In my next life, I want to be sunlight so I can rest on your skin each morning and throughout the afternoon. I can long for you without rest in the midst of a thunderstorm. This feeling, it’s difficult to explain. Most of it is unspoken, but I’ll try to explain it on paper.

Each day, I want to be the softest thing you taste. After a long day at work, your touch anywhere on my frame will ******* undone like almond flowers.

Some days I feel as though I am going mad. I stare blankly at my computer screen and think, What good are my hands if you aren’t in them?  It’s all quite troubling and often keeps me from getting anything done at all. Even when I am getting things done, somehow, you are ever present, ever flowing from my fingertips.

There is something about drinking coffee with you that is simply thrilling. The way you purse your lips and smile, I unfold in your direction. Perhaps, this is the love that they’ve all been talking about. All of those songs I’ve listened to, books I’ve read; perhaps they have all led me to this point, to this place with you. How dare I presume that I’ve been so lucky?

Surely, this will turn south and we will be nothing more but old stories and photographs; but tonight we are in love. Tonight, we are daring, we are unarmed and tonight, this is enough.

We are destined to arrive at our graves alone so why is it that we pursue companionship so furiously with someone who will arrive at a different time? We anxiously dive into this realm of uncharted territory, hoping to find someone who will fill in our timeline with love and fancy. What I have come to learn over the years is that love is a savage and merciless emotion, a creature unyielding and untamed, yet we still chase it relentlessly.
Why?
It’s just what we do. Among all feelings, love can give you wings and revive the dead broken parts of yourself that you once thought were irreputable. Love can set your life into bloom. Love feels like spring. Sometimes. Other times though, love is malicious and malignant but we say, No, love only means well, Love has the best intentions, but is this true?
Let’s say that perhaps Love does mean well and is truly trying very hard to devise us each with a kindred spirit to bring us unbounded warmth and pleasure. However, Love is not perfect and will often miss a step or forget the formula. Love will forget to call or remarry only 6 months after the divorce.
But do we blame Love for this? How can we?
It is the most compelling passion that is granted to the human race. The one thing that can soften the savage beast. In a world full of temporary things, Love is a perpetual feeling. Love keeps us constant and alive like a compass in the dark wood.
So, as this fleeting moment that we call life presses by, we sit next to the pretty girls in class and dance with the man at your best friend’s wedding because Love is infinite. It is a relentless thirst that we will try to quench, always. It is the one thing that neither god nor any force on earth could steal from us. A right embedded into our very souls, carved into the stone walls of our minds. We will do the impossible for love.
It wires us, makes us feel safe, makes us feel crazy, makes us feel everything all at once. We would die for it. We would **** for it. Love has no limits. It is the one thing that we can take with us when we are buried. I do not know what happens when we pass over, but I take great comfort in knowing that someone will come to visit my bones and tend my flowers even after I have gone.
That is why we dive.

And then the strangest thing happened...I leaned in, close enough to exchange breaths and then I kissed her. It was a taste I’d never known before. Strawberries, cigarettes and cheap wine were suddenly a sample of honeyed lilac. Once I’d started, I couldn’t stop. We couldn’t stop. It was as if energy was pulsing through us, like we were generating the power to the whole city. It was soft and vicious at the same time. It was electric. My hands explored the back of her neck and she reached her hands into my hair, pulling into each other. We are magnetic. Finally, we stopped and looked at one another. A look so bold and revered and then everything came into focus and she let out a small sigh. I hadn’t noticed up until now that she had a freckle under the right corner of her eye. And then she smiled. God, isn’t that a sight, I thought to myself. So what do you do after a moment like this? What anyone in their right mind would do, of course. I asked her to dance.

I must remind myself that the times have been much worse before. I have seen darker days and I have touched light in the purest form. I know that we are amongst bad decisions and unlucky circumstances but we are not hopeless. We are never hopeless. We are relentless in our fight through humanity. We dance with illusion and flirt with temptation. Our hands are callused with fear and we continue to hammer away at these dreams, trying to bury them because we are too afraid to make them into the skyscrapers they ought to be. But no matter, things could be much worse. I am thankful for the air pumping through my lungs and the blood running live a river in my veins. I know that there is still a path, but I’m going to have to pave it myself. This is what instills the most fright within me. I often make wrong turns when I am given directions and now I have no destination in mind. I am just trying to have better days. I must remind myself that we are not hopeless. We are never hopeless.

And that’s just the thing, now isn’t it? I’m not lonely because I don’t have you. I don’t have a you. There is no one that makes my heartbeat accelerate. My dreams are filled with strangers I pass each day because I have no real place to land.
Do you understand how frustrating it is to have no one to daydream about? To be completely and utterly free of love and pain. I’ll tell you. It’s quite miserable and it feels endless. A person looking for love is in much more danger than those who have already found it, whether it be requited or not. We are dancing in the rain, hoping to drown because at least that gives us a chance to be enveloped in something. We throw ourselves into exciting situations and chairs of coffeehouses in hopes that someone will look and say, I think I ought to go say something, and yet no one ever does. It makes me start thinking of my past lovers. Suddenly I’m on the verge of calling them just to see what their day is like. I feel like I’ve lost my mind. It’s like my life is being portrayed through a lens where all I can see is all of the people who are in love around me.
I often have dreams that I am being chased and I approach an end to the road. The cliff is steep and I have no map to safer ground, but I can’t jump. I don’t. Because I remember, I am not being chased at all. Everything feels very confusing. There are no borders, there are no lines to trace. I am freehanding my life, unrehearsed and unprepared. How do you give directions to an unknown place? That seems to be the question I have placed before me.

