they tell her to let her imagination fly
but they don't know how much her hands shake
when she thinks of his smile.
the sun always sets
but the sound of his laughter
ringing inside her mind won't.
she wants to make a home in the stars
that twinkle in the galaxy of his irises,
but she knows better than to find comfort
in someone else's body,
especially a body that she has never
had the chance to hold.
they tell her to let her imagination fly
so she keeps thinking that she will someday
make a bed inside his collarbones
and that she will spend her mornings
watching him trace the outlines of her hips
with his fingertips like she used to do
with the strings of the violin
she used to play as a child,
but no one ever told her
that you can't make homes out of human beings.
she tries to imagine a world
where the distance between them is shortened,
where she doesn't have to look at the moon
and pretend that he is looking at the same one
even though he's probably asleep
and dreaming about someone else's eyes.
they tell her to let her imagination fly
and she wants to let it skyrocket
past the ozone and land next to where he is,
on the other side of the solar system.
they tell her to let her imagination fly
and she does, but not because she wants to.
she has to make up all the words herself,
the way he smells and the way he tastes
and the way he sounds in the air.
she knows that everyone needs a place
and that it shouldn't be inside of someone else,
but imagining a world with him
is better than imagining a world where there is no love
and where everything goes wrong.
which is to say, imagining a world with him
is better than imagining a world without him.

He won't tell you he loves you. He will not look at you like you're the universe or the sun or even the smallest star in the sky. He will not show up at your doorstep at two a.m. and he won't give up his seat for you and he won't make you mix tapes. But he will stay up talking to you, making you laugh and sigh when you're almost falling asleep. He will be thousands of miles away, but whenever you feel like your lungs are filling up with smoke and you forget how to breathe and your hands get sweaty, you'll think of him and feel okay again. You'll write poems about him that he will never read and he'll listen to your favorite band and tell you how much he hates their music. He'll show you new songs to listen to and you'll love all of them. A baby bird will die in your hands and you'll never stop thinking about it. This is how he will leave you. Two years later you'll still love him even when you're no longer lonely. You'll dream about his eyes and you'll find it hard to understand how he left before he was ever really yours to hold. You'll be okay without him but you won't be happy, and that little bird won't ever leave your mind. He'll never leave your mind. He probably won't think of you because he has someone new he can hold. Someone with brighter eyes and a wider smile and whenever she asks about you, he'll smile but he will only say, "all I remember is how much she loved this really ****** band."

THE LAST TIME I TRIED TO WRITE ABOUT YOU I HAD AN ON AND OFF HEADACHE FOR A MONTH AND THAT WAS OVER A MONTH AGO TELL ME WHY I'M WRITING ABOUT YOU AGAIN AS IF I DIDN'T LEARN MY LESSON AS IF MY HANDS AREN'T STILL NUMB FROM THE DAY YOU LEFT. I'VE STARTED DRINKING COFFEE IN THE MORNINGS I KEEP THINKING IF I FILL MYSELF UP WITH THINGS YOU HATE MAYBE I'LL BEGIN TO HATE YOU TOO BUT INSTEAD I HAVE THIS ACHING FEELING IN MY CHEST I SWEAR THERE'S A BLACK HOLE ******* UP ALL THE HAPPINESS THAT'S LEFT AND I NEVER HAD MUCH TO BEGIN WITH BUT NOW THAT IT'S GONE I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THIS SADNESS. MY LUNGS ARE FILLED WITH SMOKE I THINK I'M DROWNING I CAN NOT BREATHE AND I DON'T NECESSARILY WANT TO BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW HOW TO LIVE WITHOUT YOU. I DON'T WANT TO SAY MY HEART SHATTERED THE DAY YOU LEFT BUT YOU MUST HAVE THROWN ALL THE TINY LITTLE PIECES INTO THE DEEPEST PARTS OF THE OCEAN JUST SO THAT I COULDN'T FIND THEM. SO THAT I WOULD BE MISERABLE WITHOUT YOU. I'M JUST TRYING TO FIND MY WAY BACK HOME ALTHOUGH I'M NOT SURE I HAVE ONE ANYMORE, BECAUSE I GOT SO USED TO LIVING INSIDE OF YOU AND YOU LEFT. THE ONLY HOME I EVER KNEW ABANDONED ME AND I DON'T THINK I HAVE THE STRENGTH TO BUILD MYSELF A NEW ONE.

