How many times
Do you have to learn a lesson
The hard way
Before it’s deliberate?
It’s high time I knew
I’m not the exception
I’m the rule
If time is precious
I’ve tossed my diamonds to a swine
Couldn’t get from you water, even
Yet offered up fine wine
But with eyes like sweet honey
And words smooth as silk
You’ve never had to beg me
I’ve made it so easy
To come and go as you please
We both know who’s to blame for the mess
And it’s not the boy who doesn’t even spare a glance after a goodnight
It’s the lass who bet the game,
knowing the player

Hi, nice to meet you,
I'm Me
And this is Ana,
who is also Me
There was a time before Her,
but it was so long ago
that the memories are fuzzy around the edges

She was so quiet,
I didn't even hear Her come in
I turned,
and She was simply there
She was so soft
Her voice a mere whisper
among the surrounding chaos
When I floundered,
drowning in the dark ocean of My reality
She was there
powerful, capable, calm

I am Her, and She is Me
We were powerful, capable, calm

So powerful, so capable, so calm
victory over oneself
Where She was once quiet,
She became thunderous
once soft,
now unyielding
It happened so fast,
I didn't even notice I was no longer steering
That I'd been demoted by a jury of Me

We live together in this prison of Ours;
swimming endlessly
in the turbulent waters that is Our stream of consciousness
like a boiling ***
The vessel that We inherited
through no choice of Our own
is in a constant state of disrepair

And there is One Thing on which She and I can agree:
I am Her, and She is Me, and She and I will die as We.

Et tu, Brute?

I used to think that love meant fire
that it was either passionate insanity
or it was nothing
Even after being maddeningly burned
Like antiseptic on a wound
if it hurt it must be working
But then I liked the careful way you liked me
I love the gentle way you love me
and I savor the steady way you steady me
And now I think the only fires in love
should be from our tangled, gentle heat
And the only passionate insanity
from the steady way we savor each other

I chose you
because you liked me
as much as I was learning to like me
And still
even when I didn't.

It's funny how
for the first little while you're together
"love" is a destination, like crossing a finish line
Now that we've arrived, and retired our firsts
My heart skips a beat
knowing you still like me
Because somehow we live in a world where it's common
to be intimate with someone
without enjoying or celebrating their personhood or identity
Maybe we're all just confused about
which is which

There's a hill
And I know what's on the other side.
It's a sweeping landscape of beautiful skies and mountains and wind through my hair, traveling a hundred miles an hour down the *****.
I want it
And it's been so long since my frayed ends have left my shoulders; since I've done anything but trudge this incline.
It's slow going
When this baggage is so heavy
And the sand beneath  my feet shifts and sags with every step.
I would cut these ties if I knew how.
But what if
I need something from somewhere in these pockets? I might miss them; I know nothing else.
Nothing else but my feet, this weight, and this ascent.
And no,
Miley Cyrus, it's not the ******* climb,
It's staying sane. Even though it's been so long, and it's such slow going, and it's so shifty, and so heavy, and there's no end in sight.
And you're just so, so tired.
At the peak,
I hope it's everything I dreamed it would be.
I hope there's a purpose for this baggage, and that the landscapes really are sweeping, that the skies and mountains really are beautiful as they say, that the wind really musses these sweaty strands.
Dear god,
Please don't let these bones break for nothing.

It's strange
the way a cluster of neurons in your head reacting to some particular stimulus can make your heart feel like hamburger meat
As if there really is a hole in there, and everyone can see right through it.
What kind of strange fiction allowed debilitating pain to come from a mere firing sinapse?
How unfitting, that such an incomprehensibly small and silent event begets the destruction of worlds.
You'd think
that with the breaking of a heart should come some ceremony
Smashing of a gong, ringing bells, the flight of a thousand crows or even the sound of breaking glass.
But we're left with heavy dreams that tug at our consciousness and even heavier moments upon waking and remembering that you have a hole there, that everyone can see right through
that didn't even warrant shattering dinnerware.

I am happy.

Finally, happy.

But sometimes, when the wind blows in just right and you can smell that hint of clean before the storm,
Or on quiet nights alone when the house is still and I lie curled under my cool sheets waiting for sleep,

The memory of what you were to me creeps inside and grips my heart.

When I’m blanketed in silence and the slight pressure in my ears is enough,
Or when the telling of another’s grief leaves me feeling heavy, knotted and small,
and then I realize it’s because I know.
I know that we have matching pieces of dark in us, them and me, and they recognize each other.

I am happy.

But to live is longing both to never forget, and never remember. Because forgetting means that piece of your soul and that fragment of your life were never really important, and remembering is proving that it was important enough to break you.

Finally happy.

But sometimes, when my heart beats and I can hear the sound of my own breath, I’m haunted by everything we were, and will never be.

And I remind myself again to forget.