I have spent nights drowning in liquor and the language between us that we never learned to speak out loud
I have underlined the catch phrases
The clues, the insiders, the unspoken declarations
I have swallowed syllables, swallowed shots
Injected my body with the way you sound on the phone when you're tired
I leave my phone downstairs so I can't call you in my sleep
At night, intoxicated and stubbornly confused I am a little less broken
Numb to the humility of unrequited love
Shake hands with cupid in back seats
And talk with him about his aim
When it is dark out, somehow I can still breathe
The constellations hanging heavy over my head offer enough comfort to keep my eyes dry
But I always love you in the morning
More than the morning before
Somehow in my brief unconsciousness, you are still alive
I often wake up in a pool of *****
I am so tired of this endless spiral to no where
I am tired of spilling your name out all over my mattress in a drunken sickness in the middle of the night
Early hours of the morning, before dawn
I recognize my reflection by name but not by spirit
And maybe love is only easy before the sun comes up because it is so easy to find yourself
When you are dazed and drowsy
Worn and wavered
Your senses take flight in essence of the indispensable atmosphere gripping the tips of your fingers
Let the smoke rise, ashes fall
Let the clouds dance over the moon
And when the sun comes up
Dawn creeps in, shadows step out of hiding
I sit up, not quite sober, in recovery of trying to remember how to forget your name
I sit up, giving myself enough time to adjust my eyes
And in just the right lighting I can see the your tall figure standing in my room looking at pictures I've hung on the wall
The paintings, the posters, the letters
I look at my hands
Shaking, cold, fatigued
Fix my gaze on my veins
This is my skin, not yours, and yet you are still under it
I am unconditionally and eternally entranced by your haunting presence
You are a ghost in the night that watches me sleep
But you are only a figure of dust in the morning
Leaving again

Lately, due to lack of sleep and immense heartache
I have been drinking more coffee
In attempt to avoid dreaming of you because it is so brutal
You are still here with me
Or you are on your way back
But when I wake, you are doing neither of those two things
This is my skin, not yours, and yet you are still under it
I am well aware of the blood running through the tunnels under the sheets of my skin
But I am not sure how they work
And I am not sure of why I still love you after you told me there was nothing left here for me
And yet I keep returning to see if you have changed your mind
You see, my definition of love
Is going back to an abandoned home everyday
And finding vast vacant spaces but still searching every corner, bedroom, kitchen cabinet, for a clue
And though each day, you find nothing
You think that today is going to be the day
That they may have left something behind on where you can find them
But you do not want to be found, you do not need to be
Sometimes, in just the right lighting
I can see the your tall figure standing in my room looking at pictures I've hung on the wall
Sometimes, I spend so long thinking of you
I don't realize that the music has stopped or that the wine is gone or that it's 4am again
How terrible is it that 95% of the ocean is undiscovered and I wish it was like that with you
But I know everything about you
The things that make you cringe, certain noises that make your ribcage shutter
Certain smells that bring back a memory of your grandfather at Christmas
And I am tired of hearing the same song play over again in my head
I am tired of spilling your name out all over my mattress in a drunken sickness in the middle of the night
I am tired of hiding myself behind drunken nights that are as never as fun as they sound
I am so tired
So in essence of oblivion, in grace of all distraught love poems, in complement to the sound of his voice replaying itself on my car radio
I will fix myself one more cup of coffee
Because I just can't bare going to sleep
I can't bare slipping away from reality any more than I already have

I would stop smoking for you

Daydreams have become common occurrences
I am sitting in the driver's seat of my car at a red light when suddenly
A vision of him sitting on his front steps, long legs stretched out and crossed casually at the ankles
Eyes bright and watchful, still piercing even from a distance
His smooth complexion, a reflection of his mother's
He smiled, gentle like a child, playful, toying with my mind like a cat with a ball
He was so beautiful and he didn’t even know it but I did
Snap out of it
I am lying in bed, sheets tucked at my sides, head resting on the edge of my pillow
I look to my left to see an vacant resting place and suddenly
A recurring thought of him there like he once was
Hands tucked just beneath his cheeks
Spread out, stretched wide like a trampoline
I could feel the warmth of his body radiating towards mine
Opening up, chest full while vibrations of giggling humming, rising to the ceiling like steam
The sound reverberated to my ears as if he really were here
Close, next to me curled up like it used to be
Snap out of it
I am in a coffee shot, fumbling through sheets of paper
Scribbling words I won't remember, finished up work I should have done hours ago
I glance up at the empty chair across from me
Suddenly he is there
Laptop open, hiding the writing on his shirt
I could see his collarbones peeking through
He would sigh and look down, grinning
My feet propped under the table onto his thigh
He told me I was distracting him, trying to be quiet about it
Whispering loudly, stop it while laughing through his teeth
Snap out of it
I can't snap out of it
I can't stop the recurring thoughts of you
I had taken you everywhere I love to go and it is hard to find new places in such a small city
I have had to find new music, listen to the scraps of songs I loved years ago before I had known you
Still the lyrics somehow bring me back to you
I can never escape, I am locked in a holding cell and I fear this will be a life sentence
I will tell my children about the boy who convinced me life was all about loving
And then who later made me feel so absent of air
I swallowed the guilt and it weighed down my stomach like a rock
I questioned if I'd tried hard enough
If I had done a little bit more, pushed the boundaries, exposed myself
Stripped down of righteous cause and let you see
I was so in love with you
I still am
Daydreams have become common occurrences
Each one, a little worse than before

As most poems go, there was a boy
Tall, handsome, with a good head on his shoulders
Ambitious yet silly, could make a crying child giggle
He had more light than any cosmo ever to lay a finger on the sky
He was incredible to say the least
And he loved me
Strong like an autumn breeze, pushing leaves off their hinges
Passionate like a kiss between two lovers who meet in an airport after months of being apart
Sweet like a teenage girls coffee
It was the most wonderful love I had ever known
But I was never sure how to return it
I was afraid like a young girl stepping off the bus after running away from home
I was bitter like ice cream melted in the hot sun
Damaged like a cell phone dropped in a river and fetched out
He was trying to ******* to life but I had swallowed so many unspoken words, I was still choking on them
And I loved him
But I was never sure how to show him
Was always trying to think of ways, spent too much time thinking, not enough time acting out
I am sorry to the boy who waited for me, showing me his favorite songs, I'm sorry for not listening to the lyrics close enough, I'm sorry they were about me, I'm sorry I never noticed
I'm sorry
And I could apologize with all the breath left in my lungs and it would still not be enough to make you come back
I've learned that if the universe does not want something to happen it wont
And maybe I just loved you at the wrong time
And maybe I was meant to endure this
I just really don’t want to
The only thing that I am sure I want, deep to the core, is you

When you first told me you didn’t love me anymore
It was more violent than anything I'd ever imagined
My blood turned to ice
Tears stung my eyes
My heart rate quickened, it felt like someone was gripping my spine
The weight of the words hung heavy in the air between us
I was in disbelief that what you had said was real
That you would tell me you were just joking
That a smile would cross your face and you would remind me of the time you once said you'd never leave
You would remind me of how you meant it
When you first told me you didn’t love me anymore
I felt like a piece of wood at the moment an ex strikes
My whole body tried to tear in two different directions
My stomach was lurching as though I had dove into a bottomless pool
It seemed too twisted to be reality
When you first told me you didn’t love me anymore
Everything within me acted on instinct as though my very survival depended on it
I was so angry, I was so vicious
A wounded animal will tear you to pieces if it's ever cornered
The words spilled out of my mouth like peroxide on an open wound
I felt like I had swallowed poison
But too many words were lodged in my throat, restraining the bitter taste inside of my mouth
When you first told me you didn’t love me anymore
The words put an instant chill on my humiliation
Because I told you I loved you
The words fell into my lap like spilled white wine
Wasted, deteriorated
I have never felt so much remorse in my life
When you first told me you didn't love me anymore
It was more violent than anything I'd ever imagined
Still I am in recovery, I fear I will be for a long time

