home and whole.
This
What I am doing for you
Trying to do
By giving you all the choice in this
This is the biggest, most difficult thing I have ever given anyone.
And if at the end I lose you
Make no mistake
I will have nothing. I know it. I fear it.
When I woke up this morning the terror of it took my breath away
Because my body knows.
And it won't be losing you that does it,
It will be these weeks,
These weeks and the strength I don't have, the hang on by your fingernails strength I will have to find
In order to keep my head above water and show you why you love me.
By the end of this
I will have used every failsafe I have,
Every life support, every backup plan
I will be stripped raw and naked inside, armorless and starved,
And if you go I will be more unprepared for the agony of losing you
Than I have ever been for any sort of pain.
It is my life I'm giving you, right now,
And it's impossible for you to understand unless you've felt this looming shadow that I live with
But I'm giving you
Every bit of energy I always save to keep myself alive when I am swallowed by the dark.
And I am... so afraid. So inexpressibly, mesmerizing afraid.
I am facing my absolute worst fear every second for all this time,
And it's important that I say that.
Because I've never done it for anyone.
I've never been able to.
And maybe sometimes I'll crack, and you'll see tears, and I'll reach for you.
But I swear to god I'd be less afraid to jump after you off a bridge than to do what I'm doing now.
In ways I would rather die, because it wouldn't take so long with so much fear.
And I have to say this, I have to, because whichever way this turns out
This tops every act of love I have ever done before
And every risk I have ever taken
And every fear I have ever faced.
You are more important to me than I could ever express,
And I love you enough to give you my life,
In every horrible, beautiful sense of the word.

Have you been there?
The place beyond
the trees.
Someone's whisper
reached into my thoughts
drew me in
like a fish oblivious
in death
reeled by the line.
Blind faith
the present moment
food for the fish
is food for the thought.

In truth
it's false
like a mirage
the horizon
the lull before a tsunami.

It's a trap
that bit on the line
the singular idea of it
yet I saw nothing
knew nothing
I was the family at the beach
swept suddenly away by the monstrous wave
Gone.
A lull
before the end.

But have you been there?
that place
Beyond.

Listen to the whisper
let it guide you
to the end
meet me there
in my thoughts
the place
beyond the trees.
It's not the horizon
Farther, farther
waver at the edge
Your mind
beckoning the beyond
like a mirage
a mystery
the place beyond the trees.

I think about my past
In how I wanted you
I burn on the inside
To get rid of you
The flames cease
My ashes come into view
Spelling your name