On days like today, I am the sky. You are sitting on an old stool in the kitchen. Clad in blue pajamas, burnt caramel hair hanging over your eyes. You are reading a book, it is old and yellow. I find myself building a treehouse for us in my mind. You are a poet’s death of choice. Your fingers slide gently down the side of the page as you turn it, glancing over at me. You let out a sigh and give me a small smile. This is my garden song. This is my first right. My Sunday morning. I think I loved you before I knew how. Some people, they are artists and some people are art and my god, darling, you are both. I want to read the poems you write when you think God isn’t watching. Let’s make love and fall asleep in each other’s arms and wake up just to make love again. Take me to your favorite museum. Show me how gentle you can be. When you are at a loss of words, kiss me and I will spill a new language into your mouth. I will kiss you in places you never knew existed. I touch the parts of you that have been kept behind a curtain. This is my garden song and today, I am the sky. Tomorrow, we will bloom under the September rain and and slowly dig each other’s graves.

The truth is that no one will ever be able to truly understand you. You are a carefully sculpted stone, an exterior complex and individual to their personal thrashing and erosion. A painting entertained by change and chance. You are unlike any other, don’t you see? In the end there doesn’t have to be anyone who understands you. There just has to be someone who wants to.

There’s that moment. Some people don’t know what I’m talking about and some never will. Alone, whether it be in the woods, on the bus, or at a populate dinner party, clarity walks right through the door with her menacing smile and she begins to scrub away these notions you once held so true to heart. Morals that your world revolves around, tilting on its axis avoiding these things that clarity holds in a basket, that she urges you to try. I find immense horror in the underlying truth that populations of people settle with what they assume to be the best version of themselves. Arriving at a destination and deciding, “This will do.” How dare someone claim that their journey is over. What a way to live! Clarity cannot sleep at night, she is much too busy endeavoring to wake us all up. She thrives in open discussions and dances with the allusion of unbalanced thoughts. She rest her head on your pillow and collects memories to distort. She plants trees of cognition and reflects daily on your first loves and the day you learned to ride a bike. Clarity sips coffee from your collarbones as you write a story about the one who got away. Again. There’s that moment. Clarity stares you in the face like she planning where she will engrave your new wrinkles. She takes your hand in hers and places it on your chest. She says “As long as this is beating, you are not finished yet.” Out of fear and humility, you nod your head, intently listening to the drum beneath your palm. The moment is gone, but that doesn’t matter now. All that matters was that it was there. How dare someone claim that their journey is over, you think to yourself. What a way to live.

I need to be kissed by someone who knows how. A kiss even softer than the hands that moved the strap off her shoulder. I will not say no to your hands. There is an unconditional longing for the luring ******* of love. Affections bats it’s eyes and a pulse of electricity climbs up your spine. Sleep in me, around me, with me. We are all museums of longings. We each have gardens growing in our chest, all of us waiting for the rain to teach us how to love. Like we once waited in the living rooms for our fathers to teach us how to dance. Like waiting for a book to mysteriously fall off the shelf as we pass by in hopes that there is another world out there where there is no small talk. We hope that they are real. We would like to miss them. Some people are like a long walk home and I like to think of myself this way. Some days I feel like smoke leaving a flame or a rooftop standing under a full moon. There are days I am sure that I am sailing in full wind and others where I am more of a loose string hanging from your jacket. Sometimes I feel things so strongly and in these times I wonder if it is possible to think someone into existence. Suddenly, I feel the night shaking it’s head and perhaps it is time to get some rest. I could wander through my own mind forever but it is, in fact, the most tiring thing I find myself actively doing on a daily basis.

I've been loving the sky more than anything else these days and not many will understand why
I have gradually discovered that romantic love is like a blanket that will always leave your feet cold
You will waste time blowing out candles only to drown in smoke
Lately, I'm beginning to feel like all those books you never finished
You see, I believe there is depth to existence, I believe the surface is mostly decorative
And perhaps you really are exhausted, perhaps you are not as happy as you seem now that you have left me
I'm sorry for being such a difficult person to love
But slowly I am becoming
I often find myself talking to the sky, she always knows exactly what to say, she always listens

I am trying to find the words that help make a day sane
Words that undo the torturous mishaps in my past
Words that provide a light in the dark
A crescent moon and a broken wick
I sit waiting for a dictionary to open up to me
Patiently my mind gathers tools to reassemble my broken thoughts, trampled heart and willingness to easily forgive those who have guided me into the oblivion
Lately I feel like a funeral, like I've died and no one cared to bury me
Perhaps I have reached the other side but am stuck in the doorway, reaching for the TV remote just to drown out the uncomfortable silence
I am less than words, undulating down to cigarette ashes
I wonder if a book feels as lost as I do if it hasn’t been touched in a long time
I have been touched but I have not been felt; not been held
My mind often wanders and lately I don't bother catching it
Perhaps it will find the words I have been looking for for years

I imagine sitting in the corner of your studio apartment
A record playing faintly in the background and I can hear you humming
What if I told you I could remember what the weather was like for every single day we've spent together
How do you like your eggs? You ask
I could never take my eyes off you, not even if I went blind
You remind me of old books and tall glasses and dancing on the balcony
I imagine that we are in love, and then I wake up I am still am and you never were

There are days I don't have maps for
Days I stray from the path with no direction or destination
Moments where my mind wanders far from its assigned seat
I am not alone in this and I know it
We are mad, you and I
Our brains move effortlessly away from principal locations
We dance on burning coals because we think it will grant us a lighter step
We sing the songs our mother listened to because maybe she will come back just to sing along
We breathe in cigarette smoke to suffocate the dreams inside of us because surely, they are impossible to reach, just like your mother always said
There are days I don't have maps for
There are days where I don’t need them

There is nothing worse than being in love but having to leave anyways
Knowing that he is still waiting at the door, knowing that you will always be invited inside
But still, you never visit
Because moving away is not just a change of address
So don't make me ruin it by saying it out loud, just tell me you love me and wave goodbye
I cannot bear to hear the words so whisper them if you must
And I understand you think it is foolish of me leaving
You think perhaps love is greater than childhood dreams
But my plane is about to leave, the gate is closing
I'm sorry but I have to go