Every day I sit in the place where I fell in love with you and hope you will wander in
Because you know that is where you will find me
In the corner of a coffee shop a few miles from your house
The music playing overhead somehow echoes the sound of our laughter and whispers
Distractions overwhelming, tickling feeling, abrupt jolt of excitement
Love was rushing through my veins like a river after a thunderstorm trying to find a larger body of water to dispose to, I had been searching for you in every alley way, every vacant corner, wall flower wanderer
My mind trails off to the thought of your smile and leaves me curious as to why it did not blind me
It did just the opposite
You helped me to see the best parts of myself that I once despised
Helped me love myself, helped me believe in myself
You were so **** good at making me believe everything you said
But I don’t believe you now
I won't believe you when you tell me that you don’t love me anymore
How can I be forced to believe something I was so sure of
I knew you wouldn't love me forever but I thought you would love me longer than that
And now, every day I sit in the place where I fell in love with you and hope you'll wander in
Because you know that is where you will find me
If you were ever looking

One.
If I could, I would wash my body in the endless sunrays of your morning language with curtains wide open and coffee brewing
I would sing rhythms of fire breathing unrequited love poems and stain your bedsheets with untouched melodies I should never had wrote for you in the first place
I would have the ghost of my former self dance bare feet in your kitchen to songs you have never listened to
If I could, I would pick myself up and take myself to the hospital, attach myself to the nearest IV and drug myself up until I forget how in love I am with someone as spiteful as you
Two.
It's almost funny to me how you can lie to someone about how you hate liars and then you can lie and pretend you still hate liars because you don’t think that I know that you're lying
Three.
You don't have to let me down easy
In fact, I want you to skull drag these words on asphalt streets, rip them apart and throw them at me at the speed of a bullet
Let this declaration be a war cry
Do not tell me it might happen sometime down the road
Because neither of us can see what is going to happen so instead of giving me hope why don't you just ******* tell me that I am not what you want
That you could do better, that you are out of my league
And you are but I have always believed that in relation to how many lucky pennies I have picked up, I would spend them all on you
Four.
If I could, I would break all my bones to have them mold into the structure you would most like them to be in
I would get a lobotomy, wipe my mind clean and start fresh, build a beautiful minded girl that you might be able to love
One with sunflowers growing on the layers of her frontal lobe, one with ripped wave ocean tyrants of searing joy tattooed to her skull, someone who can make you laugh, someone who's laugh you adored
Five.
I'm sorry I let my hands tie ropes to your heart strings, I am telling you to stop pulling me along when really I am the only one who is still holding on
It is easy to be confused in love because I have found that we convince ourselves something is true simply because we want it to be
Six.
It once was wonderful, I felt like you looked at me as more than another catcall, girl's number you got while you were working and I often wonder what would happen if I never strolled into your workplace, if I never looked in your direction, if I hated Mexican food, if I lived too far away
Maybe if I stapled the receipt to my shoulder and walked backwards we could unmeet each other, and I will have the bittersweet opportunity to miss out on this heartache you have unknowingly caused
Seven.
I am not trying to make you love me because you cannot force someone to feel something when there is no vacancy inside of their chest or even when they is but they like the empty spaces
I have cut off pieces of myself and tried to hand them to you and it was hard to understand why you wouldn't want them
Some people do not appreciate sacrifice or maybe they do not care much for such insanity
And I know, I know it makes no sense put valuable things into hands that shake, that tremble, that quiver
Hands that often break things without feeling remorse, we willingly let go and expect them to catch up when they cannot even catch up to their own minds
It is a dangerous game that we all love to play
You are a the red light that I always end up running
And I know the risk of calamity, the risk of consequences
Eight.
Sometimes I like to talk about you like you're the one that got away, sort of like you're on a trip somewhere and you're coming back
And maybe you are, and maybe I am making all of this up in my mind like a child convinces himself that there are no monsters under their bed or a wife who tries to convince herself that he isn't cheating
It is a dangerous game, we all know it is
So, I'll be around if you want someone to be dangerous with

I've learned that no matter how many coins you throw into a fountain or how many fingers you cross, you cannot make someone love you and neither can superstition

2. Almost is the worst way to love someone and if you cannot do it whole heartedly, you should not do it at all

3. I've learned that you cannot trust the things your heart tells you when it's sad

4. I've learned what it feels like to have my throat tighten a little every time I talk about you and I've learned what it feels like to taste pennies in my mouth every time I say your name

5. I've learned that you cannot always be a love story, sometimes you have to make yourself a bridge worth burning

6. Loneliness is when you lay down at night and your ceiling burns with rage because it is only looking at one person

7. I've learned how to know if you really love someone because you don’t give people the power to destroy you that you don't love

8. And I've learned that even if you know it is coming, you can never prepare yourself for how it feels

We were a fever, burning up, sweat dripping down your back
Drinking tea, sleeping in, warm and watchful of the dawn
We were on fire for a short time
This is the worst recovery I have ever known

Remember our walks in the park, how I ran from you and you chased me and I have never played such an exquisite game of tag. Remember the laughter, the summer skies and sunsets, the way I link my arm to yours like a crisscross safety net that never said forever but almost
Remember my secrets, how I have them all to you and how I took apart my pride piece by piece
I put my shield in the paper shredder and I said "there I'm naked, ask me anything" and you asked me what I was afraid of and I was afraid of losing you but I said I was afraid of spiders
Remember the first time you held me, drunk and stupid on a front porch in the rain it was approximately one in the morning and I whispered I love you under my breath and you didn't hear me but looking back I wish you did
At that point I had already started writing about you and I guess you had been looking for ways to escape
Remember the dark, remember me kissing you back while you threw up everything you couldn't take in your cup anymore
Remember sitting in the corner of a coffee shop and you were trying to your work but love gets in the way of that sometimes and I was reaching under the table. Remember the laughter.
Remember dancing around my room to your favorite song about me. Remember the laughter.
Remember going swimming in full clothes, it was so cold and it was so peaceful and playful. Remember the laughter.
Remember the staying up all night getting high, playing music loud, and you couldn't keep still, remember the laughter.
Remember lying in bed, drunk and I couldn't see straight and you could see right through me, remember when I went swimming and you watched me.
Remember going walking, and you loved to play soccer and I tried but I was no good, remember the laughter
Remember the late night phone calls, rambling about our days, about our family, about our favorite memories with one another, remember the laughter that bled through the phone
Remember when I called you crying choking on my words and we went back to the same coffee shop where I fell in love with you and we got a free coffee
Remember asking me to homecoming, remember showing me your new guitar, remember listening to the song I wrote about you, remember showing me the song you wrote about her
Remember me as best you can
Don’t forget about it all
Don’t forget about me

And after every drink
I stare at these empty bottles
Certain they are full
Of a poem about missing someone
Someone like you

