When i think back to the day I met you, my heart explodes.
I am both the happiest person in the world, because I hugged you, and the saddest because it's been so long.
In class, I can't focus because the memory of your smile keeps coming back to me.
In my head, it never gets quiet anymore because my mind keeps replaying the sound of your chuckle, and those words I've been longing to hear.
No hug will ever feel
as warm
and safe
and happy anymore,
because no one's arms fit me like yours.
You are constantly on repeat in my mind;
your laugh, your smile, your words, your arms, your smell...

I miss you so much, my heart cannot take it anymore.
And I cannot help but wonder,
how you can be the worst thing that's ever happened to my heart when you're the best that's ever happened to me.

Today, I tried to comfort my 13 year-old self,
But there was nobody there, nobody listening.

It's so cold over there,
So lifeless and sad.
And come to think of it,
I'd rather be mad.

She cries in the middle of the night, hoping one day things would be different.
Then wonders "what if" and suddenly she's indifferent.
And there's nobody there, nobody listening.

I try to make this life as vibrant as can be
For her to finally see
That this is as good as it's gonna get
And that there's nothing she should regret.

But still she storms off in the middle of the night,
Screaming:
"Is anybody there, anybody listening?"

I wrote a poem of love.
I wrote of you. I tried. But the words would not come.
I am not a poet.
This is not my poem of love.
Rather words written and meanings lost.
You are my poem of love.
I write you with every breath.

The ocean knows.
Fill the world's largest container with it,
Or a shotglass. A thimble.
It will not care. It cannot care;

Nothing is ever removed

From anything.

It's empty now,
big dark empty spaces,
except for where the light
comes through in shafts
between the splintered
wood and cracks
and holes we made
on hot summer days

punching through our
youthful exuberance
and wide-eyed innocence
laughing like screech owls
falling from the sky after
a night of too much shine

And it lingers,
the smell of purest sweat
from pores of exploration
singing out to cries of
wild abandonment
in the breeze that flutters
paisley and polka dots
with plaid and denim
patched in the worn
out spots

And it's there,
still after rainstorms
and duststorms and
windstorms and
the constant tug of war
between the scorching sun
and the balmy moon

The paint we brushed
on barely dry wood, with
old bristles bunched in
clumsy handles, wielded
by fresh beginnings

Weathered, seasoned,
chipped, peeling,
ingrained and
hanging on

Still there