the back of your truck was painted a brick red, with the previous blue showing through the cracked paint.

I remember the drive up to the top of the hill with you

Bon Iver playing softly on the radio as you grabbed my hand

singing me the words to Skinny Love

and even though the parts of me weren’t skinny

you loved me anyway.



We reached the top of the hill, and everything around us was dark

the moon was new, the sky blackened like a bruise

the car lights shut off and I jump out of the cab

"too short for trucks" I murmur

I rub my eyes to look up at the sky and gasp

stars freckle the once black sky, casting a luminescent glow over the hills

and on your face

twinkling in your eyes

and I remember thinking how beautiful you were that night.



You pull all of the blankets you brought out of the back seat

and begin forming a makeshift mattress in the bed of your truck

I watch you in awe

watch the muscles in your arm contract as you work hard

to make this night perfect for me.

"I love you, you know that, right?" I whisper to you

you lean over the edge and kiss my lips

and say

"I know".



Helping me into the truck I find my favorite blanket

the plaid one with the wine stain from late night endeavors with you

and wrap myself tight

you wriggle your way in with me, throwing another over us

and I look up

amazement finds my eyes and my mouth is agape

but you don’t see it

I look over to you and see you gawking at me

I whisper what, and shuffle your hair

and you smile coyly

"The stars pale in comparison to the beauty that lies next to me"

I grab his face and find his lips

kissing him over and over

somewhere in between kisses and stargazing we find each other

half naked in the back of your truck

and I’ve never felt so alive.

don't fall in love with me
because I'll be the reason
at 2 a.m. you won't get sleep
holding onto me tight as I shake with insomnia
and as you stroke my back
the insomnia will take you over as well

never fall in love with me
I'm damaged goods
a box dented on all corners
broken glass littering the insides
don't fall in love with me
because I'll cut you with the shards
and not know I did it until you're bleeding onto my hands

falling in love with me is a mistake
because the anxiety in my body
is enough to bust a volcano
and I'll push it on you
until you're my own personal inferno
and I won't realize it
until the burning ash is raining down on me

I wouldn't fall in love with me, if I were you
because this particularly beautiful facade
can turn bone shatteringly devastating
in the matter of seconds
all it takes is a trigger
and I will break
without warning
crushing every single beautiful thing in my path
i won't realize it until you have disappeared into the blackness
it'll be too late, for me

Ernest Hemingway once said to write hard and clear about what hurts
what he didn't say
was how hard it would be
to write about the raw feeling my heart would get
when you ripped your part away
and he did not speak of how difficult it would be
to choke back everything
and leave it for the night sky to listen to my broken cries for you

he never mentioned in that quote
what it would be like to find you with another
and how i'd have to feign happiness
when all i saw around me was blackness
and how when i saw you for the first time
after the storm
you'd look at me like i was a foreigner
someone who never kissed your lips
or touched your skin
and while my fingertips burned with recognition of the soft yet hard skin of you
you turned the other cheek, the one i kissed endlessly

when i read that quote
i thought long and hard about what hurts
and the first thought that came to me
was you
it will always be you