i’m trying to count up
all the minutes of life
i’d have
if i hadn’t spent them
writing poems
about you

and that’s math even i can do

i couldn’t depend on you
but i did

i can’t depend on you
so i don’t

that’s the difference
between the girl you met

and the girl that
you now know

i kept my beauty

but you never apologized
for taking my beautiful
away

i’ve started
writing again

perhaps i’ve started
feeling again,
too

i don’t want us
to start over,
i just want us
to begin again

her tongue stained
wine red,
her eyes even redder
from the high

injecting any toxin
she could find
into her body

to drown out the one
that felt like him

he may love me
for as long as i live

but i will always love you
the longest

her parents chose
a man she’d never met
over her—
a man they called god

her love chose
a woman she’d never met
over her—
a woman he called courtney

and so somewhere along the way
she started wishing that she
could be someone she’d never met—

they seemed to get all the love
meant for her

~

there will be no
photos
labels
or diamond rings
to validate
the permanence
of the life we spent together

only the fact
that i never would have chosen
to do it without you

i thought it would come
in a heart-shaped package—
the giggles and inside jokes
with my best friend,
the talks of forever and someday,
the blue eyes that look like home to me

he came wrapped a little differently

but he’s still a gift

~

i stopped asking
why you hurt me
and started asking
why i let you

just because you loved him
longer than the rest,
it doesn’t mean
he’s the love of your life

darling, that’s all you
~

i didn’t understand
the grass that grew beneath my feet
so i dug

i didn’t understand
the roots that grew below the grass
so i dug

i didn’t understand
how soil could lead to rock
so i dug

i didn’t understand
how rock could lead to magma
so i dug

i didn’t understand
how magma could lead to rock
so i dug

and i kept digging

through the core
through the magma and the rock
through the soil and the roots
through the grass

i kept digging to get through
to you

i didn’t understand
how someone could live
so differently from me
on the other side of the earth

so i dug

i’m confident
your beauty
never would have faded
had you let me study it

but you didn’t

i don’t have wants
i have needs

i have you

i want to whisper
your name
into every ear
that’s never heard
magic before

they called me a hurricane
like i was a disaster

you saw my rain
and called me a force

i would rather
not be thought of
than to be after-thought of

we could grow
a field of daisies here
if you didn’t insist
on erecting a mountain
in the middle
of our valley

i lay here beneath
the wall of clocks
you created for me

the sound
of their ticking in unison—

a deafening reminder
that you once
made time for me

i’ll always matter to you
but i’ll never be your person

i’ll always just be a
significant
other
...

how much courage
it must have taken
to be born into a world
living in a black and white
nightmare

and decide to listen
to the voice inside of you

the one with the audacity
to dream in color

if there was a word
other than
goodbye
that meant
choosing myself instead of you

i would have used it

you have helped me
find a world in which
i don’t have to apologize
for my bold lines
for my goofy features
for my big personality

you have helped me celebrate
my exaggeration

they find me odd
when i say
someday i’ll move to
seattle

where the sky
cries constantly for me

but i need to be
where the wildflowers
can grow

i’ve been alone
without feeling lonely,
i’ve felt lonely
without being alone,
and perhaps if i
could have felt you instead

i could have avoided both

the difference between
constellations and stars
is all this space
~

if sunsets
have taught me
one thing

it’s how to expect
the sunrise

your name
sounds like
a promise

when you feel messy,
my darling,
i want you to think of it
less like falling apart,
and more like treading alone
in the middle of an ocean—
a metaphor i know you relate to
on your most average days
and on your worst ones

salt water waves
with the audacity
to dissolve the mortar
between all your bricks

turning you into pieces

and you’ve been taught
not to love or to be
anything less than whole,
so you feel messy—
you call it lonely,
depressed,
wrong

don’t worry,
you’ll find the shore
and you’ll rebuild yourself
this time like all the lasts—
but that’s not what
i want you to think about
right now

i want you to take a moment
right now
in the middle of the ******* ocean
dissolved
disassembled

look at your pieces

and love every one
for the buoyant miracle
that it is

because you—
you aren’t messy
and you haven’t fallen apart

you’ve been shown
what you’re made of

you never let your
eyes wander

but you reveled
in the sight of me
dancing in your peripheral

and just when i realize
that it’s been twelve minutes
since we last texted each other,
your name appears on my screen
as if i willed it into existence

it seems our hearts like to beat
on the same timetable

you gave me a crown
of thorns
and called me a queen

blood and mascara streaming
down the sides of my face

as i begged you
to put another nail
through my heart

i think the lie
we tell ourselves
is really damaging

we?

those of us
who cry ourselves
to sleep
without an audience

telling ourselves
that we’re fallen trees
in the woods
that didn’t make a sound
because no one
was around to wipe our tears
or see the moment
we wanted to die

but let me tell you
what i think

i think if an entire
******* forest
of individual trees falls

i think that makes
an earth-shattering sound

and i think we all heard it

i have this tendency to believe
that i only become more broken
as i crash into more obstacles
in life and in love

but the river reminds me
that water only becomes more pure
with every rock that tries to stop it

it really is a       privilege to
feel with such a great capacity,
but don’t assume that means
you’ve  lost the  right
to  complain
about
it

if i can’t be whole
without you in my heart
they might as well
just strip me down

and sell me for parts

we never crossed
the line that we drew in the sand

i just stood on my side,
staring at you on yours

and dropped my towel

holding a flower
that shared
her elegant whimsy

regretting that he
had never held hers
like he’d always
secretly hoped to

placing a white tulip
on the mahogany
that had the audacity
to house her body

wondering where
her soul
was calling home
now,

and if it was still him

every piece of me
that has fallen in love with you
is like an autumn leaf piling

so that one day
when you need a soft place to land

you can call my pieces
home

there are certain moments
when you feel your heart
become physically heavier

like when you decide
you can’t love him
anymore

and you’re just waiting
for your heart’s approval

i think i was taught
to fear the dark

same as the other kids

same as those adults
who feared this thing
called the unknown

but i make love
in the dark

i make life
in the unknown

i guess they taught me wrong

i know you still
read my words
because you like
the way it hurts

the proverbial knife
in your heart
that only i seem capable of
twisting

my roses are yellow
and my violets are too
and my garden is just as beautiful
even if i grow it differently than you

the thing is—
i could play
with the hands
of every clock
and the timing
would still
never be right
for us

our life will be a series
of you
breaking my heart,
and then begging to glue it
back together—

the closest you can get
to putting your hands
on my chest

among the great tragedies
of life on this rock
is the belief
that being gay
is the cage
instead of the key

is it selfish
to admit
that i’d like to
fall out of love with you
just to experience
the falling in
again

running out of air

my head trapped
between your thighs

you whimper through
the command
to eat my way out