you

slow



          down



                            time,
­
make me notice

the
soft
things

that otherwise
I wouldn't see.
like the

cracks on the
back of your
hands and

your end-of-
the-day stubble.

thank you for
making me
pay attention.

I woke up with a headache again today.
This time because I knew
you didn't want to stay.
It's strange how words repeat themselves.
And no matter how much I thought
it couldn't all be for nothing,
I guess it was.
But that's okay.
I'm used to this place.
At least I know I won't
ever let anyone else in again.
It's just easier than losing
something you never had.
How foolish of me to think
I could ever be what you wanted.
You'll always deserve oceans;
I'm sorry that I am only rain.
And no matter how much I give,
I will never be enough.
You say you don't feel the same
as you used to, and that's okay.
At least you love me enough
to tell me you don't.

I know a man who melted in the layers of my skin
And I will call him Icarus, now where do I begin -

I met him in the middle of the earth and all its time
A moment I cannot recall, a true forever's why
The wax from every question mark his mind could ever draw
Had taken on another form, a vein he never saw
And so it was a pair of eyes much different from his own
Became a house he'd recognize and even call his home
The company he found within enabled him to wake
A kind of curiosity he fought but couldn't shake
For underneath the rigidness his character sustained
Was but a man alive and well with everything to gain

darling
please come inside
I've never seen it with my own two eyes
but I can imagine you igniting your addiction with a flick
inhaling the smoke
are you trying to start a fire in the bottom of your lungs?
or keep one burning?
I might ask you one day
when you're looking up at the sky
memorizing the constellations once more
you may close your eyes then
are you trying to create a universe between your rib bones?
penciling in stars like letters
writing a book of
expanding//contracting
beginning//ending
with each breath
starting the same way it finishes
until the point of collapse

darling
please come inside
it's so cold
your veins may freeze
is your addiction keeping you alive?
or is it killing you from the inside?
it took a part of me once
your addiction was once another's
it left with him
and took a piece of me with it
I've never been the same
and I'm getting tired of looking at hospital walls
but I can't tell you that
I've seen the inferno behind your eyes
that you're so desperately keeping alive
so I simply say
"hurry back"
instead of

"darling,
please come inside"

"you only hug me in airports" was the last thing I heard her say
as she opened her arms
to her eldest daughter
and I was nothing short of amazed
when they walked into each others arms
I saw her close her eyes
if only for a second
drinking the moment through her pores
as if the rest of us were invisible
even to the night
that moment seemed to stretch
to morph
to erase years of pain
and close the gap of months
in a single step

together

I wonder if she heard the screaming in her ears
or the sound of glass breaking
the rain on her face
the night that she slammed the door on that same little girl
now an adult
but still small enough to fit between arms
I'll never know what happened between them
but I imagine it like lightning
hitting their chests in a terrifyingly beautiful fashion
and I was waiting for her daughter
to cry out
"no, you only hug me in airports"
and I'm not sure
if they will ever see each other
again
I wonder if they're happy
or simply

content