As a smile slips across your face I dance at the thought of someone like you loving me
Here's to all the hours I've spent picturing your cheek bones
To the days where you were the only medicine to cure this disease growing inside of me
Here's to the good times, to the smoke breaks, to the drunken dances in the kitchen
Here's to the vacuous words that made us bleed and to the gentle phrases that drew us forward
Here's to the boy with the green eyes on some days, to the boy with the blue eyes on other days
Here's to the early mornings and late nights
Here's to all the wonder you bring to the table
Being with you feels a lot like being a part of something or like belonging to something much bigger than myself
Being with you feels like falling asleep and waking up in the middle of the night knowing you have a few more hours till you've got to wake up
Or like opening a new book with fresh pages
Being with you feels like getting to know the side of me I never knew I had
Or like finding something that has been lost for years
And I understand love is not always easy in fact sometimes it is not fun at all but it lays and smolders at the core of all human happiness
Life can be as cruel as it is beautiful
Love isn't always magic sometimes it's just how they look at you in the mornings

I dreamt a slow river wrapped its arms around a mountain and you smiled at me for breakfast
Still, I can feel the warmth of your ambience slipping under my skin
As the sugar in your smile gets washed over by the sea
I am sipping coffee and sitting in awe of how you manage to be so brilliant
I want to live happily in a world I don't understand with you by my side to help me decipher it
When you are miles away you are more present than anything else next to me
I've read that wherever the road takes you depends on whose hand your holding and what music you are playing and you just happen to be my favorite song
This is the part of the story where we love without hesitation, without doubt
Here and now has never been more important
Coming home to you is the 8th wonder and I strive to see that kind of phenomena everyday
You are the story I'll read every time it's raining and I forgive you for whatever you'll do to me tomorrow
Love is simple when you don’t think about it too much, it's the little things all in all
It's breakfast on Sundays when it’s cold outside and he looks like the sunrise
It's walking in the fall with leaves watching you and he smells like hazelnut
It's the miracle of waking up next to him every day and cooking him breakfast, nothing more than that

I remember getting on the plane, remember packing my bags, leaving behind picture frames and old love letters, I remember closing the door behind me as he lay in the next room
I remember the distinct sound of the hinges hitting metal, seatbelt buckle clicking
The sound of my heels hitting the steps, walking upstairs to a new home
Thousands of miles away from him, I remember leaving
I remember sitting in a bar room, dimly lit with blue lights
I remember ordering my first drink and then my second and then my third
I do not remember ordering my fourth or my fifth
My bank account does however, the always brutal morning reminder when I didn’t have enough money to buy a black coffee
Lost love, I have found, will steal a lot of things from you
Comes in the night, creeping in, the thief of all thieves
Comes in the day time, and still with the light shining on his face, you are unaware
I remember the weeks that follow, sluggish and stagnant
By week four I had forgotten about the sound of hinges, seatbelts, zipping up suitcases
I have visited the same bar quite almost every night
I have started to collect memories of my fourth drink and my fifth
As my memory grew stronger in other places it weakened in important ones
I do not remember his taste, do not remember the color of his eyes
Green or blue, not brown not green not blue, maybe green, maybe blue
I do not remember breakfast, or lunch, dinner under blue lights
I remember the knocking on wood, my old green door vibrating
I had not known anyone in the city for so long that they would come to visit me
I remember standing, remember grabbing a jacket, remember the sound of a zipping it up
I remember the door swinging open
There he was, standing, very cold, pale, eyes a deep greenish blue
I remember getting on the plane
"I came to Boston to find you."
I remember packing my bags
"I knew you'd be here, you talked about it so much."
I remember closing the door behind me as he
"I'm sorry it took me so long."
I remember walking up stairs
I remember the blue lights
I remember standing very still, frozen in place like an ice sculpture
I invited him inside, I made him fresh coffee
I remember this
I remember this

It is the late afternoon
The sun is setting over the city of Seattle and shadows fall underneath buildings
One after the other, lying on their backs mimicking jealousy to the tall giants
She will be in her kitchen stirring lemon grass tea, humming a song she'd heard earlier that day
Perhaps on the radio, perhaps on television, perhaps on the train
She'd glide onto her balcony over-looking endless roofs of houses, buildings and cars
She will never jump, she will never lean
She will simply sit and read books, mystery books, love books, books about everything, books about nothing, she read it all and he loved that but he hated it too
Wondered how someone could detach themselves from the real world to live in one made of only words
Yet though he questioned her motives, she continued
It has been a year, 4 months, and 3 days since her eyes last met his
Time has moved slow, crutched along, eased forward, never taking steps back
The tape hardly ever rewinds and if it does, only for a brief moment
She will be on the train and suddenly he steps inside
He looks just like him from behind
The jacket, the hair, the shoes and then he turns, revealing nothing but a stranger on a train
She will be sitting in a café and suddenly, the sweet and distinct smell of him reigns over her
And she will look around frantically, perhaps he is here
But then reality reminds her that he is back home, swimming in the little city
Accustomed to every street name and curve in the road
She is in Seattle, a runaway, a dreamer
It is late afternoon
The sun is setting over the city of Seattle and shadows fall underneath buildings
She will be in her kitchen, stirring lemon grass tea, humming his favorite song

I am not easy with my words
I do not think, do not ponder, do not wait 5 seconds
I speak
I speak bitterness and enmity
The words flow out of me like blocks of cement
Like cannons, like bullets
Leaving wounds, leaving blood
I have found I am a lot like a body of water
The ocean for example is beautiful looking at it from the shore
But the farther down you go the darker and more grisly it gets
Or perhaps I am like a river
The problem with rivers is they look calm on the surface but underneath they're unpredictable, full of chaos and this is like most people
This is how nature proves visible in seemingly miniscule aspects of our lives
This is how nature destroys itself
This is how we dig our own graves
This is where the story is not so sweet anymore
There is a time and place for everything
There are words for each situations
Ones that fit the puzzle just right, leaving just enough space for comfort
I do not know these places, I do not know these words
I only know cement

