If love is a drug,
I'm just dying for a hit.

It's sad and it's lonely,
but I miss the way it lit,
the mundane humdrum routines,
of this dismal, taxing world.

Just as I'm sober
I pour a drink again
and I ponder,
can I lose myself
as a friend?

Just when it's over
I want to be under again
and I can't find myself,
because I've hidden
and lost in the end.

How many more times will circumstances make a mockery of me?
Drop a guy into my life who, on paper, should be just right for me.
Check marks in each box down the hypothetical list.
Allow me to like him and go on a few dates, only to realize
that I'm not sure he's what I really wanted.
That I'm not sure I want him as much as he wants me.
To let doubt drip into my heart, and seep into my every thought.
Until I'm convinced that I'm leading him on and trapped
into telling him that we should just be friends.
I cringe and collapse in on my self loathing.  
How could I do this to someone?
How dare I try a few dates and be wicked enough
to be honest about how I feel?
I never wanted to hurt you.  I never want to hurt anyone.
Ever.
But how am I supposed to fall for someone whom I feel
is constantly trying, straining, to be what I want?
When I'm not even sure what I want, or who I want, in the first place?....

It all comes down to this.
I'm just not appealing to guys my age.
Apparently by simply being myself I'm intimidating.
I come off as too mature, too collected, too confident, too smart.
I'll never play the role of stupid and easy,
but I'm not confident in the slightest.
I doubt myself and wince at my reflection daily.
Maybe some nights I just don't feel like showing everything.
Maybe there are parts of my skin I'd like to save for a lover.
My idea of commitment is too old fashioned for my generation.
I'm expected to be fast and easy and vulnerable in all the right places.
I'd much rather wait instead of wake up in some mistake's bed.

If finding the "one" is possible
when will we become two?
When will I finally find you
and we'll be lost in each other.

When will I find you?
I wonder about you
so often now
it seems I spend
most days in a cloud.

When will I find you?
Spotting you in the crowd
like a fallen star amongst ashes.

It's the textbook definition of insanity,
you and me.
I just want it to be
called what it really is,
I've always craved honesty.
Yet you're afraid of me
of what would happen to "us"
if there was no longevity.
But "us" already IS
we're already everything
a real couple would be.
Call me crazy
because you can't call me your girlfriend.

slam the door.
Sometimes in life a door won't close,
until you put your hand on it.
Who gives a **** about windows or other doors opening?
Some doors ought to be ******* closed.
So close them, lock them, latch them, and bolt them.
Then take a breath, and keep walking.

Slam that **** door,
take the effort into your own hands,
and feel the strength and freedom that brings.

We all have one of those doors,
so why is yours still open?

So this really the end.
You don't want me as a friend.
Can't make it work or try to bend.
There's nothing left of my heart to mend.

So this is really the end.
There's no more texts to send.
Can't form a point to make.
There's nothing but this empty ache.

So this is really the end.
No arguments to defend.
My hands just to start to shake.
Feeling hollow and so small,
why'd I ever love at all.

So this is really the end.
This is really the end.
It's really the end.
Really the end.
The end.

Dare to be vulnerable
expose your beating heart
and the emotions pulsing,
within your fragile frame.

Feel it. Feel everything. Bare all.
You open your eyes and realize,
it's not a nest of feathers
that now warms and consoles you.

It's the many folded wings,
of your loved ones embracing you.

I hereby compile these words
representative of these moments
that I truly don't want to think of anymore.

I gather them here with the hopes
that maybe this can be my discard pile.
Just maybe they won't eventually loop their way back in
like the broken record I am.
Maybe my heart and mind can get
some long, sustained, peace
that's so truly ******* deserved.

I'll never forget the way my mom looked at me
after we just broke up
and you left my house for the last time.
"Oh honey you loved someone with your whole heart
and it didn't work out... I'm so sorry,"
she whimpered, eyes glistening with tears that wouldn't fall.

I'll never forget our "friendship"
that was essentially you expecting
the same emotional labor from me
with increasingly more conversations
centered around you and only you,
and heaven forbid if I tried to give you advice.

I'll never forget New Years Day of 2020.
My family's health crisis,
and your utter silence
or lack of any semblance of care for me.
Where were you, pal?
Later that same day my world would come crashing down
as that same day I learned of your true colors
and just how selfish and beastly they were.
How I recoiled when your handsome grin
turned to snarling fangs
when I wouldn't give you what you want
and how you tried to tear it
or manipulate it out of me
for the next several days until I chose
complete 'radio silence' from you
blocking you from every possible thing
as I saw no other option for my own health.

I'll never forget having to play music
every time I showered
in the following months
or my mind would just attack itself
going back through what you did
how it all went down, a play by play
again and again and again.

I'll never forget finally admitting to my family
that you reached out to me
with the most vague, pathetic, half assed, excuse for an apology
I have ever had the displeasure to read.
I'll never forget my older brother, so nonchalant,
saying
"Well yeah, he called you the love of his life so I kind of figured
at one point or another he'd try to reach out."
And the fun little breathless dagger twist  
I felt in my chest in that moment.

I think I just have to make peace with the fact
that I'll never understand how you can treat someone
as horrifically as you did me
and still sleep at night.
It's one thing to do what you did
but another to lie to me about it
and entirely another to do your due diligence
to try and villainize me amongst our mutual friends for it
when you and I both know all I sought was the truth
from you
and to stand up for myself.

And oh thank god I did
I wouldn't have survived your emotional vampirism,
on top of everything else I had to contend with in 2020.
I hereby submit what was 'us' to fade and die with these digital letters.
I continue on my path in hopes of finding and securing
a true love that lasts, grows and develops with me.

Oh pretty, broken heart thief.
What was it that drew you to me?
Were you thirsting for life’s meaning
or something warm to squeeze?

Well handsome, morose heart thief
you’ve come and gone.
And now my chest is no longer warm.
You swept me off my feet
then left me
so torn.

There's something about loving two broken men in a row
that really brings a girl down.

Twice I wanted to be the savior,
the angel whispering sweet nothings,
the candle flame in a dark cave.

Twice that flame was snuffed out,
without even a faint spark remaining.

Twice we were over,
twice they collapsed in on themselves,
and twice they tried to pull me down with them.
And thus twice something shot up from within me.
A wall, a barrier, a shield, a protective layer.

It's gentle, it doesn't suffocate me
and yet
its presence is nearly tangible.

I felt its presence most when I met another man.
An old soul like me, so kind, so tender.
An emotionally mature, self aware adult.

9 months we tried to carry this relationship to term,
and yet I could never bring myself to bear love for you.

9 months I watched you from within this cocoon around my heart.
Hoping, wanting, waiting, for another spark of passion.
But you were too scared of rejection to be that vulnerable
to play your hand, put it all out on the line.
And I'm so sorry but I just didn't have it
that kind of vulnerability
in me a third time.

You saw my Walls and you acknowledged their presence.
You understood why I had them, you could tell I was healing.
To you they were stone - rigid and solid between us.
In moments for me they were cellophone, so amiable and flimsy if only they had been tried.
And so the cocoon remained, just that, a cocoon.
And we sunk into a routine of comfort, niceties, and small gifts.
A pandemic pod of a relationship in this lonely world.

I will always have nothing but fondness for you.
Thank you for lifting me up, for treating me right,
and making me feel desirable over and over again.

For the next year I will sit in solitude,
no one's savior or angel, and I'm okay with that.
I'll make peace with the cave,
and wait to light the candle in some other dream.