i've been in my bed, which will always be the bed,
                     as in, the bed,
      where we spent the last of our virginities
in the push of hips and hands and two-note gasps,
and i've been thinking.

i've been thinking of
     all the firsts i gave you and
         all the things you meant to me
and how
  you will always be the boy who
     sat on a table and sang me my favorite song in front of everyone and
          didn't give a **** that his guitar was out of tune.
now that
is a ******* gesture.

i've been thinking that i need to learn to look you in the eye again.

i've been thinking of how
   all i've done for the past three weeks is walk away from you.
       and how just because you walked away from me first
                                        in the biggest way possible,
                                                     that isn't fair.
you deserve more than that
    for how hard you've tried.
i've been thinking that i haven't let myself see that very well.

i've been thinking of how
  right now
    i'm beginning to feel like i could talk to you, and make myself stay,
          and look you in the eye, and not hurt,
or like i could never talk to you again, and still be okay.
i've been thinking that that's a start
                 to something friendship-shaped and okay.

i've been thinking that maybe i'll take a break from you for awhile,
      maybe patch up the sore places in my heart, talk to some new people.
   learn some things, you know?

i've been thinking that maybe i'll talk to you tonight,
      and for the first time i won't be bitter. there will not be underlying pain in my words.
there will be no accusations. no corners to back you into. no hidden hatred. no left-over love.
     there will be just you. and just me. and we'll be fine, one of these days. i'll be fine.

i've been thinking that that can start
    as soon as i let it.

ask me to rate my pain on a scale of 1 to 10,
   and i'll give you a crippling number.
  an above-10 number.

ask me to look the boy who no longer loves me in the eye
and i'll shy away. i'll avert my own eyes.
i will walk by him as if we are strangers,
       and i will feel the seams on my heart pop open,
one by one.

ask me if i feel like breaking
   and hurting.
ask me about the emptiness in my chest
        and the grey behind my eyes. ask me if it hurts my heart to beat.
    ask me if my blood is still in the habit of quickening when he's close.
ask me if i regret anything,
and i'll tell you that i regret everything.

      ask me if i love him
      and ask me if i want him.
           for those, i won't have an answer.
           only silence. only thought.

ask me if parts of me hate him,
  and i'll tell you about the low burning in my belly,
         the hating-blaming-burning
and the ******-up way it makes me feel.

ask me if i miss him.
i'll tell you that i am hollow.
i'll tell you that my whole body, my whole heart, is nothing but missing him.
i'll tell you i might just blow away
   without his love to anchor me.
i'll tell you that i feel absolutely empty

and it will be the truth.

Shot in the
    light of achieve-
         (meant all the world)

filibuster then, fill your heart until you've
     busted, down and rusted and
            caked with regret
  
  never stand between yourself and
        falling, or love will grow hot like
   shower-heads turned too far, like
       grainy distorted sight streaming out our
                  smiling ears, ceaseless cerulean

    (I'm dull gold, and you
       said you liked polishing)

i'm sorry that things were easy
until i made them hard.

  i'm sorry i stayed mad so long when we would fight.
i'm sorry that i got jealous of your friends
    and that i didn't say "i love you" back sometimes.
i'm sorry i was so shy around strangers and you weren't.
i'm sorry i didn't try harder to make you happy.
i'm sorry i have trouble looking at you.
i'm sorry i can't talk to you.
i'm sorry that i'm starting to cut you off.

   i'm sorry we never got to make love the way i wanted to -
    properly, you know? with a bed and candles and all the time in the world.

i know you wanted that.

     i'm sorry we'll never spend the night somewhere together.
         i'm sorry we'll never be able to wear shorts in the nighttime and be somewhere outside and look up at the stars and feel the warmth of the air.
                i'm sorry we loved each other in the winter time, because it's ugly, and even at our most beautiful it was hard.

  i'm sorry you felt like you had to make things up to my parents.
    i'm sorry you never did.

i'm sorry i sometimes wouldn't tell you what was wrong.
i'm sorry i would cry when i got drunk
   and that i couldn't be alone at parties
and that i lost your jacket that one time.

          i'm sorry you fell out of love with me.
       i'm sorry for your left-over feelings that you don't know what to do with.
               i'm sorry for our rough patches and our arguments. i'm sorry if i could have done more.

i'm sorry if you feel guilty. i'm sorry if it's my fault. i'm sorry if i pushed you away.

i'm sorry if it seems like i hate you. i'm trying to let you in.
it *****, and it's hard.

i'm sorry it's taking so long.

Gravity doesn't make people
fall in love
but I'm caught in your orbit
lilting through space
weightless
as galaxies tangle our souls
with their arms

now and then
a shooting star
settles on your cheek
like a snowflake in autumn

you don't brush it off
you shine

I promised you i’d plant those **** pink roses but
that Sunday morning that you broke me in ways
even my best friend didn’t think was possible

and i realized it was probably a good thing
that the whole thing was a production of strictly pretend;
a play, a script, an authors first mistake-

that day, i clipped every last flower
off and set the remains in a little drawer
with shards of glass i broke in my sleep
because i loved you every single day

despite my
i’m over you i’m over you i’m over you
that i repeated with the foolish hope of
convincing somebody that air still funnels through my lungs

and it’s come to my attention that
i’d pick my head over my heart but that is only
because i am a toy car abandoned by every single
pair of hands to wind it up and let it go

And yes, I will reduce my emotions to dust or
enlarge them in full zoom but
I cannot get over that fact that the clementines rotted in front
of us and

you devoured the part of me that let my heart reign over
my head and snapped the key to my rib cage;

you promised you would keep it safe and
you *lied