You are so funny in the mornings
Something about your dazed conscience and sleepy nature
Each morning it is enough to make me weak all over again
Each morning I am reunited with the thought of "I love you"
You stumble over silly words, you smile shy and tuck your head underneath the covers, giggling, I can see your smile, I can see it clear
You are so funny in the mornings
You are so gentle in the evenings
Something about the end of the day as the sun retraces it's steps from the day before, we lay in silence
The sound of nothing but breath in and breath out
As the dust particles in the air settle over our still bodies
A car passes by but we do not turn to look, we do not move
Your hand traces up my shoulder and a warm feeling flows like a river through me
You are so gentle in the evenings
You are so simple at noon
Calm and amicable, something about the way you stare out of the car window
Like you are soaking up every tree, every cloud, every gust of wind and it hits your face
You sway to the music in the car, humming sweetly like the sound of a city at midnight
You close your eyes, lean back your head
You are so simple at noon
Every time of day, you are divine
You are the last breath before going underwater
You are the feeling of going for a long walk
You are the sweet smell of an empty room and fresh paint as sawdust blooms all around, building, climbing
You are a journal I hope to fill my days with until the space runs out
You are a poem I cannot seem to end
But until next time
Thank you for being so funny in the morning
Thank you for being so gentle in the evening
Thank you for being so simple at noon

And although I actively debate the thought of suicide
I know that there is nothing better than being alive
I may have trials, days where it feels God fist is pressing down on me
Days where I can't function how I should because of the immense discomfort
Days where I am soaked to the bone in poisonous words
I know one thing to be true, always
There is nothing better than being alive
If I have no one, I have myself
I have birds and trees, the ocean is my swimming pool
I have the sun and the moon, the cosmos are my best of friends
The mountains encourage me the stay strong child
The wind encourages me to keep moving forward
This world is the only reason I am still breathing because I am so in love with it
I know that even on my worst of days
There is nothing better than being alive

I am learning how to love you
You're like a foreign language and I'm just learning to say hello
I am trying to pronounce you if I can
I am learning how to love you
Day by day
It comes naturally almost
Like I have loved you for years without knowing it
Like I have been unconsciously looking for you on every street corner
Every bus station, red light, checkout line, and hallway
You reign in the shadows of missing love, crippled love
I feel I am learning how to love you like I am learning to walk
You have kissed parts of me that have been lost for years
Parts of me that I have forgotten about, that I had given up on
There are so many ways to love and then there is only one and you are all of them
I am learning how to love you
Like lyrics to my new favorite song
I cannot wait to sing you in the car, play you on a rainy day
I am learning how to love you
Better than I ever loved
Because you deserve at least that
You are exquisite. You are art.
You have eyes like forests and lips like hurricanes
You deserve the world
So I am learning to love you
Slowly, in a way you will understand
So be patient, be gentle, I'm doing the best I can

His name is elegance
He is the roses on your mother's kitchen table
He is the tie around your father's neck
He is the slow rise and fall of the sun
His name is laughter
He is your grandfather's old jokes that don't make sense
He is going over the railroad tracks too fast
He is late night conversations we never remember
His name is joy
He is the first bloom of spring
He is the fresh lemonade on a hot day
He is listening to your favorite record
He is a good afternoon nap
His name is love
He is kisses good morning and coffee on the balcony
He is holding my hand under the covers
He is lighting candles in the dark
He is a sweater fresh out the dryer
He is lying down after a long day
He is love
He is love
He is love

I like the sound his love makes
The way he calls me baby like he's singing a song
The kind my mother would listen to when I was younger
Something sweet that makes your heart smile
The way he kisses me, the way he breathes me in
And when he laughs I think maybe I have witnessed my first miracle
I know in my life I have seen very beautiful things
This world provides the most captivating scenery
Mountains, valleys, beaches, rain forests but I have never seen such green eyes
I wonder how two people can be so much in love
Sunrise to sunset I love him
We love like we invented loving, we love and we never stop
Because why would we want to when being in love just sounds so good

I have always loved going on walks
Sometimes in hopes to find something, sometimes in hopes of nothing at all
I find it easy to travel with no particular destination in mind
I simply just love to listen to the sounds of the woods
The trees seem to constantly be talking about him
And every now and then I will catch a glimpse of his laugh
When I stray from the marked path I may get a hint of his scent
Pinecones, pinches of lilac, and the smell of the rain
He tells me he is lost
That his body had fled from his mind
That he is scared if it will ever the return the way it left
A stranger to his own skeleton, I cannot imagine what it is like
But he is so foolish, I tell him
But you are not lost to me
Your eyes are the skin, your lips are air, your body is the ocean
You are always with me and in me and through me,
You are not lost, you are home
You are always home to me

I promised myself I wouldn't write about him
But he taste like the city
Hot running bathwater in some apartment across town and the quiet hum of traffic
The steam rising from a coffee cup on a tall kitchen table
Or how the rain kisses the skin of this concrete castle sidewalk
I promised myself I wouldn't write about him
But he feels like coming home
Walking through the front door stimulated by the smell of cinnamon and burnt coffee
As if the last memory of comfort greets you at the door, welcomes you inside to stay for a while
He is the antidote to any and every poison in my life
I promised myself I wouldn’t write about him
But you just don't get it, he is so beautiful that he makes the trees blush
People say it is autumn because they had to call it something
I only meant to love him for a minute but you can't love for only a minute because there is not time in love, there is only eternity, there is only forever when it is really love
He has showed me a love that has made me forget the taste of fear
And here I am, now, wondering
How many beautiful things have we ruined by deciding to write about them
I promised myself I wouldn’t write about him because no way of description could quite measure up
I need new metaphors and paradigms, maybe a whole new language
He's too much for what I am able to say
That’s why I promised myself I wouldn't write about him
I just can't help myself

