it’s unfortunate
that my favorite way
to feel love
is pressure between my legs

it’s unfortunate
that’s the only way
you can’t give it to me

you feel guilty
about occupying a space
in my life
that makes me hurt

i wish you understood
that you’re the only thing
in my life
that reminds me
that my heart can still beat
through stitches

the way i love you
makes me doubt
that i ever loved them

i didn’t know
how to love you
when you first made
your name known—
my heart was missing pieces
from him

two years later
and i’ve carved your name
into pieces of me
that i didn’t even know existed

you like the way
my charm
traps everyone
in my palm

i like the way
you’re not
everyone

i ask you
if i can breathe in
your air

and normally that would feel
like your lips on mine

but we aren’t normal,
are we?

so we stand
just close enough
to feel each other
exhale

sometime past sundown
i want you
to want me
too

is it dramatic to say
that i’d rather
one perfect year
alive with you
than sixty more
without?

it was never going to be fair
that his brand of magic
is just intangible enough
to entrance me

and just tangible enough
to make her
his sidekick

it’s odd
that she cares so much
about the oxford comma

when the love of her life
isn’t hers
to love

i’ll follow her around
breathing in
every ounce of you
in her lungs

getting high
off of secondhand love

she didn’t like playing victim

but she couldn’t help
but notice that
love always seemed
to make itself known
in her life

without ever making itself
hers

~

i know you
love me
i just wish you knew
how to

you’ve made me feel seen
in every sense of the word

but tonight
i just wanted you to see me
in the most literal one

he told me there’s not
one unfaithful bone
in his body

which *****

i really just needed the one

his voice carried
from the living room
through her closed
bedroom door

she was used to hearing his voice
reverberating throughout
the walls of her mind,
but never throughout the walls
of her home

she couldn’t help herself

because this time it was different

this time she wasn’t alone with
her thoughts of him

she was alone with him

and with the knowledge
that at any moment
he could walk in to see
her fingers dancing between her legs
to the sound of his voice

unrequited love
is something of an orbit

forever looking in
at the center of your world

dreaming of the sounds
the two of you would make

if ever you'd collide

you showed me a heaven
i can never touch
and that no amount of death
will earn me

knowing it exists
knowing you exist —
i now understand
what they mean by
living hell

she realized
that her heart always
pounded harder
on the climb up
the mountain
than on the stroll back down

and i guess that’s why
she learned to
romanticize the hard—

i guess she craved the sound
of her own heartbeat

all things point to the fact
that in some life
if not this one
i’ll finally get to touch you
the way i’ve spent this life
and probably the past fifty
wanting to

i hoped
that as i grew into myself,
i would outgrow you
like a winter coat

but i stand here in autumn,
falling for her
like the changing leaves,
knowing full well
that the cold is coming again

and you still fit
...

a king bed
was the only royalty
those princesses needed
to make each other
moan like queens

i’m fairly confident
that if i sat on the moon
and looked down
at the earth

first i’d notice you
then i’d realize there are oceans

he said—
if you’ll let me,
i’d like to borrow
those powder blue stilettos
and walk a mile in your shoes
right alongside you

or as many miles as it takes
to get you to happy

after all these days and nights
we spend together

i find myself making
choices
and faces
and noises
that i never have before

you’re rubbing off on me
and i like it

you and i are electric

and maybe we’re that
magic kind of lightning
that never has to
touch the ground

i didn’t even have a hammer
the last time that
love asked me to rebuild
the walls he tore down

so maybe that’s why
i’m okay
demolishing them
for you now

this time i have a power drill
and an entire squad of humans
willing to suit up
in bright yellow construction vests
with me

i believe in
wrong places
and wrong people
but never wrong timing

you are never too early
or too late
for all the lessons and beauty
meant for you

i learned over time
that people would rather
the sun
over too much rain

but then you came along
and reminded me—

some people choose to live
in seattle
...

people wonder how
a woman who loves skydiving
could distrust gravity
the way i do

but the difference
between falling from 12,000 feet
and falling in love
is simple

one comes with a ripcord
one comes with rock bottom

i didn’t know
my cheek dimples
could get sore
before i met you

our souls
keep trying to touch

but our bodies
seem to be in the way

for the first time
it doesn’t feel like
i’m falling in love

you and i
are just walking into it

hand in hand

his smile
wouldn’t be one
that i’d ever get to kiss,
but his eyes—
those eyes taught me
that there’s no such thing
as a wrong turn

just detours
and scenic routes

i looked down
twenty three stories

tears in my eyes
legs shaking

every intention
of falling head first

you see— i was just so tired
of having to land
on my feet

i may have despised
for the longest time
that she was your sun

but you’re my moon

and i guess what
i’m trying to say is—

every one of my nights
would be darker
without her light
all over you

it’s a shame
that running from
healthy relationships
doesn’t burn calories

i’d be a size zero

i had no idea how to sew
the first few times
love asked me to stitch up
my own heart

~~~

you should see
what i can do
with a needle and thread
now

...

2 and 4am
look the same

the unrelenting dark—
the fear that this night
won’t give light to day

2 and 4am
look the same

but 2 and 4am
are not the same

to assign each other
the best intentions

to love with the grace
that only forgiveness indulges

to fight for one another’s peace
armed with the strength of our own

there are twenty-four
letters in the alphabet
without u and i

but there are zero words
i want to spell

when they write about us,
they won’t capture
the strength of our friendship
in hours together,

but in miles apart

there’s a subtly
to your softness
the starkness of your beauty
almost hides

almost

there’s a select group of humans
who’ve learned
that it’s easier to bleed
than it is to feel

my mind can turn so cruel
when all the lights go out

but you always seem to know
when i’m trapped in the dark

because you show up
with your smile and a rocket ship

and fly me to my heart

i feel like the moon
trapped in a sky
not meant for her
every time your sun
comes back around

and i know the earth
had to be spinning
because the sun was setting
on you and me

but at the exact moment
your hand touched mine

i think even the world
stopped and stared

if you can smile
as you pull the knife
out of your back
and choke down the blood
you coughed up,

does that mean you’ve grown
strong enough

or inhuman enough?