do not date a girl
who writes.
she will internalize
everything,
carve poems
into your eyelashes
instead of
kissing them,

she will analyze you,
calculate age
from the rings
your coffee cup
leaves
instead of refilling it.

she will memorize
the way your
lips curl around steam,
but not that you
take it
two sugars,
no cream.

she will read your
palm instead of
holding it
against her chest.

she will not
blink
when you leave,
because she is
already
romanticizing it.

I want to softly whisper
incomplete poems
on your collar bones
that don't rhyme with anything
but your heavy breathing.

I want to bury my face
in the curves of your neck
because you smell like the winter clouds
and I've been gazing at the sky
since you left.

It's at 6:30 in the morning,
When the sky is just waking,
Pale blues and yellows and
The touch of peach on the horizon

When I wake for no good reason
And stare out at the sky, admiring.
And I look down at you next to me
Breathing softly and sweetly in sleep.

It is then that I wish, should you stir,
Turning over to see me, that
You had something stunningly beautiful
To see when you wake as well.

Some face that makes you catch breath
For a moment, and your eyes become
Fixated.
A perfect complexion, perhaps.
Rosey, defined lips just the perfect shape.

If I had deep ocean eyes or ones
Of solid gold.
Maybe the perfect amount of scattered freckles.
A straight, modest nose. Impeccable brows.
Soft, silky smooth hair that always looks done, even when it's not.

I wish I had these things to offer
At 6:30 in the morning.
In those brief shared moments
Before we return to sleep.

They say beauty is relative,
It is about "perspective."
And though you may think I'm something special,
My perspective is one who feels she owes something more
To the man who deserves the world.

I've been thinking about you a lot lately
The way your smile curves
How your eyes light up
The tenderness of your voice

I think about your words and wisdoms
Your love of life
Your passion

I think about the friend I had in you

But you're not the one who holds me at night now, are you?
You're not the one who says "I love you" and receives it in return
You are not he, he is not you.

Vacate the space behind my brain and stop trying to compete with the new.

Ghosts don't win battles against bodies.

Sometimes I wonder
If this yearning for some sustainable love
Is just a facade; a decoy.

Maybe what I'm really in love with
Is the going back-and-forth in my mind
The continual restlessness and idea that there is something more

Maybe my mind is my own true love
Maybe I am my own soulmate.
Convinced I'm supposed to be looking for some person
When I'm supposed to be looking for myself