I woke up on a Saturday morning and expected to feel somewhat refreshed
Saturday mornings have always been among those of my favorite, second to Sunday mornings
But as weeks continuously drag on I find I am not feeling as I would like to on these mornings
The bed being so cold seems to have more of an effect on me than I'd like to admit
I realize, that it is not that I miss you on Saturday mornings or Sunday morning
I miss you as soon as you are out of reach
Love is simultaneously the most cruelly selfish and wildly giving impulse we have and to be denied of it is something that sleeping in cannot fix, a disease incurable by coffee and cigarettes
I know heaven because I know what love is and I know hell because I know what love is
It is not a field of flowers but it is not a gun to your head
Love is something right in between, the most famous purgatory of them all, the end of your life as you once knew it, all memory of what you were before them has been erased, gentle, gone before you ever knew it was being taken from you
And it's funny because here I am overflowing with words I do not have about a love I do not own
But I imagine if I were to have your love it would be one to cherish
I think the first time I kiss you, I'll be smiling and
I think the first time I am graced with holding your hand a shiver will make its way up and down my spine
You are nothing ordinary, you are nothing common
I honestly am not sure how the universe even came up with you
Molded masterpiece of in the deep palms, crafted cut and complete to be something extraordinary
You are what I have been searching for years but with you standing so far I still haven't quite found you
This morning was dreary and still, it held a quietness to it that made me feel uncomfortable
There was not aroma of French toast or the curve of my body fitting perfecting into yours
I wake up Saturday mornings and expect to feel rejuvenated but instead, I am so weary
The morning is all empty where love used to be

I find myself being hesitant to writing poetry about you
I'm scared, you see, only a writer knows what it does to them
When you write something down it makes it more real
So me, writing a poem about you would ultimately give you the power to hurt me
I could never write about how I daydream of your fingers running their way through my hair
And precisely what it would feel like to kiss you good morning
I could never write about the storm in your eyes that makes me want to dance in the rain
Never about pressing my palms to the walls of your chest like you are answering all my prayers
Or about how you are the kind of boy that girls want to dance around kitchen's with
The one they want their mother's to meet, come to Christmas, birthday parties
How my heart beats so loudly when you are near it is hardly a miracle that it has not broken through the ribs which enclose it quite yet
No, not about your smile or how it could give sight to a blind man and especially not about how each time you enter the room ice races up my spine and suddenly I can hear myself breathing very distinctly, trying to match the rising and falling of your chest to mine
You know, it's lonely being me and I must think it is just as lonely being you
So kiss me like it's going out of style and let your hands dance on this canvas of a body
And I promise to never write a poem about you
Though you may explore the hills and valleys of my outside I will not give you the key to the inner workings of my mind and all that would take is one poem
One which I shall never write, how dare I fall in love
How dare I

It's been a while since I've had this much not to say
I feel all of my words that once flowed through me with ease are clogged up and locked inside
They have become ashes, my creativity is slowly depleting
You make me feel like I have something worth saying again
I'm not quite sure what it is yet but it is something big and it is something beautiful

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

Imagine if the sky were always orange and red
If it was a flaming sunset all the time
If the cloud's silver linings resembled halos
I think this the reoccurrence of beautiful things turning ordinary
I think this is the end of what once was a beginning
You see we often take things for granted
Things that do not last forever
I say to myself that nothing lasts forever often
I look at you and there is the picture frame understanding
You are a sunset I sometimes forget to step outside and see
Paint you on my walls to be a reminder of beauty
I often wonder if the sky were always orange and red
If it was a flaming sunset at all time
In the clouds silver linings resembled halos
I suppose if that were to be the case at hand
Then we may marvel and take pictures of the sky when it was blue

If you are not recovering you are dying
A phrase I have taken to heart
Tattooed on every bone of this skeleton inside of me
Despite its harshness, it's beyond true
If you are not recovering you are dying
Naturally, it didn’t offend me until I learned it was supposed to
I often sit and think of you for hours on hours
Wasting my time, as most people do on thinking of those they love who do not love them in return
It is the bittersweet past time of humans
Coffee shops are stained with more than coffee stains
I wonder how many chairs I've sat in that held someone else broken off of the ground
I wonder how many salt water lakes I have walked over when approaching the barista
My coffee burns my tongue
But no other feeling lingers worse on my mouth than the feeling of your lips
I have taken understanding that love does not mind giving scars
Remorse was never it's best attribute to conscience
We must know that in the midst of something wonderful chaos is making blueprints
Planning attack like a predator that has not eaten for days due to the winter
Nutrients to keep it alive have been hiding in trees and under snow
It is the middle of December and I ache for nothing more than your warmth
No amount of coats and sweaters can comfort me like your arms
Wrapped around me like a Christmas present
My coffee burns my tongue
But the flame of his words pressed against my skin
I do not love you anymore
Does not amount to the physical distress my body undergoes
My coffee burns my tongue
And I have not eaten because I am too full of a love
How strange it is to feel so empty but so unable to consume
Like a vase with no flowers
I am waiting for something beautiful to offer me meaning
And though waiting is not deemed to be the worst
The hands of my clock are leaving bruises on my wrist
My coffee burns my tongue
But in a few hours, it will heal
And I will taste cold coffee as the heater in my car warms my hands
If you are not recovering, you are dying
And at this point, I fear I will not see tomorrow
The dew on my window will not meet the ashes from my cigarette
Tomorrow I will not make it out of bed
Tomorrow I will not go downstairs and make coffee
It will not burn me
Cause I fear I will already have burned out