Without question you are the worst thing that has ever happened to my poetry
I am tripping over syllables and breaking consonants
Knocking over languages I once kept locked away in safe quarters
Each time I try to speak these meticulously knit together units of expression my throat closes up like clenched fist and I feel myself choking on my words
You have changed my way of writing, using teeth and tongue to articulate words, my way of going about my day
I find myself skipping meals as if it will somehow make me feel less empty because lately things in my head are just not making much sense but I convince myself they are reasonable
They often never are
And I can tell you that I'm sorry
I can at least write my apologies bleeding out all over the page
Scribbling red letters onto this worn out notebook paper
I keep you trapped inside my head like a little kid traps a caterpillar in the palm of their hands
And maybe I was just holding you back from becoming something even more beautiful than you already are
I'm sorry for letting my selfish ambitions override your pleas to escape your grip
I have never been very good at telling someone that I love them but I love you
I want to memorize your laugh and store it in my mind, so I can bring it out and listen to it on a bad day
I want your hand prints to be imprinted on my body, the smell of your cologne on the shirt you like best on me
I want you to hold me like you hold your cigarettes
I would not mind sitting down and studying you for hours with my eyes and hands
I would not mind experiencing the foreign feel of your skin underneath my fingertips
I want to count every shade of color in your eyes and sew it into a dress
I want to pour all of your thoughts into a wine glass and sip it slowly, taking in each one
Becoming slowly intoxicated by your dreams, your fears of the dark, your plans for the future
You are a vision of evacuating a burning building but going back inside to gather the possessions you love too much to let burn
You are the ray of sunshine that greets a flower who had already said goodbye to its roots, giving it life again
You are the unopened bottle of whiskey that sits in my kitchen cabinet in case you ever want to stop by because I know it's your favorite
You are the map that keeps me from getting lose in places I have never adventured
You are the destination I've been looking for
You are the slow breathing I feel when I look at the moon
You are the morning coffee that wakes the cells in my brain
You are the only truth in my allusion
You are a lot of things but you are not mine
And in the midst of this hurricane I am still searching for pages on the ground
I want to keep writing about you
After even broken pencil, ripped sheet of paper, slammed fist to desk
There are very few things I know for sure
I know that every day is twenty four hours closer to you
I know that I have a special skill of feeling nothing when I should and feeling everything when I shouldn’t
I know that the only place I ever felt lost was in his arms
I know that you can't go back to yesterday's dawn by adding another verse to an old song
And I know that I can't speak for what I haven't bled over
But I have bled for love, for loss, the staggering feeling of loneliness
You came in like a winter wind and I breathed you in as if I was about to go underwater
You are the reason I always wear my seatbelt
You are the love songs I write when everyone else is asleep
You are the sound of rain on Sunday mornings
You give me hope for better days
You have taught me to believe in myself
You have made me want to love again
Without question you are the worst thing that has ever happened to my poetry
But in a way you are also the best thing that has ever happened to me

You tried to be careful
Stepping away when feelings swooped in
Hid from cupid
A dangerous game of hide and go seek
You were scared of loving someone
And it's not that you were scared of loving someone
You were scared of being love
And it's not that you were scared of being loved
You were scared of being love and then not being loved
Scared of the common cold feet
A disease that spreads and you never really see it coming
One day that just don't anymore
The laugher sinks back into the chest
They kiss is wiped clean from your lips
They have already moved on before they tell you the news
And love is something beautiful
We blame love for all the heartache and pain
We blame love for the loneliness and depression
We blame love for fixing yourself a plate of food and not being able to eat it because you had too many unspoken words already lodged in your throat
We blame love
When the only person you thought wouldn't, did
It’s a strange game and the only winning move you can make is not to play at all
I wonder if it is even possible for someone to stay in love forever
If it never got old even when we grew old
If the love never got wrinkles or weak even when we did
If the love stayed the same
Grew stronger
We could look back in photo albums filled with vacations, graduation ceremonies, birthdays, first day of school, our wedding
We would make our child's favorite dish every time they came back to visit
Dance in the living room to the sound of music coming from the record player
Fix you coffee in the morning
Take care of you when the cold weather came in, close the window, open the door
And it's not that you're scared of growing old, or dying
You're scared of doing it alone

I hate you for making me hate my favorite restaurant because you work there
Because that's where I met you
I don't go there as often as I used to for fear you will be working
For fear I will have to see you
For fear I will have to talk to you
For fear that if I do I will stumble over my words
Stutter, speak another language, have blood spur from my cheeks due to how much I would be blushing
Vomiting up words of my renounced love for you that lately I have been sick of swallowing
It would be embarrassing to say the least
Your palms would not sweat, chills will not appear on the back of your neck, you will be just fine
I can hardly talk anymore due to the amount of poems stuck in my throat
It is getting hard to swallow
It is getting hard to breath
I have been coughing up letters and syllables, numbers given to me that I forget to call because I don’t remember getting them
I am drinking away this sadness but more often than not I forget my name before I forget yours
I do not know who I am because of you
I am losing touch with every reality that your named is not tattooed on
I am in love with the idea of you loving me
You told me not to string myself along for something that may never happen
You meant this when you said it which was something unusual for you
And I turned the other cheek to seeing your new girlfriend at walmart
Turned the other cheek to her laughing at me
Turned it again when I drove all the way home without a seatbelt on
I find myself wanted to get in a fatal car accident so I am not so tempted to drive by your house
I hit all the green lights on the way their so there must be some viable reason for me going
I see a car in your driveway that I do not recognize I wonder if it is hers
And I know you did not mean to do this
It was not something you planned from the beginning, **** just happens I guess
You are completely unknowing of what you have done
And frankly I don't want to tell you
I wouldn't want to harm your ego
You wouldn't harm anyone
In fact you may be one of the nicest people I have ever met
Something about you switches on a light inside of me, igniting this darkness that I have been residing in
For a brief moment, you reminded me what it felt like to not be so blind to love
I sometimes wish I still were
I see you everywhere I go
You are the voice inside of my head
Every time I meet someone new I cannot help but plater your face on their, smell your cologne, do not let them touch me in the same places you have for fear of smudging the fingerprints
And I know, I know it makes no sense to place valuable pieces of myself into hands that have no grip
Hands that shake, that tremble
Hands that have touches bodies, making no memories of the valleys of their skin, the mountains in their bones
I have learned you cannot teach someone to feel, cannot teach someone to love
Cannot force them to wash their body in all that you are offering them
They have become too accustomed to lukewarm love in between ***** bed sheets, threaded backseats
I find myself wanting to be a bridge worth burning
I hate you for making me hate my favorite restaurant
Because you work there
Because that’s where I met you

You will come home to me in the late afternoon
I will have gotten home from work just a few hours before you
Enough time to get comfortable and start our dinner
You swing open the front door and shut it softly behind you
Taking off your coat and hanging it up
You set down your bag and I hear your footsteps nearing the kitchen
You greet me with a smile and a kiss and I ask you how your day was
We talk about your boss's new rules and how you may be getting a Christmas bonus
I tell you about how the internet went down today so I got to come home early and miss traffic
As the food approaches it's time of readiness, you go upstairs to change
I grab two soda's out of the fridge and set them down
You stumble down stairs and we both laugh because I am usually the clumsy one
Fixing our plates you kiss my shoulders and we sit down to eat
After discussing the plans for Thanksgiving and who's house were going to first, I put away the dishes and start to clean up
You make your way in to help out so we can go shower and go to bed
After we finish, you kiss my neck and set me onto the kitchen counter
My heart races and I am amazed by how you can still light up this room I am in, start a campfire in my stomach, ignite my bones with your skin on mine, dig holes the caverns of my collarbones
You will come home to me in the late afternoon
And we will both be weary eyes but we will both be happy
I do not know who you are yet, but I am looking forward to meeting you

