I write, not to deploy pity or ***** commonplace conceptions
I write to potentially discover the sole rationale as to why I am who I am
What variety of experience and array of struggle has molded my self being
And who is to say that I have or have not become who I was intended to
There is a fine line of losing touch with society's notion of impeccability and drifting towards the horizon of individual pediment in assembling the parts of your inner soul
The pieces of you that may never see the light of day but still continue to participate in your decision making and how you articulate ideas
Every part of the whole is significant
Yet we continue to sprint towards the standards of conformity
Our lives, slowly becoming a smaller line of which we walk upon, holding tight to mediocrity
Because the only thing to do when the curtain is falling is say what the audience wants to hear
And I fear that perhaps I and clinging to the same things I curse over without being aware of it
So, I write, not to deploy pity or ***** commonplace conceptions
I write to potentially discover the sole rationale as to why I am who I am
Perhaps I am who I think I am, whomever that may be
All I do know, however, is I am not who you think I am

You are the letters that I write all unsent, all kept inside my drawer yet I am wishing that one day you could read them without me having to let you
You are the stars I put in the backpack of my mind when I have full grasp of attention that I am approaching a long, cold journey
You are the name scribbled in the top corners of my notebook
You are the feeling I get after a long drive and I can stretch and reach out, far in hopes to touch you somewhere in the sky
You are the unzipping of a formal dress in an old hotel room
You are the place I would like to call home and never need a vacation from, a place better than anywhere else, a place of safety and passion, a place of rest for my weary soul
You are the puzzle I can never solve, the Rubik's cube stored away in a junk drawer, the books I never got around to finishing, the poems I left as drafts
You are the unwound clock that confuses visitors, they are not used to adding two hours and three minutes because I never bothered to change it
You are the amazing opening to a really bad movie
You are the reason some people put too much sugar in their coffee the morning after kissing you because you leave such a bitter taste in their mouth
You are the unraveling of a cigarette exhale that will end up killing you
You are the best thing that I decided I didn’t actually need
You are out of my mind, you are burned letters, running out of gas, you are getting lost on the interstate, you are nothing to me anymore and you were once everything
You are not who you used to me and neither am I and perhaps you should walk one way and I, the other

As time goes on I am starting to learn how everyone has someone they love but just can't be with
It is the sad reality of stumbling blocks ruining what could have been, the imagined perception expectation of the future that we let ourselves believed we deserved to live
I often imagine meeting you at the record store in another life and it working out the way it was always supposed to and you've been holding my heart for centuries and though here, we may be foolish and alone but this is just one time dimension where maybe things are difficult but I will see you in the approaching vigor, in the dim light of a motel room near the city, a place where things are better, a place where we are better and I will kiss you like a poet trying to rewrite the language of love on your lips and you will touch me like your hands are praying to the religion beneath my skin and we will burn with love beyond what any movie or book describes
But here, I cannot love you and you cannot love me. Here and now we are poison to one another, a disease not worth catching if it can be avoided, our bodies were never strong enough for our love, we didn't want it anymore, we got too busy, too stressed out
You wasted my time but that’s okay I wasted yours right back, we were never in love but oh God we could've been, you know, as time goes on I am starting to learn how everyone has someone they love but just can't be with and regrettably, you are my someone

It is Sunday morning
The light leaking from the curtains lands on my eyelids
Upon just waking up I feel I am being blinded so I turn over
Warm breath kisses the tip of my nose and I see you lying there next to me completely at peace with in your gentle unconsciousness
I pull my hand from under the covers and glide my fingers down your cheekbone
You smirk and open your eyes
I have never wanted to go swimming in the mornings but when I look in your eyes the desire swallows me whole
Their shades blue green drowning my words
I know exactly what love is when you look at me
And there's something about the way you kiss so lazily in the mornings
Like last night's dream is spilling out of your mouth
You whisper to me good morning and my stomach takes flight with butterfly wings tickling my insides
Because your voice sounds a lot like a love song
Once, I could not think of love without thinking of a plane crash
Trained myself to keep distance from romance
When a friend would introduce me to a boy I learned resist making a memory of his cologne
Because sometimes you don't see, the best thing that has ever happened to you is sitting right there under your nose
There will be hell to pay for the way we love
Disjoining ever love story resting in antique ambience
We kiss with our mouths open
We have kept it complicated
We have kept it impossible
It's that hushed conversation that happens when you love someone and it's reckless, when you watch them life up their shirt and die
I want you unfolded
I want to untie you
I want to touch you like pen to paper
I want to brush the knots out of your hair
And work the knots out of your back
I am interested in the way you take your coffee, what makes you laugh, what makes your pupils dilate, what keeps you going on
Love is not just made up of syllables or words that sound nice
Love is more than clandestine love letters and sharing umbrellas in the rain
Love is Sunday mornings waking up next to you
Love is the feeling of your lips curving into a smile when they are on my skin
Love can heal your asymmetry, it can piece you back together
It is Sunday morning
And I am in love as I'd always hoped I'd be

