and i loved you like the ocean to the shore:
reaching, reaching, touching for a heartbeat -
before drawing back again, tentative.

and i missed you like the sun to the moon.
i guess we were never meant to touch.

and i forgot you like the water to the flame,
for you burned bright, once long ago,
until i turned you out and left you behind.

i'll make you a deal:
let me be okay tonight,
and i can die tomorrow.

and somewhere in-between
i'm okay and it's fine
i lost myself.

ley lines,* she says,
and i say they're not real.

but i remember
whispers at three a.m.,
making each other laugh
when we just want to cry,
secrets told on sidewalks
and ski lifts.

but i know
that she's the only one
i can be not just myself,
but anyone with.

but i know
that she's the only one
i've shown my words to.

and maybe -
maybe invisible strings
that laugh at distance
to connect us together
seem a bit more
real.

in her eyes are cities rising, falling; they rise once more with kings and queens, with democracy and change for the better, with heartbeats once unheard beating out sonatinas

her voice is a battlefield all its own: cries of man and beast and god, all hungry for war, but the aftertaste is bitter like olive bark and sea salt

she smells of blood when she laughs and rain when she cries (her screams feel like thunder)

her face shows what has been, but the soot on her palms hides what could be; only the fates can see it clearly

*oracles were not made for gods to love, but to keep them in their place

preemptive missing you
is the hardest part of love
because you're still here
but in my mind you're gone

i used to think that i could beat my depression.

roll the dice and lie awake until midnight
thinking of all the ways tomorrow could be worse.

skip a turn and sneak down late at night
to steal a kitchen knife - just in case.

take one, three, seventeen pills
to reach the unknown bonus round
where for once i might win.

and if i lag behind the players beside
just cry until they drown in my tears.