I sometimes pull heartbeats out of my chest and turn them into poems
Because I get sick of listening to this ***** inside of me like a drum, reminding me that I am still alive  because frankly I don’t care
It seemed to make no difference if my lungs suddenly forgot how to fill themselves with air
Suffocated shrunken up cavity, vacant of natural skills we develop from the womb
It wouldn't matter if I drowned in this void
I could manage anything after losing you
You see, in life we will experience droughts
Times where emotion runs dry, the sky cracks with a sunset and all you can see is orange
Your disposition is confusing, you are distant from friends, humble in insults, you have accepted your fate
You are going to smother eventually so be patient in this dismay
You have accustomed yourself to the spell of darkness and wonder all magic is black magic
You see I am sinking in this concrete, mental blankness, unfolding remolding
I do not want to love again, I want to but I know I won't be able to do it right so I do not want to love again
My body does not take well to being held, my heart racing does not comfort me
Butterflies are just insects that look pretty
I do not want to taste another's lips, I do not want you to tell me I am beautiful
There is no cure to this disease, it is malignant and vicious, it is determined to see me to my grave
Hardly anything comforts me anymore because there is only so much you can do with something that is broken
My skies are painted grey and my walls are painted white
Everything is ordinary, plain, mediocre, nothing excites me quite like you used to
So I sit patiently in this room where the floor is slowly rising up and he ceiling will soon make friends with my brain
I do not worry, the sky is the limit and I am almost there
I hope to greet the stars with a faint smile, weary and worn but authentic enough to join them
Look down upon you and assure that you are alright and then I fall
And maybe you can make a wish on me in her name

I never would have originally planned to have fallen so hard for someone who I casually met while hungover in an Izzo's
And that he who once came on so strong would now act as if the day never occured at all

He is a summer rain
A day you would rather be swimming
Out in the sun, soaking up rays into your vague veins
But you cannot control the weather
And you love it despite the inconvenience
He is snow in the winter
Beautiful and graceful
You smile when looking at it
But it takes a little more work than you planned
Shoveling the driveway, trouble starting your car
It is a hassle but one with a great view
He is you favorite television show
Funny, enjoyable at all times of the day
But sometimes leaves you hanging
Will come for a while and leave
And not return for a few days at a time
But when he does it is better than before
He is a jigsaw puzzle
Confusing and often stressful
But there is no better feeling of completing it
If you can, you try your best
He is love
Holy, sacred, untamable, fascinating in all lighting
Waking to rain, covering up in the cold
Turning up the volume
Putting the pieces together in the dark
He is everything I want
And everything I can't have

It is Sunday morning and I want to be waking up with you
Sunrise reaching through a crack in my curtains, staining the far wall with an angel's grace
I search the room for fragrance of romance and realize I am here alone
I think of you, sitting in the passenger seat, you driving
I wonder how focused you are on the road
I watched the sparkle dance across your eyes like fireflies at dusk
I imagine laying my head on your chest
Listening to your heartbeat and the blood pulsing through you veins like waves running from sea predators
I dream of kissing your velvet lips, taste the whisper wasted secrets of the world going into my mouth
Remind me of what you're running away from when we are laying still
I crave you when I'm near drifting off to sleep, or when I fix a cup of coffee, or when sitting at a red light
Nail my hands to this steering wheel, open my bones and look for your fingerprints
I swear I've seen you in another life, distant daylight drumming dancers, bend over backwards to reach your hands
I knew your name before I met you, my mother would tell me of a boy, one that I will meet one day, I think it must be you
Carry me up the stairs when I'm too tired to walk, undress me like a fragile glass doll, kiss my bare shoulders
Open up my mind and read my rough drafts and smile at how far I have come
Spin me in circles in the kitchen in place of doing the dishes
Trace the curves of my body, outline this artwork with your paintbrush fingertips
She used to tell me stories, make believe, play pretend with the faceless man whom I will be in love with and will be in love with me
Because the best feeling is to love and be loved in return
And I remember my father smiling at my mother as if she was the miracle he had searched his whole life for
Nothing less than spectacular, a supernatural occurrence where the odds happened to be in his favor
I remember Sunday mornings, sleep late, sit outside and listen to their favorite songs
Drink coffee all day in PJs and actually make breakfast
I look forwards to Sunday mornings where I hope you will wake next to me

He was a summer rain
Heavy falling, warm
Whispers me to sleep and wakes me up again
He was the kind of beautiful that only wandered in once in a lifetime
You had to know exactly what you were looking for to find him
And you had to wait for him sometimes
Walking out of his front door, grinning
Backwards baby blue hat and sneakers
He was never conventional
He wore a broken watch that he stole from you and technically it wasn't stealing because you offered to let him keep it, maybe it was because you never wore it and it didn't fit your wrist or maybe you just wanted to see his skin glow under the admiration of his new gifted accessory
He was an autumn breeze
Giving you enough chill for goosebumps and a light jacket
But not enough to have to double up on socks
He and you share a hot chocolate and a cigarette on the hood of your car
The weight of the world blows in the wind and he smiles at you
Stirring a storm within your stomach but you swear it's just the weather
He was a spring flower
Blooming into existence
Growing older, wiser, never losing sight of what he wanted
He was the nicest person you had ever met
Compliments fell off of his tongue as if he did not have to force them, it was his second language
He was lovely in the early hours of the morning, gentle and sincere
He was dizzy, lighthearted, half open eyes, drifting in and out of sleep
Counting every shade of blue in his eyes just until they closed again
So you would start over
Sometimes
He was a winters night
Drowsy, drowning in his cognitive activities
He let himself go, he sat in the dark, decorated with trembling candle wicks and your favorite song playing
And he wrote songs about lost love and misunderstood emotion
Convince himself he is gentle enough to touch the trigger without pulling it
He was seasons of tenderness, unfolding, flying like a paper airplane
Bending at the knees, blushing, beaming, spinning words around in your head as your thoughts come undone
He was perfect to you
But you didn’t know how to love him
It was hard to convince your heart to hold on to something when it has grown so accustomed to letting go
Never grasping the concept on how to stay in one place
It always liked the chase
Running towards and then away from
It was a game they could only win if they decided not to play
It was a life of solitude and confusion, it was the only way you knew
And he deserved better
But he never left
Checking his broken watch while sitting on a wooden bench, it was as if time had stood still
And he hadn't been waiting at all

