there's a war inside my body
between my head and my heart
and with no end in sight
it threatens to tear me apart
because my heart says stay
love
endure
and hope
but my heart says cut
run
disconnect
and protect what is left of your heart

because being with you is a paradox
both endless bliss and torture
at once contentment and devastation
somehow heartache and perfect love
because my heart is a place you will always have a home
but i am cursed to be forever alone
a drifter
a bookbinder fixing broken hearts, rather than broken spines
somehow able to repair everyone
even the most devastated soul

everyone

except

myself

i am supposed to be letting go
moving on, getting over you, and so
tell me how it is that once again
i found myself this morning
rolling over when a phone alarm went off and then
realizing it was your alarm not mine
and that your duvet and sheets were the only things adorning
our bare-skinned bodies as we lay together
and that warmth on my back was your fingers tracing down my spine
while you pulled me closer to you and snoozed your alarm after briefly debating whether
you were ready to get up or needed a few more moments
of just us, bodies entwined
the lightest of touches received as encouragements
serving to once and over again spellbind
in the soft morning light drifting in your windows
as we once again play the parts of slaves to our libidos
choosing to stubbornly ignore our established credos
in favor of experiencing the lows and crescendos
that inevitably follow any amount of time spent with each other's favorite ******
because i am yours and you are mine
and it's gotten to the point that we really shouldn't bother to deny
that this is not some passing thing
and what we had - have - isn't just a fling
but i guess you need time to get your head straight
to sort out exactly what it is that you feel, perhaps
so i will try to be patient and not remonstrate
but it's hard when i'm the one still in love
just waiting, wishing, hoping that maybe you will relapse

if i didn't care
this whole thing would be easy
i'd be cool, detached, and distant
and we could so easily be coexistent

if i didn't care
trying to talk about my feelings
wouldn't leave me nauseated
and losing you wouldn't have felt like a limb being amputated

if i didn't care
i wouldn't keep trying so hard to make my heart colder
only to find myself once again crying in your arms, on your shoulder

if i didn't care
i wouldn't look at you like i still do
letting you see it in my eyes
how much i still love you

if i didn't care
this whole thing would be easy
if i didn't care
but i do

razor edges
soft layers part
carnelian blooms
a sigh of relief

because this time it is a pain of my own doing

the knife bites in
and tears burn behind tightly shut lids
as my life drips down my wrist
and the numbness recedes again

when i cut the back of my wrists
i was afraid to die
now
i cut the insides
because i

want

to die

you,
you were going to break my heart
and me?
i was definitely going to let you
i think i knew it from the start
but somehow that never stopped me
from falling for you hook, line, and sinker
letting you in past all my defenses
and then on that cold april morning
you spoke those words
free of all pretenses
but fully aware of the consequences

it broke our hearts in unison
your decision to jettison
what it was we'd found
this love beyond all comparison
and it was together that we mourned the loss of love on your part
and my inability to let go, to move on and let my heart be unadorned

i know in my heart you were it for me
i am never going to love again, not really
and now i have to learn to live with this pain
like an amputee learns to live with their phantom limb

i thought i already knew how it felt
to cope with depression when you're in love
but it turns out that what i had before wasn't really love
or at least he didn't know how to love me like you do
because
this time
things are different

the slightest shift in my mood
and you can feel it in the air
and you are reaching for me
making sure that i am okay
and me
so used to being pushed away
and told i'll be okay
i don't know what to do
but fall for you, just a little harder

when i break down and you're there to lift me up
to stick the broken pieces back together
never complaining when you cut yourself on a jagged edge
i find myself at a loss for words
to tell you how much it means to have you patiently reassemble me
and so when words fail i reach into chords
simple progressions and notes
that twine together into something beautiful
all this in the hopes
that somehow i can show you
what you've come to mean to me

it's the smell of old spice aftershave on my face in the morning
because you kissed me before you left for work
the feel of soft, worn-in flannel sheets under my bare skin
because i woke up in your bed today instead of my empty one
the gentle scratch of five o' clock shadow on my cheek when you hold me close to you
the green in your eyes when you smile at me
the lingering way you run your fingers down my bared back
raising goosebumps down my spine

and then the dopamine kicks in
and i think i'm addicted
to everything about the way that you're not like anyone else
and you look at me like i'm not, either