try as I may, and try
as I might,
I can't figure you out.

Your intentions are just as jumbled to me
as the clothes strewn across my bedroom floor.

You are the word stuck on the tip of my
tongue
that my lips and mind just can not form into a sound.

who are you?
who have you been?
who will you become?

when I think of you
I reach out desperately,
grasping for a formed,
complete,
or plausible thought-
but my fingers fumble in the blurred darkness for the words that would give me the clarity I so utterly crave.

try as I may, and try
as I might,
I can't figure you out.

I am a walking memorial of every person
who has loved me
and that I have loved.

I keep pieces of every soul that walk into my life.

I collect books from past loves,
never opening the pages because their lives lay safely inside,
their love hidden amongst the words.
On my shelf they stay,
the memory of their love comforting me and reminding me that
love
and life,
go on.

I collect pictures of friends and strangers who have shaped me into the person I am today.
Hidden away in a box across the room,
the memory of their absence haunting me,
but in my mind
and actions,
they live on.