you are the

best

and

worst

thing that has happened

to me so far.

you are exactly

what i need and

what i want and

no one

has ever made me feel

the way you make me feel.

you bring out the

best

and

worst

in me.

you make me feel

beautiful and wanted but

jealous and obsessive.

expressive and alive but

still clinging to you like a child.

this is the

best

and

worst

thing i’ve ever felt.

because i think

i really think

i was in love with you.

or at least this is

the closest i’ve ever gotten to

love or

something like it.

this is what i know

about love:

it is the

best

and

worst

thing that could happen to you.

a euphoric feeling of

being needed.

a terrifying feeling of

addiction.

love is:

me still writing

poems about you

months after the fact.

me still dependent on

you like

a drug. unable to

escape this prison and the

best

and

worst

part is i did it

to myself.

still thinking that

someday it will work out

because there cannot be

anyone else. you are

it

for me. but this is

what i know about

love: it is

not

infinite or

unconditional or

something to build

your life on.

what i know about love

every man in my life

has taught me. one

at a time

they tell me

love is: not

what you thought

at all.

love is: when you

feel that pain

in that one spot

of your chest where you

feel it

every time. like when

your brother left or

your uncle left or

your father left.

so the

best

and

worst

thing i’ve ever done

was to

love you like i

didn’t know

what love is.

my hands were cut by thorns
while i was picking
lemons from our tree.

i didn’t know
until later when
the lemons reminded me,
stinging, that you were not there.

in the stillness i waited
for
some sign
that you were alive.

when it did not come
i died there
with you.

It’s raining right now and I can’t quite remember if you like the rain or hate it, but I like it and it’s putting me to sleep.

The other night I went to bed a little earlier and woke up around this time to the sound of the rain on my window and it felt so peaceful that I would have stayed in that moment forever if I could have. Instead I just smiled and went back to sleep. When I woke up it wasn’t fully and in my half asleep state it felt like eternity stretched out there between the sound of each raindrop.

So I guess I did have a few seconds of forever there in my bed, in my almost sleep.
I guess eternity is the sound of the raindrops on my window.

it’s a shock, but not entirely unexpected. because she is all lines and circles and i am triangles and squares. i can’t really blame you for lines-circles; she is beautiful and wonderful and everything i am not. i would want her too, if i were you. but it’s still not okay and it still hurts so i think we are just about done. but before you go i have to tell you. i met her once, even before you. she was bright eyed and shining. she still is. so i am telling you: you cannot do to her what you have done to me. because she is soft curves and endless horizons. i am sharp edges and harsh angles, with you always cutting yourself on the corners. you cannot tell her about how you can’t wait to see her in her wedding dress and how you don’t think she should wear white because it’s too plain and not good enough for her. how you can’t imagine that she could be any more beautiful but you know she will be, coming down the aisle. you can’t tell her about the house with the red door. you can’t tell her that Alexander is your favorite name so you’ll have two, one for each and July is a strange name, he’ll probably get made fun of at school. you can’t tell her that you heard somewhere that Maine is a good place to raise a family and you want to eat lobster everyday, so the house with the red door will be there; July and Alexander will play in the yard. you can’t promise her that when you come home from work, before anything else, you will just hold her. because these are our things. these things are meant for Triangles and Squares. she deserves things meant for Lines and Circles. so start over with lines-circles and don’t worry that our almost life won’t remember you, because I will.

pulling scraps of paper from a drawer.
mementos of a different life and tokens of a stranger. a different person from the me, now, that sits at this desk and pulls from its depths memories from far away. images flash in my mind, slow and staggered, like a slideshow of who i was and who i became.

and as i come across them i will throw away, or maybe burn, the bad things.
but the good things, the things that imprint upon me a smile like they did once before; these things i will cherish and secret away. so that one day when i am a new person again, i will smile.
like i did today.
like i did back then.