I'm sorry
I'm sorry for smelling like cigarette smoke around your mother and for staring at you all the time
I'm sorry my voice is shaking when you speak to me and I'm sorry for the burn scars on my hand and I'm sorry for hurting your ego
I'm sorry for taking new routes to get to class just so I can see you
I'm sorry for bothering you in your busy life that has lost desire for me to be in it
I'm sorry for losing sleep thinking about you, I'm sorry for losing touch
I'm sorry for not loving you like I should have
I'm sorry for loving like I should have now that you are gone

December 7th
It is Monday morning, 3:12 am
I'm sitting on my window sill
Smoking a cigarette
Outside, the air is frigid and wind blows on my right cheek
I can hear music playing faintly at the Fountain Motel
And cars racing by
To God knows where at such an hour
And I wonder why I'm awake
What is it within me that has caused such a stir
That my body cannot find rest
Though my mind is eagerly looking for it
In and out of focus
My eyes are like a camera lens
One minute things are blurry and colors differ
And the next I am seeing more clearly than I feel I ever have before
And maybe it is all in my head
But I keep hearing noises
Like someone is walking on the dead leaves that scatter the sidewalks
Or a stray animal moving amongst the trees
Or perhaps an imaginary figure haunting me
My throat is dry and my hands are cold
My legs wrapped in a blanket
And endless ideas, theories, misconceptions are running around me
Circling me and I feel as if at any moment I will be attacked
Annihilated by my own mind
There are plenty of ways I have pictured myself dying
This, this is not one of them

Welcome to the desolate place of feelings and being a fragile, wounded, human who doesn't know any better to stay away from cupid but really when did arrows get so **** appealing?
I guess love has its way of fooling everyone somehow into thinking pain
Into thinking that feeling something will somehow revive the numbness of your chest
Where your heart once held a pulse, where you knew for sure if you were alive
I often wonder if maybe I am only a ghost who has forgotten where her grave is
You were my home and now I am an abandoned carcass of unsent letters and unwritten songs
And there's nowhere to begin to explain, nowhere to end this madness
Every place of solace has been swept away to trespassed territory,
Your haunting presence follows me everywhere
And I have come to the likely conclusion
That maybe you are the ghost
You are the phantom of a boy who once knew love beyond such uninhabited stories
A spirit who enchants my dreams with who you used to be
And maybe I am the one who is alive, just a little less conscious

There are ways to forget
There are ways to get better
There will be a tornado in your throat as you try to unlearn the definition of love and you will have to choke down all the things he said to you with alcohol you shouldn't be having so much of
You are dizzy from intoxication and you think of his kaleidoscope eyes and fall to your knees
In humble abandonment of your old self, you are vacant of any comfort you may have once knew
You are looking for new ways to escape this horror of reality
You stop showering because the water feels too much like his hands running through your hair
Open the windows, he would have wanted them closed
Smash the television, break the radio, drown out all the sound because he can't sleep without noise
And you can't sleep without him but it is better to lay there with silence hanging in the air rather than accidentally hearing a song that the both of you once loved, waking you in a cold sweat like an addict itching for a drug
And sometimes when I get drunk I say that I hate you
That I wish my mind had never laced itself into yours
That I hope your next morning will be one that is cold and idle
And I'm sorry that I do these things
Because alcohol is an intoxicating ingredient being poured into my blood stream and these words that smell of liquor are one's that I do not always mean
I find myself filling with immoral substances to resist going to sleep
I cannot bear going to sleep now because each night at approximately 3 am
I wake up in a frenzy from a dream I was having about the old you
Panicked, terrorized, I feel I am under attack by the soldiers of my own mind
Maybe it is because I know I will never capture you, with each relentless passing second, you will never be the you I once knew and loved
Because when things were good, they were great
However, you must always pay close attention to how they treat you when things are bad
Whether it's "I love you but you're such a fool" or a door slammed on your fingers
There is always an option though
To continue loving you, chasing pavements, limping towards a dying light
Or to leave with some decency and a change of clean clothes
You see, I've learned that there is always a hospital bed, the question is whether or not I want to rot in it
And with you, I feel on top of the world, a mind game
Because I know I am actually on the bottom
There is something you do to me, as if you place glasses over my eyes
Making me believe that maybe this is not as bad as it seems
That being without you is somehow bearable as long as your face is implanted into my skull
There is no real way to describe the staggering appetite for his touch
I am starving for such warmth that never goes cold
A drinking water that never runs dry
He could refresh my cracking heart valves if only he were to come back
But he won't
He would watch me *******, crumble, disintegrate away
Deteriorate, degenerate, decay to ash
Corrode, decompose, shrivel up, pollute this hole I am locked inside of
He does not care for my safety, he does not care for my life
If he did, he would have come home already

Like thieves, we are all in love with stolen hearts
Trespassing on private property
We are always crossing boundary lines
As a part of human nature, we do almost anything to get where we want to go
Where we feel we belong
Something stirs inside of us, makes us itch, ache, thirst
For a spoonful of affection
A syringe of love injected into our forearm
Entering our body like the holy grail that preachers used to talk about
We have never made smart decisions in the name of love
Cupid laces his arrows with the most dangerous drug out there
And the craving grows faster than the hair lining his jawline
No one can truly explain nor comprehend the vast existence of love that dwells within every lucid person
We are looking for love as if we have the ability to find it
There is nothing more hopeless than attempting to create something with no materials to do so
When you want to love someone but they do not offer you the opportunity
When the road that you are walking on comes to an end
At the precipice of distraught perspective
It is understood that love is not easy
It is understood that love is not a fairy tale
Picture frames fall off of walls
Wooden floors scratch when glass kisses their skin
And we hate asking questions
Because we are afraid of the answers
And how are we to explain the magnitude of fear
Measure out the anxiety
Weigh the uncertainty
There is no way to determine an answer
To a question that is nailed to the tip of your tongue
Like thieves, we are all in love with stolen hearts
Invading foreign territory
We apologize for such actions that we cannot control
We ask forgiveness for such reluctance to speaking up
We do not mean to do the things that love violently enforces
We do not mean to fall in love
But we are searching regardless of the understood failure
We are experimenting with our own blood
As if we have so much of it to give

