I wanted to name you,
Something beautiful,
Something strong.
I wanted to give a name
To a life so small
So strong
So beautiful.
I needed to gift
The loss of you with happiness
That you were mine.

I cry sometimes when
I do not feel you.  
The absence is a pain
In my abdomen all on
It's own.

The number 7
Is an unlucky
Number
To carry the
weight that is
No longer mine
To carry

The morning I was told
I lost you,
I curled into a ball in my bed and cried.
I cried like you should have,
I held myself the way I would have held you.
Now that I do not feel you, I feel empty.

How can he understand
The loss of a feeling
He's never felt

Please, God, give me some reason to check my phone
I was making excuses to stay awake
The adrenaline ran out and I felt every ounce of pain that had been lurking in the bruises
I screamed in the shower, feeling the water drip off of my skin
I felt it beat and roll off in too much of a rush
I couldn't get it out of my hair

She was late
And I mean too late
Every single time
I wanted to hope for something
I wanted to fall in love
I tried to fall in love but
She was too late

And he had no idea what he was doing
He was lonely and probably looking for her, actually but
He didn't try very hard
He just sort of waited and waited
But he never quite gave up because he wanted all of this time to be worth something

He was exciting, all decked out in neon lights
But he reeked of alcohol
And I actually regret him,
But I can't quite remember so I try not to think about it

She wore a floral dress
Professional but positive
And finally someone was happy

He was a bit of a joke
Spilled his coffee, dropped his papers
But someone was always there to pick up the pieces
We liked having him around

He was quiet-
I didn't know him very well

She was a ballet dancer
Strong and graceful and tired
Full of long practice and habitual action
Calculated.

All of the little things I can fall in love with

We just didn't spend enough time in jeans and flannels
She had no idea what she was doing and she wasn't fooling anyone
She wasn't even trying
"This looks good," she said, halfway up the hiking trail
She laid her flannel out over a grassy clearing and promptly fell asleep

And he fell exactly where he stood
One drop of blood was exactly enough to relieve his soul from its duty of living
He was exactly at his breaking point and they knew it behind the trigger
Pointing exactly at the palm of his left hand

******* and surrender piggybacked off of each other

If she was the sun, then I was definitely getting my dose of vitamin D
(And a halfway decent tan for once)
Her hair looked like a Pantene commercial and her teeth seemed to be painted white

When I was a child, I thought that flowers died in the winter because they couldn't get water from the frozen earth
I must have ripped up half my mother's garden on the first cool day
I brought them inside, and drowned them in buckets of warm water
23 years later, my mother hasn't stopped laughing

School was out for the week, but I imagined that most of the kids from her class wouldn't go back at all
She asked for help, but we couldn't save her from nightmares or flashbacks
Couldn't even hold her hand through every single one
So her parents and her teachers are in therapy being told it wasn't there faults
But I know it wasn't mine

We made dinner on the stove from a box
She was laughing the whole time-
I told her to wait and watch the pasta while I stepped out for a minute
I set up candles in the living room in front of the TV
We sat on the floor in front of the couch, watching NCIS with candles and cheap ready meals

"This never has to end," I told her
We don't have to have to leave this bedroom
Her Christmas lights reflected off the whites of her eyes as she showed me point ballet in her pajamas
I was not a very effective partner, but this is what she was built for
And I was built to love her, one scene at a time,
One LED bulb
One shaky lift
I spun her like a little girl instead of a dancer