I woke up early today.
There’s no point in continuing to sleep
when I’m no longer dreaming about you.
Every hour through the night is spent
with you inside my head,
and sometimes my mind makes me forget it
so I’ll live it in reality instead.
Last night I dreamed that everything you’ve done
was done all over, except this time with me.
You might not have even noticed,
but I was there.
I saw your face change with the seasons,
and your heart change with them too.
I saw how you handled rainy days
when the sky refused to be blue.
I was there while you sat up through the night,
through the day.
I was there for every smile
and every mistake.
I was there.
And I’m still here.
It’s rainy outside today,
but I’m happier than ever.
You might be there,
I might be here,
but I’ll see you again tonight.

Love is not four letters put together.
It’s you and me laying underneath the night sky
on a blanket too small to fit both of us.
It’s me wanting your eyes more than
any of the stars above us.
Love is not the words found on our lips.
It’s the silence I found your heart in at 3 am.
It’s the silence you found mine in too.
Love doesn’t live inside our hearts.
It’s carved into our bones.
It itches in our fingers.
Love is what keeps the pieces inside of me
together when I feel your hand brush mine.
And on the days that leave you at your weakest,
I will pull you close and remind you
that I’m still here,
and love is not just a feeling.
It was never just a feeling.
It’s the liquid you’ve put in my veins.
It’s the warmth I feel
when I wake up every morning.
I’m all out of metaphors.
To put it quite simply:
love is what I see in you.
And you are beautiful;
every piece.

You keep canvases in your ribcage.
I know you do, I’ve seen them.
They might be dusty and a little bit torn,
but you’ve still kept them all this time.
You’ve still kept them in hopes that someday
someone would come paint some beautiful
masterpiece with every last one of them.
You’ve kept them hoping that they would
one day burst with cherry reds and
sapphire blues so that you might hang
them in the empty spaces inside you.
But I’m here to tell you there are no empty spaces.
Believe me, I’ve looked everywhere.
There is nowhere to hang those future paintings
because the pine green bursts from your eyes
and the whole spectrum of living color
flows through your skin.
You fill the growing cracks inside of me
with carefully selected tones from your palette,
and you keep stars held in their place
with glowing moonlight from your fingers.
So I’ll remove each canvas from inside you
and plaster them with pieces of what you’ve given me,
only hoping they can turn out as beautiful as you.
I am no painter,
but I will try.
No work of art comes close to the expanse you
hold in just one finger,
but I will try.
My God I will try.
And you will keep these finished frames
as reminders that there is nothing
as beautiful as you.

I’ll read you poetry,
even if you don’t want to listen.
I’ll bring you flowers,
even when you say you don’t want them.
I’ll collect all the pieces you dropped
on your way from the front door
to the bedroom,
even though you told me
to leave them where they were.
I will bring you tea in bed,
and extra blankets on soft Winter nights
when snow gently covers foggy streetlights.
I will love you on days
when the Sun is too lazy to show its face
and I will love you on days
when you are too weak to show yours too.
I will love you on days
when your ears are ringing
and your fingers are numb.
I will love you on days
that start with the letter “M”,
or “T” or “W” or “F” or “S”
or any other letter that has or will ever exist,
and I will love you on days
even when you feel I shouldn’t be able to.
I will fill your cracks with grace
and stitch your wounds with everything
that I have left.
Please trust me,
I promise my hands will be steady,
even though they shake
when you reach for them.

My eyes have been dry the past few days,
my mouth too.
I’ve been wearing my glasses more
and drinking too much water.
Is it possible to drink too much water?
Some say you can never drink too much.
I’m not sure.
All I know is that I can’t dilute
the concentration of you in my blood.
It’s become too thick.
I’ve been tripping over cracks and
folded carpet corners that don’t exist.
I’m not sure how I find my footing again
with the pounding in my head
and all the silence in my bones.
It’s the kind of silence I wish
I could share with you.
I’ve been tripping over myself,
like there’s knots holding me together.
And I’ve seen your fingers tie knots before,
how you delicately labor over each one.
How the perfect amount of string
is always left over for them.
I’ve seen you tie knots before,
because you’ve tied them with my heart,
and I don’t think they’ll ever come undone.
Oh, I don’t think they’ll ever come undone.

Smoke in the air
Ciggarettes on my tongue
The sweet taste of nothingness
The water is warm
But my heart is ice cold
Unsaid words like acid in my throat

I want to have dipped my fingertips into eternity and fingerpainted my heart with it.
2. I want to have shoved my fingers down my throat enough times to rid myself of self-hatred.
3. I want to nail the palms of my hands to the Big Dipper. I want to sleep among the stars, and allow their light to cover me like thick blankets. I'd like to learn the simplicity of the galaxy's effortless beauty.
4. I would like to create a vaccination to save children from the growing plague we call "adulthood."
5. I would like to create a vaccination to save adults from it, too.
6. I want to fill syringe after syringe with glitterglue and stab them so far into my veins that my heart becomes a disco ball.
7. I want to become the temple that you come to to pray.
8. I want to become what I will be without fighting to the finish line, and I want a canopy of fireflies hanging from the bone of my skull.
9. I want you to tell me that you are in love with my ears, so I can cut one off, become Vincent Van Gogh and make you miss my ear like I miss the twinkle in your eyes when you tell me you love me.
10. I want every freckle on my skin to become small islands you can lose yourself on.
11. I want to change the views on "skinny" and "fat" and remind the girl made of only bone that once upon a time I was made of only bone too. Then, I found cupcakes.
12. I want to spin the world upside down and yell "Look ma! No happiness!"
13. I want to pass on my DNA and create something that I am actually proud of for once.
14. I want to make my life worth more than just a poem, or a picture, or a forgotten memory.
15. I want to stop the hands on a clock from ticking past midnight to preserve the saying "There's always tomorrow!", because once that clock strikes twelve another tomorrow will be gone.
16. Most importantly, I want to have filled the hole in me with something other than ***.

And I want to fill the hole in you with something other than half-fulfilled broken dreams.

it’s exhausting,
to try to put a memory to a face
to each face,
to your own face,
in each photograph that you see
that has captured
each underlying entity
that make up an entire sea
populated only by
the ghosts of who you have
and haven't been.