I think it is time we drink the stars
Let them sink through the sheets of our skin like spilled white wine
Overflow our veins with their constellation language
Let their fluorescence course through our blood stream
Stain the walls of our bones with their light
I think it is time we drink the stars
I think it is time we meet them too

As a collection of beings exchanging breaths and footprints in enclosed purgatories of our own nightmares
I do not think we can survive without love
We have always played the game because it is the first one we learned how to
As children we were taught to feel, programmed to need someone there
And as we grew, songs and movies molded our imaginations into something artificial
Like the sweetener your mother put into her ice tea the morning of the divorce
Magazine articles seem to know so much on "How To Make Them Love You"
And we begin to believe that all stories are the same stories, that maybe movies are real
That fairytales are finally crawling out of their mask of fiction and are coming to reward you with true love's kiss
Maybe we are just too naïve for the media
Maybe we are just too naïve for each other
Cradling words that hint "I love you"
Tucking their body language into our pocket
We make ourselves believe because we have always played make believe
I've learned it is hard to abandon the habits we have always lived by
Some of us our prone to fall in love with the first person who takes a second glance
The boy who wears ***** converse and slicks back his dark brown hair
Hair that is untamable and hangs over his forehead
The girl who knows every word to your favorite Beatles song
And writes poetry about the shading of the sky
Born on a lonely street and looking for vacancies on every corner
Patience has never been our priority
We are constantly shaping ourselves to fit into someone else's gap
Obsessed with becoming the kind of silhouette that people fall in love with
We are all connected in such a way that we need romance, need a body lying next to us in gray sheets on Sunday mornings to remind us that even when it rains, grass grows
This bloodline runs thin but somehow we always drown
I do not think we can survive without love
It is the key to locked doors, the blueprint for our foundation
Our rib cage aches to have fingers run across it
We are waiting for someone to reach inside of our chests and steal our heart away
We have laced up are shoes, ready to take theirs too
I do not think we can survive without love
And the crushing irony of it all
Is love is the very poison that will **** us

It is the sixteenth of November
I am clad in ripped black jeans and the same black t-shirt I've worn every day for two weeks
It's a Monday
I am weary, worn from the weekend
On the precipice of regaining my pride by sleeping for 3 days straight
I am so tired
Fatigue is now a new code embedded in my DNA
There are few things you can do with a body convinced it has no soul
I haven't felt this empty in years
Vacant and desolate, I am an abandoned house that no one has returned to yet
I am still waiting for a knock on the door
But he never comes
The wind outside blows harder now and I never venture outside without a jacket
But I frequently forget to wear shoes
There is something about running on cold concrete that makes you feel alive
And maybe I am too accustomed to getting the seasonal cold because I refuse to cover my toes
I refuse to let the things that offer me freedom be incarcerated
It's so cold out
Chills strike my arms like lightning bolts, I tremble at the thought of you holding her to make her warm
I hide behind my fabricated contentment
I would rather freeze to death in your arms than live beneath layers of blankets
You see there is a distinct difference between cotton material and a silk body
They say that when someone is freezing, your body heat is the only thing left to save them
And I fear that if I ever were to be perishing due to frigid temperatures
You could not bear to lay a finger on me
Only cover me up
And it is hard to appreciate an effort that is only buying time

I saw him today
He looked just as he did months ago
He hair was all in his face instead of slicked back
His shirt was tucked in and he was wearing a belt
He looked like his old self again
The one who I knew, really knew
I understood his brief sigh, could wrap my mind around his gentle smile
Could wake up to his breathing
I had never loved someone in such a way where it consumed me
He was delicate, fragile, but could stand in his two feet with no effort
And I loved when he was drunk, stumbling into my arms
It was the only time I ever really held him if only for a fleeting moment
I wish I had never known him before the change
It would be easier for my lungs to collect air
If I hadn't tasted his secrets, hadn't washed my hands in his laughter
If I hadn't met the boy who cared so much for the world
He never faltered in his genuine approach, never had to even try to be a light
He just was
I know that in this drought I will have to move on from him
But it is hard to walk away from something you once found such solace in
He was a thunderstorm
Could put me to sleep in troubled times, the sound of his rain
But the echo of his thunder was enough to wake the dead
The destruction he left behind him was merely a walk through an empty hallway
He had no idea what he had done to me and still I think he is oblivious
I do not want to tell him
Do not want him to feel pain or remorse for a girl he swore he'd love forever
I've learned it is easy to believe the things you want to hear
I was deaf to every motive that was not to my liking
I should have seen it coming from the moment he said he was just too busy
Hectic schedules are likely dry seasons and the sand of our hourglass had run out
Time had slipped off of my fingers like rain drops off the window of a car speeding down the highway
Flying by but moving ever so slowly
Evaporating had never seemed so malicious and
I saw him today
He looked just as he did months ago
He hair was all in his face instead of slicked back
His shirt was tucked in and he was wearing a belt
He looked like his old self again
The one who I knew, really knew
But I don't know him anymore
And he
Does not know me either

