I used to live for those mornings
when you wake up
and have to catch your breath
because you've been dreaming about someone all night.

It's been so long since I've felt this.

And you lost it.  It wasn't your fault; you didn't do anything wrong, but it's gone.  It's almost harder that way because you had no control - no say in the matter.  You had to just sit there and watch the sand slip through your fingers.

Have you seen the view
from the other side of the mirror?

I have.

I can see your beauty.
I can read those lips.

Have you seen what I see?
Have you seen what takes my breath away?

There are hours lost in those eyes.
There are things you will never see
from your side of the mirror.

I wonder what you tell your friends about me
   if you tell your friends about me.
I wonder what it would be like to meet your parents
   to shake your fathers hand and give your mother that awkward hug.

I wonder if we would make it.
If the paradox of meeting an amazing person at a terrible time
would gouge a hole in the feelings that have kept us afloat lately.
If only, if only...

If only I had met you before
   I could have changed your mind; made you stay.
If only I had met you after
   we could have experienced youth uninterrupted

Instead we struggle.
At least, I struggle
   and I selfishly like to think that you do too.
Only because I want these feelings to be reciprocated.

What could have been.
What may still be.
I wonder.
Will it last?

Wait, go back
Go back!
It's not over yet!
It didn't end like this.
I know it. I know it.

I know this story,
I've read these lines.
Next you're supposed to say
"                           "
Or some other witty, beautiful words
that drown me in my guilt.
And I'll just stutter and stammer
and trip over my words like
that time in May
when you tripped on that root
on our hike in New Hampshire.

I hand you a lollipop.

What the ****! Why
would I hand her a lollipop?

I hand you a bleeding heart
and you examine it.
You **** it.
You write your name on it and
carefully - HAH! - horrendously you force it down my throat.
Swallow.

But after all of this,
I still know that in this twisted
***-backwards, convoluted world
I am still head over heels for you.
I'm still the same, perfectly sane, guy you knew before.

Ribbit.

God closed his eyes that night,
but I don't blame him.
Even God needs to sleep sometimes.

At just seventeen,
Timmy never saw the truck that killed him.
Never saw the blood and ***** on the asphalt.
God closed his eyes that night,
but nobody blames him.
Even God needs to sleep sometimes.

A little girl was taken that night.
Beaten and *****.
Innocence stolen and beauty forgotten.
God closed his eyes that night,
but her parents don't blame him.
Even God needs to sleep sometimes.

Even God needs to sleep sometimes.

Why is it that I enjoy words of
pain, sorrow, and fear?
Why do I surround myself
with the things I am trying to escape?

I tell myself not to continue,
that if I surround myself
with beauty and hope
these things will come to me.

And yet I continue.
Maybe if I see the most horrific
then the bad won't seem
all that bad in comparison.