I can lay
right next to you
and never touch you

I can see you smile
from across the room
without kissing you

I can watch you
leave the room
and resist hugging you goodbye

But sometimes
when I'm next to you
you have to ask me to move away

Because for a few minutes
I let fantasy get confused with reality
and I lean against you during a movie

And it's so warm
your arm and mine, touching
for that minute I'm at peace

But when you ask
of course I make room
Because I don't want you to feel uncomfortable

And if you weren't my friend
I would probably try it
just once, to know what it would be like to kiss you

But ideally,
I'll get over this
and when I am, we'll still be friends

So in the meantime
I try not to think about kissing you
and I only hug you when I have reason to

What I'm saying is
I will do what I can
to keep myself sane and our friendship intact

But just know
that with every look I give
I wish I could give so much more.

I.  
A rumble of a failing engine and an abandoned heart does not always make for the best mixed drink you’d typically order at the bar
The gasoline fumes rising towards my nostrils, the taste replicated on the taste buds, not exactly the main course you’d hope to appear on the main entrée menu
The shrinking world swallows my perception, and all I can see are endless forests with an unending road, not exactly the picturesque view you’d pick from the 5-star hotel you presumed to stay in comfortably

II.
Recurring whiplash carries me deep within the foliage of the woods, where the bristles from the furious trees feel like spikes brushing across my fragile skin
My thoughts are encompassed by my wildest fears, intensifying the pitter patter in my chest, nearing a detonation, but no witnesses to confirm or deny it
The limbs outstretch themselves and enfold me inside a hallowing clasp, resemblance of an agonizing chokehold
The fires begin slowly, but hurriedly strengthen into a sore, sweltering sensation that hastily seizes control over my nervous system, rendering me helpless with no one to soothe me from it, for isolation is the true affliction of it all

III.
And suddenly I am traveling through a dark neighborhood, the ones we were all warned about as adolescents, as the lamp posts house stood-up lovers and lost souls who are trying to catch a fresh thought aside from the filthy repetition we are provided with
The light bulbs flicker and the yellow paint dividing the two paths incases my thoughts, stimulating every sensory input to intake the detection of safety between the two opposite directions, because once a path is chosen, returning is forbidden
This social deprivation surely beholds my salient inner pain, as I cannot confide in anyone on this lonely road except for the shining Milky Way and smiling crescent moon, eons away from my reach

IV.
Foaming salt water crashes over me, encumbering my lungs from performing their simple task successfully, caught in a riptide sensing my discomfort with reality and self-hatred brought upon by the overriding waves that deteriorate my sanguinity
I cannot control anything in my life and the sea acknowledges this weakness, What a real favor it is! Killing me, for me, subduing the airflow right out of me but also purifying my corrupted being, freeing my aggressions, letting go of faulty hearts, and ensuring arcadia by ripping away a future I could not survive in
The sunken sailors in their sinking ships do not drown by choice, like I, but they may not be as grateful for the gift of release as I am
I realize I may have a shot at social encounters, until I gather that the glass wall that separates me from the world is unbreakable, and the water pressure is much too great to fight through, so I must die alone

V.
As my vision fades to black, I am awakened once again, stranded on this Earth, this place where life exists but living does not
And I feel like ever since the door slammed shut as I collapsed in cascading tears on the floor in your favorite white button down, I’ve been a bit lonesome and defunct, my mood has a constant sullen adjective attached to it
Adventure and spontaneity meant everything to you, and I took on the same attitude, breaking out of my comfort zone and implementing yours instead
What once was now lingers as a painful memory and acts as a narcotic because I am experiencing a difficult withdrawal of your voice, and I cannot last much longer before the insanity devours me from the inside out

VI.
As the hourglass passed all of the time, your personality withered as each interest you held dear to your heat contracted into an abhorrent piece of art, dedicated to miserableness
And as your presence no longer fills up my time, maybe I too am disappearing, or so I wish
Because losing you to yourself felt like being stranded in the middle of nowhere with an unceasing life of despondency and unanswered questions
It felt like being burned alive to ashes from a forest fire, so deep in that not a single person would notice its evanescence
And worst of all it felt like drowning, as my control slipped away from the tight grip I once had, like nobody could resuscitate me from
I play over every doting moment with you over in my head as my mind slowly fades to darkness, a blank state of depression

VII.
So tell me from the heavens once more that I do not need you, because you see what I am experiencing in your absence
Maybe I need you as a constant in my life and not a fleeting breeze in the persistently bipolar wind movements
But you bolted the moment the poisoned fog touched your fingertips and your fear took you away from me
So how can I possibly hold on, when I am clearly alone and depressed?
I know death is merciful compared to losing my one true love
Tell me you’re listening, I need someone to talk to
I cannot leave all these words left unspoken

There is a freedom in delusion,
It is artificially flavoured and cheap-
for anyone desperate enough to buy it.
Like this, there are many more copies of the originals.
It is the promise of Love,
The dissapointment of failure,
and the bitter taste of regret.
Yes, there is a blind happiness in the act of faith;
believing in the shadows reflected on the walls of the cave.
A hard truth to accept- the lies you tell to yourself
as you go to bed and succumb to wishful dreams.
Another day wasted-another mind twisted.
The vitality of grass and the prattle of the birds ceases
love fades away, as does the vigor of the summer.
Words once fluent, now cease to forced murmurs of dispassion.
There goes the first leaf of autumn-
in the cold harshness of the creeping wind.
There is honesty and pain in recognition,
Deceit and grief at the eyes of imitation.
Yes, there is a temporal taste of forged happiness;
A comfort in the fabric of deception.

Honesty in the form of words protruding my fragile exterior
And extricating the hallow mess that billows inside my vacant heart
For you have left me a laundry list of qualities I must posses to remain at the stature you so strongly desire

(Your lies were always intricately organized like the way I kept my research on you, in order from most bizarre to truthfully lethal.)

Terror in the form of agonizing nightmares ascending my insomniac eyes from their time-constrained serenity  
And turning them a sort of ashen coal that paralyzes the screams on the surface of my throat
For you have torn my faith to shreds and sent the monsters to vacate my dreams

(I can't **** the monsters, they roam through my head and I know you sent them there after every disturbance of physical hurt you inflicted upon me.)

Hostility in the form of dying flowers resting upon the wight heater near my hospital bed
And the tight squeeze of my hand you held until it bled all my secrets
For you have bled me dry with the scrutiny and expectations you believed I would so gracefully uphold  

(Darling you might as well have given me the razor blades for dinner and the bottle of pills for desert because my hospital sojourns were just another result of your poor care-taking skills.)

Satisfaction in the form of the door slamming shut while my heart freezes up
And dilutes the excuses from overbearing my forgiving nature
For you have stomped your hefty footprints on my eternally broken heart, an impending death on arrival to your house

(Your excuses were overflowing my glass of tolerance and I just couldn't take it anymore so I threw you out of my life and crossed your destination off of the map I held so close to my heart, farewell my devilish heartbreak.)

Farewell