When he asks you to write about him, remind him that you are not that kind of poet. When he asks you to describe his eyes, stop yourself from telling him how bright they are and how they remind you of the stars you stare at in the late night. Do not tell him they are brighter than any of those stars and while they may not light up the whole sky, they sure as hell light up your heart. Instead, smile and tell him that they are just blue – nothing is very special about them. He will ask you why your hands and lips tremble when you're with him, but you mustn't explain how fast your heart beats when he looks at you, or how sometimes you swear your lungs fill up with smoke when you hear him laugh soundly because of something you said. You shouldn't write about him, because you're not the kind of girl that writes about someone who could be here one day, and easily gone the next.

When he kisses me, I wonder what it's like to kiss you and when he holds my hand I can't help but wonder what it would be like to have your hand intertwined with mine and I know that I shouldn't be thinking about you. Not when I'm with someone else but his eyes don't shine as bright as yours do, his lips aren't stained bright pink and he doesn't say my name the way you used to. I feel guilty for not feeling guilty about the fact that I try to fill the empty hole in my chest with other men simply because you're so far away I can't even reach for your hand. I'm sick of writing poems about boys who I could not care less about because it won't help me get rid of you. You're halfway across the globe falling in love with a different girl every night and I bet you no longer think of me, but I sure as hell think of you. It doesn't matter if I am reading or writing or planting kisses all over someone else's neck. You are always on my mind.

i still haven't figured out the color of his eyes. when i look into them, i swear i'm staring directly at the sun because they are blinding but just warm enough to make me stay and i can't look away. his lips taste like mint and raspberries and when he smiles at me i don't know to stop my hands from trembling. he says my name so softly i stop breathing but i almost catch my breath long enough to ask him to say it again and again until it's all i can hear. i want to fall asleep to his laughter. i wouldn't compare him to anyone from my past because he is a place i have never been to and he is so intriguing i want to explore his entire being. i want to know what it feels like to have his calloused hands on me and to feel his lips pressed against my collarbones and i want to listen to him talk about his day. i want to see him get worked up when he is trying to say all of the things that he hates about himself and i want to tell him how wrong he is but i don't love him. i don't love him. i don't love him but i want to.

i still remember the way your lips would always curl up in a smile and i hate to admit that it still makes me smile and i keep thinking about the day you'll come back to me like it's guaranteed like it's written in the script but when it comes to love nobody ever keeps their promises. the other day i told someone that i was never in love with you. that you were nothing but a faint memory, a blur hidden in my past but my voice trembled when i said it just like it always does when i tell a lie. i remember when you said that i would move on faster than you could ever try to and trust me i have tried my ******* hardest to love anyone else but it has been ten months and every time i hear your name i feel my breath catch in my throat and my vision becomes blurry and i ******* miss you. i have been trying to distract myself from you i have been pouring my heart out to people who could not care less about me i keep wishing someone else would break my heart but that would require me to still have one.

his eyes were so bright it burned. it burned to look at him and i remember he had burn marks on his fingertips from catching too many stars. i always wanted to know what it felt like to touch his burning skin, no matter how many times i was warned about the fire inside of him that was never extinguished. the stars could have burned out years ago, but we still notice them and that's kind of like him, how his eyes have a glimpse of emptiness in them and i bet that he feels dead inside, but i'd give anything to keep looking at him.

In the light, he no longer calls you "baby." He no longer thinks it's cute that you can't stop your hands from shaking. He no longer tells you it's okay to stay in bed; he starts pulling the sheets off of you, yelling "YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO GET BETTER." In the light, you can see the outlines of his cheeks and the way his eyes look down at you and you can tell he never really loved you. In the light, he's packing his bags and driving his car away. Things aren't as simple when the sun is shining through your window - everything is so much clearer. In the dark, you could pretend you were okay because he couldn't quite make out the frown on your face or your shaky hands or what those prescription bottles read. Now he can look at you clearly and he doesn't like what he sees.