It is years later now
You have run off to the grocery store that is just down the street
It is the kind of morning where the sun warms your cheeks as the wind bites your fingers
You shoes are laced crookedly and your glasses need to be cleaned
As you make your way up the stairs, fumbling around for the key in your pocket
The door swings open and you will see me dancing in the dim light of our apartment wearing your shirt, waiting for you to come home
Lingering in the sweet smell of lemon tea and cinnamon candles your mother gave you last Christmas
My lips curve to a smile in seeing you've made it back and I pull my hair into a bun
In making my way to the kitchen to pour us some tea, you stop me abruptly but more gentle than ever
I go to say something but before it can leave my lips you stop me
I've learned kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous
The music playing from the record player was suddenly all we could hear
Love has a funny way of turning kitchens into ballrooms as we dance in the soft light leaking from the curtains
Looking up at you, I wonder all this time how you have stayed with me
I am merely a box of broken words and silly heart scrabbled poems
And you have more light than any cosmo to ever lay a finger on the sky
I need you like God needs an eighth day
There is a kind of kiss you feel forever and I have been walking blind due to the impact
The way you touch me could dismantle the sun
So tomorrow when you leave to run off to the grocery store that is just down the street
Come home sooner

There is a space between breaths, an endless moment of infinite exhale, a calming of the storm inside of your chest, and you are there in the vacant valleys of my wonderland
You are the open field full of flowers enchanted with the smell of your cologne
You are the distinct vision of a painting hanging in a home of two people who are deep in love
You are that half second at a concert after the music stops but before the lights come back on, that half second where you can't catch your breath but neither can anyone else and you feel like a part of something
You shine so bright and I would just dim your star
I guess I am just in love with the idea of you loving me
The idea of waking up late on Saturday, I imagine the smell of coffee brewing, the sound of your fingers strumming guitar, the vision of light creeping in through a crack in the curtains, the undermining feeling that you are here with me now, still, that you never left, even though you did
I am just unconditionally and eternally entranced by your haunting presence
I'm sure that if you rearranged the sky in putting the moon, the stars, the sun, all the cosmos in an order in which they would sing it would sound just like your voice; have every dwindling planet, spinning on their axis, slow dancing around their seasons as they hum their love songs to one another, the universe is no stranger to love
And maybe love is only easy before the sun comes up because it is so easy to find yourself
When it's dark out and you cannot see through the fog
In the moment of clarity when the smoke clears and dawn approaches, everything's alright
If it be only for a fleeting second or two, everything is alright and that's enough

He tastes of the city
Lights laying down skyscrapers on the tip of my tongue
Sidewalks tracing my skeleton body
My hands crept into his shaggy hair
Tracing mountains on the back of his neck
His hand ventures down my back
And I empty my breath into his lungs
He breathes me in as if he is running out of oxygen
It is a beautiful kind of survival tactic
That only the lovers and lustful know of
I have fallen into his hurricane eyes
Wrapped up in his arms of rope
I am tangled in his shoelaces as he steps onto a subway train
Stumbles over to a seat and puts in his headphones
I have learned you need to find someone whose favorite song
Complements yours
Someone who makes you a little less tired
As he steps off and lights a cigarette
His lips curl over the inhale of toxins
I sometimes wonder if I were deathly
Perhaps someone would be addicted to me
He walks down the street to a small bar
Where everyone knows his name
But they do not know him
He drinks and drinks
To the point where he cannot see straight, but he can make it home
He makes small talk with strangers
I collect the words he slurs and tuck them in my pockets for safe keeping
He slips the key into his door and I cower at the sound of it unlocking
He crawls in to bed just after stripping his jacket
Dawn is not so far away, he sleeps like an angel is guarding his door
The night changes, washes it's skin in the approaching sunlight
Picks off the stars from its shoulders like stickers
And in the morning he will call
But we are not love
We are not love
We are something
But not quite love
Not quite yet