You only wear dark clothes when you're sad
now you're wearing black

My hands are the coldest you’ll ever hold
I think my heart is too

I’ll never be big
or small enough to fit in your arms
                                              I always kiss
   the wrong person goodnight

Now ask me how many times you kissed me
then how many times I actually felt something

          Maybe we are just  a lesson that
has gone unlearned
                        Or maybe I just don't know how to end this.

I realize

       Now

    You're

The Reason

        I've

     Been

  *Holding
          Back

Dear reader,


It won't be long before they electrocute the trees with candy colored Christmas lights. Soon everything will be gone: memories, glances, the year. Every thing will dissolve into nostalgia and our lives will become more patchwork and less hopeful. Soul-crushingly sweet our smiles will be, as we watch that disguised meteorite crash into our existence.

Her name was Reno. Her dad joked he named her so because she was the result of a gamble gone wrong.

I could see the stitching around her eyes start to falter, as tears slipped out like a young nineteen year-old girl, running out of the back of a double-wide. Away. Away from it all. Leaving her father, the mechanic who could only fix things with his hands. Running through a field as shimmering as her nails, touching the tall grass with her short fingers.

"I'm not trailer trash," she said, "I've just had it rough."

Reno could see things others couldn't see. Frequently she painted wrecked cars, and I asked why, to which she explained, "Some accidents are allowed to be beautiful."

I fell for her the way her jaw drops after one of my inappropriate jokes: quickly and with such joy.

She had the same answer to when I asked if she liked movies and if she missed her mom.

"Of course I do, Josh," she looked at me and smiled, "Hey buck, have you ever seen True Romance?"

A woman after my own heart.

We watched Christian Slater shoot Drexl, and, like a bullet to the chest, she placed her hand over my heart.

"My, oh my, are you sure that rib cage is big enough for that thing, Mr. Haines?"

She looked a little like Patricia Arquette, but identical to Michelle Williams.

"Are you aware that you look like Michelle Williams?"

Reno ran her hands up my legs, across my torso, and held her hands at my jaw,"Are you aware of how good of a person you are, John Mayer?"

"Ah, yeah. I've gotten that since high school."

She smiled, looked down and up at me,"No, the part about you being a good person? ...You're the drawing on my wall."

I didn't know what that meant.

"I had this drawing-so terrible-it was of the sunset on our hill in Welling Valley," she looked into me and down, while smiling,"Anyway, the sun would kiss the grass every evening, and one day I thought I'd draw it and keep it in my room. When every thing got ugly with my daddy's drinking, and when he beat me something awful, I wanted something to remind me that the light sometimes goes away but will always be back another day. You're my light, Josh. You're the next day after nineteen years of cussing and drinking."

We made love on my bed, as, through the window, the sun bathed our bodies. Her body was a sculpture and her voice was as soft as her lips. I was terrified.

Pulling her hair back, she stood at the foot of my bed, naked,"Are you scared of little ole' me? You look as white as a ghost."

"No, I've never felt so alive... You're so ******* beautiful."

Reno and I lain in bed while Parks and Rec played on the television. Her index and ******* walked across my chest and stopped as she asked, "Josh, have you ever been in love?"

I touched my fingers on hers, studying them with my eyes, and then I looked at her, "Yes, once."

"What was it like?"

I thought I'd feel pain but instead I smiled, "Fantastic, fleeting, and always a little out of reach."

She cooed, "I can't wait until I think I love you like nobody else."

"Me too."



Sincerely,


Joshua Haines

I did not plan on falling in love with you.
We were friends,
but that night you kissed me was something else.
For the first time, I felt fire on my lips and although I questioned your intentions,
I wanted to feel your mouth part with mine over and over and over and over and -- well, you get the point.

You never planned on making any moves because of what happened in April.
But, to keep this between the two of us,
I still feel awful every day.
I know I hurt you before but that was one time too many.
Never again will I break you.
Never again will I let my sloppy drunk kiss pull you in
just so I can wake up the next morning feeling some form of regret.
I will never understand why you were so persistent
or why you ever forgave me
or why you let me in again
but something about you is just oh-so special.

You are the biblical definition of perfection.
You are humble
and kind
and honest
and naive
and extremely insecure.
But I guess I have no one to blame but myself for that one.

And please stop saying I deserve better because you're wrong.
I deserve you,
nothing more, nothing less
and why can't you get that through your thick ******* skull?

I was always taught that to love is more important than to be loved
but love is a two way street.
Love is that busy road down the block with no crosswalks.
Yeah, you have to be patient and wait for the perfect time to run across
but what's on the other side holds more beauty then you could've ever imagined.

And if I could go back and change a thing, I wouldn't dare.
You make my heart smile whenever I'm with you.
You are, at worst, the rising sun.
And really, what is living for if not for falling in love?
You are magnificent.
And one day,
I will find the right words to say.
One day,
I will be able to form rational thoughts and coherent sentences explaining the things that can only be written on paper.
One day,
I will be able to tell you how kissing you was like swerving into oncoming traffic
and being without you was the hardest thing I never learned to cope with.
One day,
you'll know.
And it'll all make sense.

And even though it happened anyways,
I swear,
I did not plan on falling in love with you.

Please don’t call me beautiful
when your hands are between my legs,
and god forbid you say it as a seg-way
between you’re so hot
and my caution, your response
you’re sure you don’t want to?
I’m pretty sure the way my body looks,
nineteen and stress-infused with an Oreo belly
isn’t really what you pictured beneath my blouse,
and I’m positive you didn’t listen
to the story about my dad and the bad prom dress
because you cared. It was just sentiment. You said it was beautiful,
but really you wanted me to believe the act
like a description in the Playbill
and ride that trust all the way until the curtain dropped.
Please don’t call me beautiful
when the word ******* is before it
or if we are ******* because making love
is for married couples and you don’t even want me
sticking around for the ****** sunrise that peers
underneath your shade every morning.

Tell me I’m beautiful when I’m crying—
crack me open and watch the colors bleed
like a painting that hasn’t dried. Admire
the light that peaks through the clear parts
like a windowpane, no blinds.
Tell me I’m beautiful when I’m laughing,
when I’m reading my favorite part of a book,
when I’m stuffing my face with peanut-butter
pretzel bites and I haven’t washed my sheets in weeks,
and I’ll know you can’t be lying
because I’ve listened to the waves your heart makes
when you’re sleeping and I’ve called your smile
to the surface many times when you’ve tried
to deflect it back inside. You’ll know that
and you’ll know I’m beautiful.  
Call me beautiful
when you’re not even trying.
Call me beautiful when you’re by yourself
and the smell of my hair is still on your pillow,
or the memory of how dumb I sounded
singing my favorite song breaks your heart back
to the best little pieces.