I know you have known heartache
Had coffee with your pain, sat down with your loneliness
You are not a stranger to darkness
Your mind wanders under this umbrella
Shielded away from love
And you feel so much
Your body tenses at the mention of her name
Your heartbeat quickens, palms sweat, knees twitch
It is as if you have a disease
Love sick, as they call it
She is the only one you can talk with about the shade of a cloud
Or the dreams you had last night
But you don’t tell her that she was in them
For fear it would scare her
You are careful with what you say
Because it is easy to come on too strong
Because you have never known weakness in love
You let her hear your music and she sings for you
But never to you
You imagine kissing her
It is patient and impossibly slow
Your ecstasy is her lips, she is the drug you can't stop craving
You have considered rehab
Finding someone else
Venturing into the unknown oblivion, falling on your face
You are not nervous around other people
So you must not be over it yet
You must not be ready to let go
You do not feel anything unless you are with her
You are confused on how to love her this way
How to maneuver around being her friend
You wonder if the feelings will ever be returned
If she will look at you like you do her
Like you are the moon and the stars
The sun, the solar system
The atmosphere holding all of the air she needs to breath
You wonder if she will miss you like you do her
Unsteady, walking around her room
You is not answering her phone
Worried if you are alright, if you are thinking of her
Panicked at the thought of you with someone else
If your hands have touched another warm body
If their body reminds you more of the summer than she does
You wonder if you will ever be able to walk away
If you will one day come to the realization that you are wasting your time and that she will never love you like that
But more often than not, you wonder if she will

Why do we do the things we do?
When we go for a walk or sleep with the lights off or drive around at 2 am
Stumbling over our own feet so hopelessly human out on a quest trying to find something to relate to
We're just brave souls throwing ourselves into a future we've convinced ourselves we deserve to stand in
As if we knew tomorrow were promised to be happier
Perhaps we are just waiting too much
Waiting to adventure, waiting till we're older and less scared but maybe less spontaneous
Because people change and we can't stop that because we can’t stop anything but ourselves
Hold back feelings, opinions, gestures, words do not mean much after you have waited too long to say them
It's funny how we have to experience things ourselves to learn the lesson and even then we have a hard time making the appropriate adjustments
I know the devil enters our mouths when we're angry
And I think we all just want someone to be vulnerable around and not be judged by them
We lie to make other people feel better
We lie to make ourselves feel better
We lie just to do it
Looking out the window imagining where we want to be but instead of being honest we will only say we like the view
We would always be hungrier than our rations would allow because are too scared to ask for more
We would rather starve then cause trouble for those in the kitchen
But I've learned that there are times when you need to throw dirt to keep your face from becoming dust
Honey dripping heartbeat doubt
Questioning motives of those we ae sure we have figured out but just when we think we know it all
Thriller taps your shoulder and reveals the rest of the puzzle we swore we'd finished long ago
I think it’s important to sit down in your own company to register the concerns you were not familiar with but were always there
Everything humming with the arrival of traffic over the horizon you release the tension over a cup of coffee
Life is all about choices
It's the choices we make that connect our constellations, every second of every moment hinging on a point so relevant but so arbitrary, like handfuls of stardust being thrown onto an empty canvas
Why do we do the things that we do?
Sometimes we don’t know, but there's always a reason for it

They say that when you kiss someone you are supposed to feel fireworks going off in the back of your mind, a beautiful eruption of wonder in your chest, a tickling feeling in your stomach but fireworks only last seconds and I'm afraid of choking on the smoke it leaves in the aftermath. I'm afraid of burning out, of blowing up, of decaying into dust.
2. When I was 13 I broke my ankle running in the dark down the street. I do not remember what I was running from or what I was running to but I remember the fear and pain after I had stumbled onto the ground and tried to convince myself I could walk on it and I was fine. I am afraid of breaking and trying to be okay but only making it worse, I am stubborn by definition and will always try to stand and start running away again.
3. My cousin fell in love, hard with the boy with dark hair and funny jokes and nice clothes and ambition to do something with his life. They were together for over 6 years and on their wedding night, she found him in bed with someone else. I watched her crumble, drinking her coffee before it cooled down, burning the inside of her mouth, torching all of the words she couldn't say to him, all the words that she couldn’t say to anyone. She stopped talking, I sometimes wonder if she writes poetry to simply remember her language.
4. I remember when my dad found of my mom had cheated on him, he found himself on a downward spiral, running to the liquor cabinet for reassurance, hating himself sober, and he didn’t want anyone to help him. He was always stubborn like a kite stuck in a tree that didn't want to come down. He was okay with never being okay because after you lose the one thing that made you feel like your life was worth something, when they leave, it makes you feel like it isn’t anymore
5. I know that when I fall in love I will want to take him to the hilltop gardens and show him the place where I find rest and solace. The place I go when I don’t want to feel alone. I will make him listen to my favorite songs and let him touch the valleys of my body that I never really loved. I will memorize his smell, accustom myself to his physical language. And I know that since young love doesn’t always last I will never want to go the  gardens without hoping I suffocate, I will be swallowed by the lyrics of the songs we would dance to.
6. I don’t want to need him. I don’t want to have to forget the way he would tickle me when I was upset. I don’t want his taste drilling cavities in my teeth, I don’t want to miss him when he's not around
7. I do not mind feeling nothing, I do not mind being distant from love if that means I my heart won't die before I do
8. I don’t want to have to stop smoking so many cigarettes because he's worried about the way I breathe when I sleep. I don’t want to have to make sure I don’t smell of burnt lungs around his mother.
9. I hate the way I know I'll tremble, shake, quiver at the thought of him kissing someone else or letting my call go to voicemail when he's not busy, when he just doesn’t want to talk
10. I don’t want his mother to cry because she thinks you can do better than me. I don't want my mother to cry because she's scared of how I'll cope if you ever decide to leave, she's scared of losing her daughter.
11. I don’t like endings, I often times don't finish books or songs or poems. I have drafts hanging up on my wall as a reminder that unfinished things can be beautiful too. I am not very good at putting something away after having finished it. I think letting you go would **** me.

One. Realize your heart has been broken
Take responsibility for the ***** inside of you
And how it's job of pumping blood into your lungs has gotten harder
It's okay to forget how to breathe as long as you're learning new things
Two. Learn new things
Pick up a book and read it to the very end
When you don’t feel like going to class, go anyways
Do not let the fatigue and agony keep you from gaining other important things
Three. Get very drunk
I know we are supposed to worry about getting stronger
But no one starts at the top of the ladder
Waiting in line is the world's most popular past time
Get sloppy and wild, let your inner goddess guide your heavily intoxicated nature
Forget their name right before you forget your own
Let someone else relinquish their fingerprints all over your frame
Cover up the old paint with new wallpaper
It's okay to remember all the things you once never thought to consider
Four. Write.
Write and then write some more
And even if all of it sounds the same do not fret
Because sometimes there are only so many ways to describe being defeated
Having the fire within you go out to its core
Let the smoke coming from your throat gain purpose by putting it on paper
Five. Make blueprints.
You cannot build something from scratch without planning ahead
You will probably not remember much of your life before them
So start a new, rebuild old friendships, revive old hobbies
The possibilities are endless with a blank sheet of paper
Accept your new reality without resentment.
Six. Start anew.
Fall out of love with them
With every gentle touch mimicking a lullaby putting you to sleep in their arms
Forget the laugh that filled every molecule of oxygen you ever breathed
Forget the weight of passion
Kiss as many people as you need to get the stamp of their lips off your brain
Seven. There is no way to manage heart break
It is consuming and clingy
It locks you up inside of its prison and you swear this will be a life sentence but don't let it
Heartbreak is not about trying to convince yourself that you don't miss it
It's about limiting the amount of things you would do to get it back
On some days you swear you would jump off of a building
And on others you wouldn't even take off your nail polish
It's not that this is supposed to be easy, it is only testing your endurance
Realize that you are in prison
And learn how to pick the lock

