the first day i saw you
well it wasn't really the first,
but there was not another time
that i truly looked into your eyes
heard your voice
felt your heart
and knew that i loved you.

you were wearing a blue button-down shirt
that hugged your body so perfectly,
black dress pants
that you were constantly complaining didn't
have pockets.
your socks didn't match, one green and one pink,
but you didn't care.
so young and carefree.

you were beautiful,
though i suppose you still are.
yes, even more so now.
so beautiful.

we were at the coffee shop
down the street
though i can't remember what it was called.
they knew us by name, one of those places you can just
order "the regular"
and they'll add it to your tab.

you were laughing, drinking coffee
we were having so much fun,
and out of nowhere time froze
and it was only us
me and you
our eyes, our hearts, our love.

that was so long ago...
do you remember?

i didn't mean to look into your eyes.
i didn't mean to make you laugh.
i didn't mean to get butterflies.
sorry.


i didn't mean to hold your hand.
i didn't mean to impress you.
i didn't mean to call you mine.
sorry.

i didn't mean to dance with you.
i didn't mean to become friends with your's.
i didn't mean to like your family.
sorry.

i didn't mean to love you.
i didn't mean to dream about you.
i didn't mean to wonder about us.
sorry.

i didn't mean to want you here
i didn't mean to feel alone.
i didn't mean to cry tonight.
i didn't mean to cry yesterday.

i don't mean to cry tomorrow.
sorry.

To my future lover,
You know I hate this phrase, but “I told you so.”
You will brush my warnings off like bread crumbs.
You will forget that I explained every pothole and sinking sandpit to you.
You find the hair the shower drain and remember.
You see the middle-squeezed toothpaste tube and remember.
You search for the television remote and remember.
Remember.
That I am just as wild as my hair.
That I tell you that you are wrong even when you aren’t.
That sometimes I have a hard time saying “Good morning.”
That sometimes I have a hard time saying “I am sorry.”
That sometimes I have a hard time saying “Good night.”
That I have an eternally stubbed toe from tripping on my own feet, shoes, and tongue.
That I play too much.
That I cry too much.
That I am too much and too little, but that makes me just enough.
That I love you and will love you even when it gets hard.
Like burnt waffles and diamonds and your will and my skull.
If you misplace your memory daily,
I will remind you with my whispered words in your ear, with my gentle finger tips, with my soul bare before you.

i do not love you because
of your strong shoulders to carry me  
     or the long-wracked intellectual faculties that desert me
          or even your face – that launched the ship of my glass-bottle heart
and sent me crashing onto a burning shore camped by all my worst fears;

or because of the way my emptiness frames you
                                                    like the moon
       on the blank pages of my frostbitten heart
       (but as they say, what is a heart anyway?)

i do not love you because
    you love me
              besides,
                             – there is no evidence to support such an abstraction.

i do not even love you because
     you bring me my tea, and tuck my feet under the blanket in the winter times
     or because of that half-arsed smirk
                                                                   – the one that makes me want to punch your mouth
or because i should love you because you are, i suppose, my lover.

But,
there are small things
      the way your teeth show when you laugh
      and your yellow tee-shirt – ugly sandals
                   and the way you sweat when i run from you on gritty sand beaches
                                                                           12 (or so) kilometres from your white walls and
half-empty photo albums

that funny face you make
     and your rough, hardened fingers from miles of copper guitar strings
                                                   over miles of long dusty roads
     when we drive, minutes stuck between our polaroid past and
                             the wind-tossed hair at the end of the hot orange horizon
                                                                                    sun roof, sunglasses
not smiling because we are not obligated

how, when we lie together, your breaths rasping in the throat of your sleep
                          i steal your heat,
                                                        survive.