Pain is river inside my bones
The art of unrequited love is it paints with dry brushes
Cracking the valleys and bones of your canvas body
Careless in acting of one thing but being another
Cupid is ******* irresponsible
I'd swallow poison if it tasted like you
Most of the time I'm scared to death
But I'm quite a fool for love
Curled in a ball sipping wine about you
Staining my lips that yours have yet to touch
I talk to trees about you
How I wish our love would grow like vines
Intertwine our bones, reach up
Do not leave the sky so soon
My tears are all over this city
In every coffee shop, vacant parking lot, public restroom
I drown out these desert concrete streets with your name on my tongue
You're exactly the madness I need
But I am fire breathing, I will not tell you what I am feeling for fear of burning you
******* my words with stutters and cheeks so red you mistake them for roses
I know that you don't love me
And that I am frequently a bother to your active lifestyle
I am sorry for being the way that I am in ways that you do not favor
I would meet with every voodoo, black magic, magician, wizard, witch, sorcerer
If they could mold me into someone you would want
It's pathetic I know, that I would tear off parts of me that I earned and once loved because some love is stronger than other and triumphs if it means it will be returned for it is the greatest beauty in this world
Where one does not question actions, dig deeper into conversation, body language
It is something I have not yet experienced and I had hoped it would be you to make the change
This is the sound of a mind coming undone, the twisting feeling of a migraine mixed with a bullet and you grandfathers old bottle of whiskey
I do not take this lightly, and I need you more than I need another cigarette
This is not a love poem
I am not trying to make you love me, I am not trying to tell you that I do
I would hate for you to have to bare knowing that you are the reason someone's soul is breaking
Would hate for you to feel guilty if feeling was to be possible for you
I hate you for making me feel so barren, deserted, hollow
I feel if I trip over one more misguided assumption I will fracture the whole structure of my body
I am a ribcage with no sharp corners to trigger your concern
I never imagined love would be so painful
As a child, I would paint pictures on the walls of my bedroom with stick figure lovers and hearts booming from their embrace, holy and sacred, untouched with the truths of reality
I know that when we are young we are naïve
And I am still young and I am still naïve
I will believe you even if I know that I shouldn’t, I will not mark boundaries because it would make me want to cross them
I cannot see how far I've come
Cannot see the surface, cannot see the sky
I feel I am being swallowed and you are taking flight
Tell me how the weather is, I hope it is wonderful
And I hope that you, in search of someone better, will find them
And that you will fall so far in love you wonder if the surface is now only a conspiracy theory
You are so deep in romance that mediocrity is unspeakable
I hope she loved you better than I did
Because, though it is hard for me to say this out loud, I didn't give you my best when I had the chance
So maybe she is smarter than me, maybe she will give you what you've deserved this whole time

I sit in the November congelation
Hair risen on my skin, shivering under its frigid grip
The wind whispers a name and I cringe beneath the thought of you
And how if you were here I wouldn't be so cold
Your touch warms my skin
I shake my head in effort to clear the memory of your hand in mine
But there are very few things that can distract such a one sided love affair
I think of your burnt caramel dark brown hair falling over your forehead
Pale skin softened by the light of the rain
Eyes, green peering right through me
And that mouth that turned up corners in curiosity
You are an eternal misconception
I guess I have fallen in love with the idea of you loving me again
I know we existed once in a different lifetime
A few months ago where maybe we were meant to be together
But pieces of us have died since then and I'm not sure if we'll fit together anymore
And I know I have to stop trying to make us
You unraveled my inner dandelion,
Watched me dance on the night sky,
Helped me befriend the moon
I was so in love with you
Let me today show that I can do something right
I can love you better, I can love you and show you more
Endeavor with the deepest parts of me, spill open my heart
Open this book and read it to the end
I want to keep you safe, I want to keep you here
Even fragile hearts are strong enough to hold on to something as big as love
Your beauty punctured my soul and there is no antidote
Sometimes the only cure is the thing that infected you in the first place
Is it wrong to want to be centered when we are so unbalanced
You speak to me like a flightless bird, wounded and nearing extinction of emotion
You are the sweet whisper that is selling the promise of love but never actually delivering
You are swearing that everything will be okay but never doing anything to help me
I've learned that love comes when love feels it should, even when it is wrong
I have been re-watching old memories in hectic static and the rewind button isn't working
They say that time heals everything
But what am I supposed to do when it feels like the hands of my clock have arthritis
I remembered the last time he arched his mouth in my direction
He smiled the way Lucifer might smile, moments before he fell from heaven
Then, he stood straight up, shut my car door
The sound of the door slamming shut was as loud as a cannon firing in my ears
I was so oblivious to your discreet malevolence
I never in a lifetime would have imagined you
The unwoven leather material rubbing warm, gentle against my skin
Comforting me when fear was at my grip
The driven wonderland filled with my favorite songs
The happy hearted musician who played them for me
The open book, turning page, signed off, detailed, immaculate
The one person I could see myself loving for the rest of my life
You are the one who made me so unsure if it was one worth continuing

Falling in love is like driving without a seatbelt
You are vulnerable to any casualty, fatality, you are unprotected from chaos
I never understood people who drive without seatbelts
I never understood their courage
It must be nice to feel so safe, you have to invent new ways to put yourself in danger
He was thunderstorm
Exciting and powerful yes but violent, unpredictable and ultimately short lived
He would look at me the way a tsunami looks at a beach house
And all the while I am thinking it is a nice day for the beach
I never did see it coming, not that I ever could have
Love blinds you, blurs your vision, it makes you forget to pay attention to the dangers and direct your focus to the wonderful
I only wish I could have heard the sounding of alarms, could have escaped the burning building for I set it on fire
I have found I am quieter now
Not as ambitious, not as outgoing, not as much laugher hangs in the air above me
With him, most days I could grab my voice and swing it like a hammer but now I pick it up like a shard of glass scared of what might happen if I didn't hold onto it carefully
I have recently been asking myself if sorrow is an art we should pride ourselves on sharing
That we should not fear failure of broad shoulders, we should not be afraid of pain
Throw pity parties in collection of bitter humans
The kind of party where no one is close but everyone is friendly tonight
Love ties come under
Romance is not relentless in appearance
A kiss does not last forever
Passion dies down
Jokes stop being funny
Coffee is too strong
Emotion shows little respect to your inner organs
Affection lies down into its grave
Sometimes the things we would die for are the ones that end up killing us
And now, I find myself driving for hours without my seatbelt on, holding on to nothing more than the steering wheel and endless thoughts of you