You are never given a warning
Often times, not will try and stop you
Your heart will flutter like hand painted butterfly wings
You will know you are in love when your hand is aching to write poems on their shoulders
Love grows like vines up from your stomach climbing to your heart and mind
Braiding into itself like a strand of DNA
Singing prayers and sacred alphabets of lust
No one is sure how to describe love because we negate definition when we know it is deliberately dangerous
We make it seem like this heartache is so wonderful
Because it is better to feel something for someone that to not feel anything at all
A joyous disaster is still a disaster
We are putting up wallpaper to cover up old memories, love songs, favorite colors going grey
We are never sure of what to do when our pulse turns to choir of sledgehammers when they tell you that they just don’t love you anymore
Something will trigger inside of you and you will feel like a city of stained glass with an approaching terrorist attack
But we continue to fall in love
Wondering how many times we can survive roulette

Thoughts from my least used paint brush:
I sometimes wonder what red taste like
I have seen my keeper bleed
****** knuckles, wrists, and knees
I often wonder if different shades of the same color hold the same feeling
I have never felt orange
Have never knit together sunsets or flowers
I am abstinent from such beauty
I have known blue
Paint bucket skies, blended grace to look upon
I do not want to take credit for what I have done
But I still want to be a part
I want to explore the color green
Plant gardens on woven white paper
Grow tall, thin, wide, strong
Walk in this ecstasy as a gardener
I want to build sky scrapers reaching into the lust of clouds
White, black, grey
I am okay with being neutral if it only means I will sip the savoring make up of this masterpiece
A possibility always seems to be floating next to me
I am only waiting to lifted into nirvana
I will wait forever for just one monument with my name carved into it
And I will not falter, I will not give up
My mouth has gone dry but I am hopeful to once again meet with my love of creativity

I remember all of the secret places that will never be secret again in life
The inside of my playhouse, up the ladder and through the wooden door
Talking about boys, laughing about TV shows, discussing our birthday parties that came too quickly
Never thought growing up involved so much grieve
I remember all of the secret places that will never be secret again in life
The rooftop of a house under construction at the end of the street
Smoking cigarettes, telling jokes, gazing at the world we thought we'd never lose
Talked about our future like we were the ones controlling it
I remember all of the secret places that will never be secret again in life
The front seat of your beat up truck, the middle seat in particular
Arms intertwined, singing along to the radio, talking about life as if we were sure of our future together, as if we were sure it would last
Along the way we tripped up, fell over, and now you are standing and my laces are still tied to one another
And each time I try to revisit these places that were once so beautifully hidden
I fall right back on my face when trying to walk into it, because the past is the past and it always will be

On their knees they beg for security, comfort, lust
Takes over their body, aching for affection without authentic feeling
One night stand painted golden, framed for friends to dazzle at the stories
Where the girl was just drunk enough to go home with you
She lost her keys, slipped into your pocket, under your arm slurring confused directions
Taxi cab drivers lost business when men discovered payment other than money
Standing at the front door smiling, lingering in hopes to be invited inside
Oh darling you look just beautiful enough to undress
Songs from the garden blossoming under his reign
She is dancing in the unknown foreshadowing of a casualty
Because waking up alone often hurts more than the hangover
The bed remains cold and *****, littered with earthquake memories
She does not remember taking off her clothes
She does not remember because she did not do it herself
This disease in minds of girls that they are only worth as much as their body can supply
Spreading like an epidemic often caught by sitting on any barstool, passenger seat, dance floor
Bedroom with pretty strangers who cannot withstand a night away from home
Bleeding out the crippled reasons as to why he left before morning
Searching for a phone number, business card, letter
And sometimes the easiest thing to find is reality

There comes a point in everyone's life
When their body is heavy, weighed down from love
They have just discovered what it is like to sleep alone again
And how it is one of the hardest things to remember how to do
At this time people say, "Get back out there and you will find someone to make you forget all about them," or
"There are plenty fish in the sea, so cast out your line."
These words are very encouraging but they are not what I want to hear
I do not want to throw myself at people and try to convince them I am good enough for them to love
I am staying patient in this purgatory, I am enduring lack of oxygen
Learning to breath underwater, learning new things
I am doing things now I would never have done without the heartache
When I say I am waiting for love, I mean I am waiting for myself to stop wanting it
I think it is beautiful, something we live to discover
But I have been spending too much time looking for it
I want a love more than clandestine love letter and sharing umbrellas in the rain
A love not just made up of syllables or words that sound nice
I want someone who I can talk with about the shade of a cloud or how I feel when I step in freshly cut grass or how when I got home I looked down at my hands and saw theirs
Our kisses would be impossible slow
So to my future lover
I am waiting to write you down in cursive ink
I am waiting for you to hand me the pen

Peel of your skin
Open up your muscles
Crack open your bones to take a look inside
See the generations crawl backwards
Through the same mess
Abuse, dominance, fear
There are no new sorrows running in your veins
Your mother has felt it and so has your father
Stories and scrapbooks, old record players and blankets
They are passed down from parent to children
Tradition holds caskets full of antiques and poems for her children's children to read
To write them as well
In different bodies, new homes with younger skin patiently waiting to reveal their own lives
To their children

Finding peace is like finding a lost chapter in the bible, it was there, waiting to be discovered, aching to be held, to be felt
Peace feels a lot like a blanket of sunsets was stitched together and laid over your heavy body, it makes you feel weightless
Peace is wonderful, so grab hold of it

And I bet she doesn't write poetry
I bet her mind is shallow, floating above water in places where I am drowning
She does not trace homes in your chest
She does not wait for it to be perfect
She does not wait for it to be love
Our eyes spoke more than our mouths ever did and I figured that was okay
We were butterflies in tummies and fluttering heartstrings of laughter that lasted a little too long
I am now spending my time trying to figure out if I have gotten stronger or weaker and which of those is worse
Even fragile hearts are strong enough to hold on to something as big as love
No matter these callused palms that you may find no reassurance in, your act of running away does not mean I won't stop reaching out
I know that I have gotten better
But I will forever be tempted to drive by your house just to remember what it looked like and I am never sure if I want you to be outside to see me or completely oblivious to the fact that I still love you
I do not want to seem weak, and I know that I am a new person because of you
I just wish you could meet her
She still writes poetry
She always will

He sits in the driver's seat, hands tearing apart his steering wheel cover at a red light near her house. He is on the way to meet with a friend who swears he can help get his mind off of her. He arrives at an old dock where they used to go fishing every Saturday morning. It was bliss and peaceful, it was so much easier. They stopped when he fell in love, he was so enveloped in her presence and everything that she was. He couldn’t stay away. He puts his truck in park and takes a deep breath.
"Hey buddy, long time -- no see, huh?"
"I know, I know," he says forcing a smile.
"Come on in, it's cold out."
The two go inside, drink a few beers and talk about old times. It was assumed that this was all it would be and it was all it needed to be. It was brothers by bond, friends who were there for each other, they taught them how to forget for a while, for the most part.
"How have you been holding up? I hate to ask but man, you've been gone. You're not yourself."
He sits looking down and after it all he knows there is no use in lying.
"There is one voice that keeps echoing in my ears ... there is one face that keeps coming in front of me every time ... she was the peace in my heart, she was the joy, the laughter, she was everything."
He smiles as he is reminded of her dancing in the kitchen. His fist tightens at the thought of her hands running up and down his back.
"I really loved her man. I loved her more than anything."
A rock sits in his throat and he is choking back tears he swore he would never let loose. He swore he was stronger than that, but love, it does things to you. It makes you do things you swore you would never do.

