There's just something about the way your eyes shine at two in the morning.

A poet wants...
    Someone who adores everything they've ever written
    (because it means they adore us)
But a poet needs...
      Someone who's honest, who tells us when it's not our best work
      (because it makes the good work even more special)
A poet wants...
    Someone to hold close every night. Someone who loves to have poems breathed into their collarbone while they sleep
     (because it inspires long love poems)
But a poet needs...
      Someone who spends a few nights away. Someone who forgets to call occasionally
       (because it inspires real poems)
A poet wants...
    Everything to be perfect. To be able to edit and rewrite life as it happens, so we never have to feel pain
    (because then we wouldn't have to feel embarrassed about the unshared poems in our journals)
But a poet needs...
    Pain. Imperfection. Mistakes. Life.
     (because it allows us to write to feel to forgive to learn. To bleed out our heartbreak with ink and parchment. To reach out to each other with words)
All because a poet thrives on the difference between *want and **need

The lust we share on cold midnights, lucid
and gentle but so passionate and rough
can keep me hypnotized. Translucent blue
eyes shine like moonstone, glinting bright with love
hidden from sight. I want to call you mine
but I know better than to pine over
a man up way too high, stuck on cloud nine
not planning to come down or to get sober.
I’ll let myself get lost a little while
in the forest of curls behind your ears.
I’ll wander your body concealing smiles
that give away feelings that interfere
with the promise to love myself before
someone else. I am who I’m living for.

Don’t text me when you’re drunk
Don’t even say my name when you’re high
Don’t think about me when you’re with her
Don’t reduce my worth to that

I haven't heard from you in a while
I haven't pulled out your picture and looked at it in ages
I haven't written poetry about you in a long time
I haven't been missing you

You used to be more interested in books than Ecstasy
You used to swear for no reason less
You used to be kinder
You used to be what you aren't anymore

I secretly hope you've looked at my picture once or twice
I secretly hope you'll text me again one day
I secretly hope you miss me just a little bit
I secretly hope that if you ever decide to "miss me" again I have the strength and courage to say "That's nice."

not "I miss you too"