i still have those pictures
from your disposable camera
you gave me five years ago
when my hair was still long,
when we were still in love.
i don't look at them anymore.
and to be honest,
i don't even know where they are
or when i looked at them last
but i find comfort in knowing
they are taking up some space,
somewhere, in this disorganized room of mine.

i still have your name carved into
the top of my ceiling
which is funny because
you were always the one so quick to define
the meaning of impermanence.
i guess all ceilings eventually
collapse.
i think i clung too tightly to the possibility
of you never leaving, and so i carved
your name into my ceiling to comfort myself
during all the noise that not even your name
could silence.
i don't look at it anymore.
and even though you're gone, there are some people
who leave traces of themselves behind
in the most obscure places that not even they
become aware of.

i still have all of the love letters
you wrote me when i was sixteen.
they are sitting in a box beneath a pile of books and papers
on the bottom of my bookshelf.
i don't read them anymore.
i contemplated burning them more than once,
but i stopped myself because
what's the point in loving someone if you can't even
prove that the love was actually there
after everything has been said and done,
after all of it has left you?
i get so terrified,
to think that perhaps memory
is more unreliable than anything, and so i keep the things
you gave me as secret stash to show
that
we
happened once.

sometimes i wonder what it would have been like
to have given you the chance to explain yourself
face to face
i will probably never
know what it feels like to land on the moon
but that does not stop me from
gazing at it night after night paralyzed
with wondering
how anything could ever be that beautiful.
somethings should be left unseen
while others, simply left
unknown.

one of the most liberating moments
someone can ever live through
is the moment where they realize
that it wasn't their fault
that they were left.
the moment they finally decide
it's time to
forgive themselves
for thinking they deserved
to be
abandoned.

it really is remarkable
that i have made it through another winter,
that i have chosen
to shed another layer of skin,
the layer i finally realized i didn't
belong in.

it really is remarkable
that our paths have crossed,
two caterpillars of different countries
that are sometimes mistaken for
future moths

for distance is not the same as death
and the beauty has outweighed the suffering
for it's not about where you are or what you want
to go back to
it's the feeling of joy
that you will always miss,
always cherish, always try
to keep alive when you part ways and are
suddenly alone when everything starts
to inexplicably make you cry.

but what i've learned is
that there is sunlight
in the darkest crevices of the human heart,
no matter how far you go or how much you'd like
to call your sadness
art.  

so reach out to those around you,
the ones that live to see you thrive
cultivate the goodness in your heart,
make the choice to water the garden that will end up
keeping you alive.

i watched blankets of people
rip themselves off of you
one by one by one
you were no longer beautiful to them,
the wrong things became important to you
and so
they left and you
turned cold.

i still find you beautiful
but i have divorced my heart from you
there's not much to say when i see you,
not enough space to feel when i'm around you,
not enough affection to resuscitate
all of the moments you let me drown.

i don't want to hate you anymore, but
i don't want to love you either. both of them are
painful, so i get caught in between.

i wish i could wish you a happy mother's day
and feed into your belief
that you are a good mother, the belief you use to cover up
your deep seated self hatred
but i can't.

i will always find you beautiful
but i won't be around anymore
to tell you that.

when you run into someone
you haven’t seen in over a year,
someone who you loved deeply,
still do,
someone who straight up
abandoned you
someone who only gave you
an echoes answer,
and suddenly they’re standing
directly in front of you and you
aren’t afraid to look them straight
in the eyes like you thought
you would be
and all you feel is love
which surprises you because
you aren’t used to
softening, you aren’t used
to forgiving.
and then without thinking,
you pull that person,
who is practically a stranger
to you now, into
a tight embrace, that is when
you know hesitation
no longer belongs to you,
that is when you know
that something inside you has
changed
for the better
while you weren’t looking.