I fell in love with you all over again in a hospital waiting room

I fell in love with the deep purple under your eyes
like delicate bruising

I fell in love with the paleness of your lips
from lack of nutrients

I fell in love with the way you moved slowly
and achingly wrapped in a white blanket the color of your skin

I fell in love with the deep crimson of your blood
as it ran through your IV

I fell in love with you again as I laid with you in the hospital bed at 3 am

we’d been there for 10 hours
and you had a little too much morphine in your system
and a lack of sleep
when you pulled me close and said

“I could really see myself marrying you some day”

and that was right before you kissed me with your dye stained lips
so they could see your insides better on the x-ray

I fell in love with you again when you looked at me with your
big hazel eyes that turn black around the edges

You said god had sent me from heaven
An angel to watch over you

I'm not too sure about that but what I do know is:

I Do

I think I started writing you away before you were gone
I wanted to make sure I could let you go before I did
I wanted to feel numb when I pushed you away
so I wrote
I put you on pages,
typed chapter titles for every single time you looked at me
I wrote until you were a novel,
read you until you were no longer novel,
and put you on a shelf so I could start waiting to forget about you,
a memory trapped in unused synapses

and after I shut your final chapter
but before your pages had started to collect dust,
I realized what I had done
See, I had taken each word from within me,
harvested my heartstrings, plucking them and mixing them to make ink,
The pieces of you I kept in my heart
sat as words on a page, aging
while my heart, once strong, felt too empty
and cavernous to beat under the weight of the sigh pinning down my chest

In all of my preparing
I had forgotten that I am human

I forgot feelings aren't like a fountain
there's no faucet you can turn off to keep them from
running through your mind
no way to stop them from flowing
back through your mouth when you try to
swallow them, mixed with ***, in your best friend's basement,
days after you forgot that you can't turn off a rainstorm
you can try to catch the raindrops in a bucket
but the bucket you'll need is big enough to drown in
you can try to hold out an umbrella
but if the wind is hard enough
you're still going to end up cold and dripping,
tearstained and shivering
waiting until the sun comes out

I forgot that I can't control the weather,
or anything other than myself for that matter
The end of a storm doesn't equate to the appearance of a rainbow

I realized that just because my fingers twisted around yours until
they melted together doesn't mean you'll forgive me
and that you left tattoos on me that only time will fade
and we're both going to be mad
I found out that
every song that ever reminded me of you doesn't cease to exist
I have to re-watch movies because they're different now, somehow,
and just because my hair is probably still all over your clothes
and I talked to you every day
and you gave me months of memories
and thinking about you is gut-wrenching
doesn't mean that I won't spend days praying for patience
and hoping for healing because
***** it, letting you go doesn't mean I don't miss you

"I'll wait for you,"
when we were kids,
you had said.

But Jack's still comatose
and Jill is dead.

You never came.

princess,
don't you know your castle is a prison?
you may live comfortably,
but you live chained.
let me take you away.
I cannot promise you luxury;
I can only promise you love.
I know that this
[love]
is a trifle to trade kingdoms for,
but I ask all the same,
palm upturned and hand outstretched.
let me take you away.
I promise to make it
worth your while.
(I promise to make it
up to you)

I'm entranced,
your hair gleaming like copper
in the summer sun.
(I could swear you never
looked so good)
your laugh is floating on the wind, like
infant arachnids with silk parachutes.
(I could swear nothing ever
sounded so lovely)
your freckled shoulder is exposed to the world,
dappled and *flawless
(Atlas himself had not
shoulders so strong)
(I could swear I was
in love with you)

I don't believe in god, she said
and I tell her it's okay and it is
It's okay to choose science
It's okay to not believe in something you can't see
because a lot of people believe in almighty, invisible, love
and end up broken by people who have never heard the word
It's okay to be angry when things go all wrong
It's okay
I will love you as if nothing is different and it is okay
but when I stand in the pews,
surrounded by song and smiles,
I feel sorry for her*
because life has picked me up and thrown me down
and God caught me, dusted me off, took me in his arms, and said it's okay
I love you as if nothing is different and it is okay
I believe in God because of the two girls who hear the gospel and smile
like they are receiving birthday gifts,
their brows furrowed in concentration before they speak,
trying to bring His words to life in their voices,
trying to bring His vision to the eyes of everyone around them,
they smile all through Mass every time like it is the best day of their lives
you can't make up something like that
whether you think He is real or not
you cannot fake the look on their faces when they speak
you cannot fake the inspiration I feel hearing them
you cannot fake the community that surrounds me
as I am surrounded by singing and smiles
to you He may not exist but to me He is everything
I believe in God because fathers drown themselves
one night at a time in a bar
until they are washed away
and families are shattered,
leaving bits of glass and cuts on wives
and half-orphaned children
and somehow those children keep going
somehow they survive the worst day of their lives
and somehow they still hope for something better than what they had
even when they were dealt the worst cards,
they still smile and laugh and dream the biggest dreams
and somehow those wives still go to Mass
and somehow they raise three children alone
and they work too ******* hard for not enough rewards
and they keep going even though they could quit
and they are all scarred by this one thing, but He tells them he has given them to each other and to look at their scars and to look for shattered glass around other people and to minimize the cuts and scrapes they feel and to sweep it up before anyone steps on it
I believe in God because when I think about all of the things my life could have been
the only way for me to forgive him is to pile each complaint like coals in my heart and let the Holy Spirit light it on fire
I believe in God because two people who numb themselves with pills, hide themselves in selfishness, and deserve nothing but the worst
were blessed with an angel in the form of a four foot tall boy
with bright eyes and a quick mind
with a smile that lights a room
with happiness that is impossible to hide
with curiosity that is unending
with everything that they are not
and yet He gave them a chance to make themselves into something better
and, just in case, he gave the boy an aunt and an uncle and some cousins to watch over him
but his parents can not complain that they were never blessed
the proof is in the boy's smile, his young mind, still able to forgive them

I believe in God because nothing will ever be perfect
I will complain and be hurt and hold grudges and never know exactly the right thing to say
But, once, I picked up each of my fears like bricks, setting it down on a sheet of paper
and I watched it burn in His name
And I felt lighter than the smoke that the breeze carried up and into the night
And everything was okay

I believe in God because if I can't have one stable thing somewhere out there
what is left for me to believe in?

I hope she finds something, too

I can only
slowly tear myself to pieces
in attempts to be rid of
what has been imprinted
onto my soul
etched into my bones
as it mingles with my blood flow
I poke my fingers
through the hole in my rib cage
ripping out the mangled fragments
one tiny bit at a time
until I am as empty
as I feel