I guess you’re always late
Or perhaps you’re always right on time
I know with certainty you’re never early
Or you’d already be mine

When I was a little girl
Laying in my bed at night
I’d pray for you with urgency
So that I’d know you right on sight

That must be why The Greats
All claim that love is blind
For years I’ve been searching
And yours is a face I cannot find

And by this simple fact
I can’t get you gift
So I write this message in a bottle
That it might find your heart, adrift

Perhaps you love another
Perhaps my heart is sealed  
Maybe we have more to learn
Before our identities can be revealed

Either way rest easy, lover,
Knowing it’s you I even now adore
Happy Valentines Day, my love, my dear,
My missing paramour

It’s selfish of me
Hoping you’ll never get over us
When I perjure myself daily
Claiming I wish the best for you
It’s wrong that
We were never technically “us”
But I’ve already
Seen our life together
Paradoxical that
In this short time
I became disinterested
In the vast sea of options
Wishing, hoping, waiting
You’d come to your senses
And see that your heart
Beats to my same ache
I’m sorry that I
Assumed the worst in you
But you assumed
The worst in me
Perhaps that’s why
I’m drinking here alone
While you determine
Your next receptacle  
It would bother me but
I know you
Like you know me
She doesn’t matter
She matters to me
Next in the long line
Of unfulfillment
I wouldn’t do the trick
How unfamiliar will
We become?
How quickly have you
Been able to move one
While I sit here
In anguish
Longing for the touch
And smell of you
Laughing at my desperate words
Unable to stop typing
Or make sense
Of the outcome

I wish I could have met myself
At this age
When I was a little girl
I wonder if I would
Have liked who I've become
Would I speak to this adult
And find a resilient strength
Or would I see through
The bulletproof glass
Straight to her insecurities
Would she laugh and
Find me funny
Or pity the deflections
Would I stand beside her
And think
This is who I want to be

Someone once compared me to a rose
What a flower to be
Blooming only in the best conditions
With perfect tending
And tedious attentions
Beautiful, but thorny
Admirable, but painful to hold
Offering their beauty only
To those so fortunate
As to be in the garden
No
I'm not a rose
I'm the wildflower that
Offers beauty to all around it
Grows wherever it lands
Withstands the storm
And finds the sun

It’s selfish of me
Hoping you’ll never get over us
When I perjure myself daily
Claiming I wish the best for you
It’s wrong that
We were never technically “us”
But I’ve already
Seen our life together
Paradoxical that
In this short time
I became disinterested
In the vast sea of options
Wishing, hoping, waiting
You’d come to your senses
And see that your heart
Beats to my same ache

“Once upon a time”
The age old fairytale
About each perfect little princess
Finding her perfect little male
From birth into adulthood
We read about princes and knights
We’re promised a perfect match
To join us on our plight
So we sigh and sit and wait
Or sit and work and sigh
Always quietly wondering
If our prince has passed us by
Then with each lunar passing
And each trip around the sun
Our age brusquely informs us
That our prince may never come
No knights on noble steeds
Ride up to right our wrongs
There is no handsome nobleman
To play us his love songs
Except for those of course
Whose love proves insincere
The ones who leave us jilted
And actualize our greatest fears
With each disappointment
Another petal falls away
Slowly killing any magic
Leftover from our early days
Until one day an unassuming
Handsome man appears
Offers a ride on his white horse
Then promptly disappears

You came into my life like an IED
Unexpected, unwelcome, and explosive
Not what I pictured
As a little girl
Hoping to get swept off her feet
We were an accident
A happy one, I thought
Two flames come together
To engulf what haunts us
A sideways smile, subtle winks
Subtle hints you found the fire too hot
I suppose the problem with flames
Is they cast a large shadow
And illuminate the unseen
Like the burdens ****** upon you
Or the scars I never manage to hide
I thought this was different
But then our fire ran cold
Not because it was extinguished
No
Because you left my flame
Without the courtesy of a warning
So I sit and wonder
Where it all went wrong
How I misunderstood
Realizing that the IED
Was me
Drowning the comfortable darkness
In a blinding light you
Weren’t prepared to face
But couldn’t bear to lose
So you left
And pretended that you remained
Choosing to brave the dark alone
Declaring that it made you strong
Trading the new fear in
For the old
Because at least you’d trained
For that