He looks up and his friend of years is waving his hand in front of his face.
"Hello," he laughs, " I asked how have you been holding up."
"Oh," he clears his throat, "I'm doing fine, I bounced back pretty quickly. I hardly think if it anymore. The past is the past right, cheers to us man. I got everything I need without her."
They clank beers and he swallows back every truth he was too afraid to say. Sometimes weakness is hiding. Sometimes strength is admitting you've hit your knees.

This is getting old
Loving you past your act of moving forward
It is like each step you take is one I tread backwards
I wish it was easier now that I know you don't want this
Now that I know you have found something better
But for some reason it feels nothing less like my collarbones cracking in mimicking the chandeliers falling to the ground of an abandoned palace that used to be so beautiful but now left with an unlocked door and someone who has the keys but doesn't even know it
I swear it's your voice I hear and your fingers I feel tracing the rise and fall of my ribs in the early hours of the morning
When no is awake, I always am and I wonder if you are too
Part of me still remembers how you made me smile, how despite the circumstance you would aways trigger something in me, flipping a light switch, I swear I could see things clearer when I was with you
Part of me still questions the possibility of seeing you again
Maybe just once, a coffee for old time's sake
But you wouldn't for the fear she would get angry because it lasted more than 20 minutes
For fear it would actually have meant something
And after a while I get tired of thinking of you every time another boy smiles at me
It is a never-ending cycle of you running in my veins
I am afraid to give blood because I know they will find traces of your laughter, they might call this a disease
I have tried to love other people but they don't deserve half of me
I have ripped all the synonyms out of the thesaurus for lonely
And still there will never be anything to describe this feeling because humans have not yet crafted a word for it
I don’t think they ever could
You are a bittersweet memory at best
And I am going to move forward
Because I've learned that there is no use in holding onto something that just isn't holding you back

If pennies could buy us time I wonder how many wasted presidents I would spend throwing into fountains wishing for a revisable proverb
Fold love letters into paper airplanes and send them your way
Walking backwards into something beautiful and try it just one more time
We could fall in love all over again, the sun is the same but we can see things differently now, take a little more time
I have come to realize that pictures cannot hold a memory as well as a heart can and storage on some cell phones run dry
And despite the undermining feeling that maybe we were meant to separate, I cannot help but wonder what would have happened
If things never ended
If I didn't have to waste so much money on fighting for something I know in the end
I won't win

She's going to be drunk and stupid
She's going to let her hair down, falling over her shoulders, smiling at the slight tickled feeling of it
She's going to dance with boys whom she will not remember the names or faces of but she will remember exactly what they were wearing
She's going to trip over herself, her knees will battle earthquakes breaking day fall of more drink or one more cigarette
She is going to smoke until she can only see a transparent outline of herself in the mirror
And she will smile, freely and oblivious to reality
She's going to be drunk and stupid
And it's going to be the most beautiful tragedy he has ever laid his eyes on

You are a bittersweet memory at best
A face in a photograph, a stranger with a story
Your ghost does not follow me around anymore
And speaking your name outloud is similar to saying a name of someone whom I've never met
It is foreign and forgotten, it's empty now
And of course I will remember the things we did
I will probably remember them forever but they will always be far away in my mind
You are not something I will lose myself over, talking about the things we did will not effect me
It may cause a slight smile and sigh, reminiscing on things that just aren't so spectacular as they used to be
You are a bittersweet memory at best
Which is the best thing you could be

In a shady garage that lays down a long driveway, an old man sits, hands on his knees, and smile as big as ever. He smiled as if it was the only thing keeping him alive
He told stories of when he was in high school, the dumb things he and his friends did and how each dumb thing had a later lesson that impacted who he became
He looks down at his hands and smiles once more, lighter this time and more gentle. Like someone when the bottled up anxiousness starts boiling over in a quiet room. He says, "I used to think that life was about conquering the world but now that I'm older I learned it wasn't worth conquering, it was more about enjoying it, appreciating it."
He paused for a moment. I imagine he was thinking of times when he didn't. When he wasted away his integrity and watch his pride shatter on the floor. When his hands trembled with fear over something he wasn't sure he really regretted.
As the tension evaporated, slipped through wet footsteps from wet feet getting out of the pool, he smiled again
He smiled like it was he only thing keeping it alive
And now looking back, perhaps it was

I will be with you when the downfall of your ceiling fan makes you head spin, I will catch you when you are too dizzy to stand on your own. I will dance with you when your knees can't keep still, I will remind you that everyone has days when their strength fails them. I will hold you hand even when it is sweaty, I will cradle your thoughts in my arms and listen to you when you feel like rambling on about the way clouds are taken by the wind or you wish you could fly. I will help you do the dishes and fold blankets, I will help you make our bed, I will help you when you are in need. I will let you rest when work is getting to heavy, I will play your favorite song on piano. I will be with you when the curtains open and the sunlight twists patterns across your skin. I will make you laugh with my corny jokes, I will wrap you in my arms when you body feels vacant. I will love you with all that I have. Whoever you are, I will wait for you. Whoever you are, I will love you.

I struggle to have a good life and by this I do not mean a happy one, I am happy, I simply mean I want to live a life I can be proud of and lately my mind has been caught in a fishing net with every corner having loose truths and conned dispositions, I dream of a life with nirvana, with such a profound amount overwhelming peace you can hardly stand it.
I have a special skill of feeling a lot when I probably shouldn't and feeling nothing when I should.
I still mix up left from right and often forget where I am going while trying to figure out where to turn next
I still mix up my rights from my wrongs
But I am writing my wrongs and hoping that doing so will help in the process of correcting them, forgiving myself for them
I am a hopeless romantic with the absolute potential to be alone the rest of my life
When love finds me, I am terrified
Staring in the face of commitment is beautiful but a risk I am often not willing to take
It thrills me when people say they do not love me anymore, it burns like a fire in my stomach and I sometimes confuse the likely possibility that other people are not thrilled by this
I think a breeze could feel like a hurricane if it hits you at the right time
I am learning to control myself and taking only what I need from the world
I am still baffled by the fact and also completely terrified at how when I look him in the eyes I never fail to be reminded of you
I will sometimes lay out to watch the stars at night but regretfully I do not even do this for my own enjoyment anymore I do it to think of you, I ask myself if you look at the sky for the same reasons
I have been told I am an open book, running through pages as if a strong breeze was rolling by, emptying all of the things carved into my skin, from by passers, best friends, ex lovers, strangers, blowing each syllable off the page
My mother has always been right and I always knew she was
I am stubborn and have a hard time moving my opinions or motives
I am slowly learning why natural disasters are given human names
I find myself wanting to catch your thoughts like raindrops on my hands and watch them dissolve, your words are a hurricane in themselves
I like flushed red cheeks and cold fingers warned by a fire
I enjoy watching attempted sweet talk however I am never sure how to respond to it
And no I do not drink to forget about other people's mistakes, I drink to forget about my own
I sometimes scream at the mirror, it is one of the safest ways I could think of to take out anger on myself
There is a pen connected to my mind and I often wish the people in books were real
And I love this world with all of my heart and I love life, I want to crawl under every tree, dance on every mountain, swim in waterfalls, drown myself in this world's excellence
Paint my body with it's colors, wash my skin in it's prayers, listen to it's music and let is resonate in my mind until it reigns in my brain when silence is too loud
I like opening doors more than closing them, I open too many and twist my mind into patterns I am alice trying to find her wonderland but there are no maps for the unknown
We have no yet crafted directions in desolate places because no one visits but I do
I need adventure to grow
And I am growing

