he loved me the way
a dog nurses an open wound.
smothering, all teeth barred
and tongues.
And this won't be like
crush a lightbulb
in your fist.
more like slowly removing glass
from the inside of your palm.
and i loved him the way
i would spit it onto his voicemail
every syllable dripping with
the shot of whiskey
i downed for courage.
and i'd feel as ashamed as i do
going to work in
last nights clothes.
cringing.

you could have me.
just ask.

You pointed a finger and it
went right between my ribs,
through my gut,
and cracked my spine on the way out.
I'll tell you something about blame, baby,
if you dish it out, you gotta be able to take it.
If I'm on my way down, you're in the passenger seat.
You'll never be able to cut me out of you,
we're both the cancer the other has,
I've accepted it and learned to live with the sickness.
Your turn.
You wanna point fingers, darling, do you?
Cause my tongue is loaded like a gun,
and I have a couple things to say.
You opened the door, and I'm sorry it slammed your ***
on the way out.
You have no claim on my stakes.
And I think it's time for you to go.
My cancer.
My sleeping sickness.
My static lullaby.

oh how ignorant i must've been.
to think the best things in the world were
hot coffee and cigarettes,
drinking on the beach while fireworks went off.
the overwhelming sense of reality I'd get when
the wind would pull me out to sea
and waves would kiss my thighs.
these were the best things,
not but a week ago.
and now i know with nothing but
absolut conviction,
the best thing
in this world
is waking up to kisses
on my shoulders
from a man
i hardly know
yet i know is one of
us.

goodmorning, beautiful.

You’re dreaming again, and it’s love at first sight. You’re walking home and it’s love at first sight and if you could only taste him your heart would explode. You’d burn from the inside out. Every nerve writhing in explicit ecstasy, a thousand tiny deaths over and over, and as your feel your lungs expand you are attuned to this earth, you feel every atom brush against your throat. He’s like a poison, he’s like pinot noir, he’s like orange crush and it burns when he takes hold of you. You’re walking home and it’s snowing but your eyelashes are blocking it out so all you see is him. You’re walking home and it’s cold but you’re burning from the inside out. You’re walking home and your legs can’t hold you anymore. You’re walking home and you start to fall, but not in love, and no one's there to catch you, no one even sees you stumble over your own words and fall without moving your feet or walk without hitting the ground. Just shadows in the snow banks, witnesses to your frailty.
· me,

You left
like a bullet
through the back of
a suicidals skull.
there's no exit
wound.
sometimes i wish
there was.

Every other guy before you,
somewhere between midnight conversations, interrupted by coffee stains and the dreams that woke me up to talk to them, I fell in love.  One listened to history podcasts to fall asleep. One made me skip class so he could drive me two hours out of town and show me the home he grew up in. Another, used to draw my hands on pamphlets hidden under the pews at the back of the church. And each of these things is the seed, sun, and soil for my affection which maybe you understand, because someone does something you respect, admire, and want and all of a sudden, bam, they're so much more than they were before. And with every single person, I realized. I realized I was in love with the presence of their words and the feel of their existence.
But I did not love them.
I met you, and you wrote love stories on my flesh with your finger tips, and I saw your eyes groan with exhaustion in the morning, and you taught me how to be a bigger, better, stronger person. Every day with you feels like a Sunday morning with crisp bedsheets and lazy smiles, and you took me until my life wasn't mine anymore. You took me as a hostage, you got inside my head, piece by piece you disassembled my suit of armor and showed me how to love a person, rawly and deeply and I could never be the same after that. I loved who you are. The way your hands held my hipbones and your lips stole the end of my sentences, when we would drive home from the beach in your car the sunset would be blossoming with love. I don't know what to tell you, other than a giraffes heart ways 22 pounds, and when flies fall in love their entire brain is rewired to only knowing loving each other, and when one dies their memory goes blank. And my loving you was never about what I could get out of it, or what you could make me, but how full I could make you. And if I can't love you as a lover, I will love you as a friend, or however the song goes. But I know what I need in this world, and it's hidden behind your knees and in your hair and sometimes sits between your shoulder blades. And I know sometimes you can't decide if you want to *******, break down and cry, or eat a whole pizza but the entire spectrum of who you are reflects all the pages I could fill with the reasons why you are a spectacular person, Adrian, and you are the one, sealed with a kiss, you are my sun and stars, my stormy night, and you are stained onto my skin like the scar on my knee.

And with my ****** and romantic "experience," that you think I have more of, I promise you no one could fill the space you left. And even though what I gave you and how I loved you might not be what you want, I can also promise you no one will feel like that about you ever again. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing, you decide. And even if I don't have you, I will have every single memory. I will have the drive-in, I will have the row, I will have lying in the grass outside my house, holding you. And I will never forget what you made me.