a letter to my love who loves someone else
I know that with life cutting corners on your shoulders it is easier to walk away from a game that involves using your hands, the ones that knit blankets to keep me warm, the ones that made sound when I swore I was deaf to every motive except my own
I am sorry to have caused you so much trouble
I know that the word will knock down trees to build skyscrapers, I just only hope you will remember what it felt like to lay under them
I only hope you still think of me when you look up at the sky
I know that perspective is everything and sometimes turning the other cheek molds into shaking your head
I know that I often looked away too much and I am sorry I couldn't bare more drawn out moments of silence with you
My mouth has no safety on it, my mind wanders as if a lost child in a super market, it was hard to fall in love with every piece of you because I was scared of you leaving without taking me with you
I am afraid of the dark, I always have been and will most likely always will be because darkness means uncertainty and I still have a nightlight
I still pretend to be a child
I find myself sunbathing in these memories as a form of prayer
I hung up a picture of you and I on my wall and told everyone it was only for good times sake, something beautiful to look back on, flipping page in the scrapbook, old videos on the home computer
I did not tell them it was because I am pretending that we are still possible
That you will come back here and we can reminisce and play pretend
There are days when I am not sure if I can ever love someone the way I loved you, there are days when I do not want to play pretend with someone else
There is nothing poetic about the way I hopelessly love you
I have learned that poetry loses it's grandeur when you realize there is not a single combinations of words that can make someone love you back
And still, standing on the precipice of an echo, I can almost hear you singing along to the radio, I can almost feel your fingertips on my back like a record playing needle
And I can't help but wonder
Do you still sleep with a light on?

Your smile will be a sunset shouting, declaring that mountain tops are not the most beautiful place on earth because you have always believed that was a setting saved for loving someone
Your fingertips will be magic wands casting spells on bodies who ache for illusion her hips are the trap door that I never saw coming
Your heart will be a speeding ticket, gaining on cupid as he races away with the one thing you swore you would never let go of
Your knees will be an earthquake, shaking under the sound of her breathing, bearing witness to each tendon imitating downfall
Your eyes will become testaments of the strength we never learned how to use the right way, an open drawer of instructions to someone who didn't know how to read
Your love for her will grow like wildfire, falling trees, building stairwells up past all of the smoke, you will find it hard to inhale something not seeking to **** you
Your mouth will be filled with words that have become stale from the overuse of them, you will tell her what she wants to hear
And she will always listen

Whatever you do, don’t let your love go unspoken
It will be scary and your knees will quiver
Your hands will shake but this is what it feels like to be alive
To really feel something for someone
Do not miss an opportunity because you cannot bear the idea of your palms being anything but still
Tell them
Tell them that their smile runs through your veins and their touch consumes your body and soul
Tell them you have found a home within the gold of their eyes and a place between their laughter
Tell them that you still love them
Despite all the past holds, tell them you still haven't let go
Before telling them too late, past the point of repair
Tell them before they find someone else
Because they will

We are sitting in the same coffee shop I fell in love with him in, but it is different now. I look up and he is still looking at his hands. Eyes are on his callused palms, twiddling his thumbs and I still love him more than I ever have. He looks up with an innocence that only a child could have. I think of how he is thinking about her. I wonder if he even sees me or just the ghost of a girl he almost loved.
"You know this isn't easy for me. You know that," he mumbles, looking down again.
"Do you think this is easy for me? I have to sit here and watch you fall in love with someone else when all the while I am having to convince myself that eventually things will get better, people tell me that eventually things will get better. I can't tell you the amount of times you would have received a phone call but didn't because I knew you wouldn't answer. I don't know what you expect. This isn't easy for me either, this isn’t easy at all."
We sit in silence for a moment. I almost cry but I refuse to show any more weakness than I already have, he doesn't deserve to see me hurting. He wouldn’t understand. The silence falls heavy on the wooden floors. And after a few long seconds of it all he can manage is,
"I'm sorry."

We were lukewarm hearts and cups of coffee
Breakfast in bed on Sunday morning
Videos of laughter and short-lived occurrences
Late night drives with the radio too loud
Saturday afternoon movies and naps
And a box of letters that ended in
P.S. I love you

Your hips will fall into metal blankness
His hands will brush over them like paint to a canvas
And you will expect a beautiful painting
And even though your mother told you to never hold high expectations
You did anyways
And now you feel the wisdom in her words as this grotesque picture looks you in the face grinning with deceit because you only did this to forget about someone else
He insists that you frame it
Your collarbones will sink like boulders
Lay on the bottom of desolate ocean floors
You will feel like an abandoned ship wreck
Like an empty treasure chest
You have disappointed because you are still in love with someone else
You will ask for a blue print of your body so you can leave it on a train just so you can have something to remind you what it used to look like before he took it from you
And they will call this a mistake
Giving away the one piece of you that should have been saved for someone who didn't just say they loved you
Someone who meant it, the words would hold so much passion it would hit you with a force that not even the strongest anaesthesia could keep you from feeling
But yet you keep trying to find that missing piece of you in other people's bed sheets
You will trust anyone who shows interest because you have not tasted this is so long
Because bad man look like respectable men
Bad men with a smile so wide that they will swallow you and you will convince yourself that you asked him to
Your whole being will begin to ash away
Because you were lit by someone who did not finish what they began
And the truth is, you cannot hand a paintbrush to someone else once a piece of art is started because the finished picture will never be as beautiful as it could have been
So why do you keep passing it around

We are sitting in the same coffee shop I fell in love with him in, but it is different now. I look up and he is still looking at his hands. Eyes are on his callused palms, twiddling his thumbs and I still love him more than I ever have. He looks up with an innocence that only a child could have. I think of how he is thinking about her. I wonder if he even sees me or just the ghost of a girl he almost loved.
"You know this isn't easy for me. You know that," he mumbles, looking down again.
"Do you think this is easy for me? I have to sit here and watch you fall in love with someone else when all the while I am having to convince myself that eventually things will get better, people tell me that eventually things will get better. I can't tell you the amount of times you would have received a phone call but didn't because I knew you wouldn't answer. I don't know what you expect. This isn't easy for me either, this isn’t easy at all."
We sit in silence for a moment. I almost cry but I refuse to show any more weakness than I already have, he doesn't deserve to see me hurting. He wouldn’t understand. The silence falls heavy on the wooden floors. And after a few long seconds of it all he can manage is,
"I'm sorry."

Sitting in a crowded restaurant with a table too far to put your elbows on and you wonder if this is how it feels to be well mannered
He smiles, innocent and pure, deceiving your naïve mind
"We've grown apart, it's been months and I still can't sleep, how did you do it so fast?"
He parts his lips like he is going to say something but pauses almost as if it is a death sentence he does not want to give. A pounding on a gavel, a mother gasps in a courtroom, handcuffs fitting too tight.
He says, "Part of growing up is picking and choosing your battles and you just aren't one I want to fight anymore."

How beautiful it is to stay silent
When someone expects you to be enraged at them
How beautiful it is to laugh
When someone thinks you are going to shed tears