piling warm loads of laundry on my bed falling asleep with you amongst the miss matched socks and wrinkling jeans feeling like everything can wait

I want to keep your attention even after you go
I'm trying to be the girl you wanna know
I wanna be smart and mysterious
serious and hilarious
genuinely beautiful
sincerely intentional
but I'm burning out-trying so hard to shine for you

The hardest is always day 5
Day 5 is usually when I give in, give way, collapse, lapse
Day 5 is like those Fridays when I was so far from you
Aching for you is the loudest on days like that
But then goes 5 days
5 days without talking to you
Then a week
And every second gets easier
Because I’ve been listening to music
Music I shared with you
But I’m starting to figure out it’s still mine
You never even appreciated it
So I’m reclaiming it
I’m reclaiming all of me
And I’m finding being on my own
And rediscovering myself
Isn’t an act I can do out of spite for the way you treated me
Things like this happen in time all their own
Seconds pass, minutes, hours
I read, I listen, I run, I hike, I experience
I laugh and cry and sometimes the aching still seeps in
But mostly I grow and change and heal
I have no anger for you anymore
In some odd way I'm thankful things happened the way they did
Thankful to have the chance to discover that I still have this within me
Happy to be healing

These are the words that I scream into my pillow
The ones that sink in the back of my throat
They boil and melt and escape my body in tears

This is the frustration
The gripping, grasping, clinging thing
This is why I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth when I run or climb or crunch and sweat

This is what keeps me up and when sleep does find me
This is what wakes me in the middle of the night

The things I should do but don’t
The things I should say but can’t
The things that I ought to understand but fear I never will

They are constantly gaining on me and sometimes
They catch me

ending things before the begin
shutting people out before they get a shot at getting in
there's this piece of me
that's scared of everything
and she's ruinin it for all of me
I'm scared to look but I wanna see
all that I'm running from
how bad can it be?
I'm a let it all catch up with me
baby keep runnin
one of these days I'll tell you everything
one of these days I'll give you all of me

I think if you do it right you're comprised of places you grew up and people that love you. Things that didn't change when everything else did and those little unexpected moments of gratitude for your inifinite blessings.  To be made small, not in an insignificant way, but to be given perspective. To be consumed in love for friends, family-extended and immediate-by blood and by acquaintance-by circumstance and experience. I think if you're doing it right you wake to great the day, just as she has you, and this silly life fills to the brim

And every time I'm left or every time I do the leaving
there is change
there's new music on my sleep playlist
there is the imprint of words shared, or maybe not shared
theres the loitering of scents in the deepest particles of my cloths

And every time I'm gone from his life or he's done the going
there's his name doodled in the margins of my notes for a while
there is the shadow of his hand on the small of my back
and the trace of his lips on mine
there still remains the sound of his breathing, of his heartbeat

Whether I am the leaver or the left, the heartbreaker or the broken hearted, the winner or loser: there is always this time of transition.  This testament to how intertwined our lives were for a period.  But with him it never ended.  I am still so utterly haunted by his absence and as the others fade I watch his absence become ever present, ever growing.

I leave all my windows down until I can't stand the cold
And my hair is blown by the wind until it's dry

I take to the road until it can no longer take me away
And I think of you until I'm saved by the thought of anything else

I go until all the radio stations sound of static
And I wait for the sun to rise until it hits me that maybe this time it won't

I drive until I don't know where I am
And every time I get a little further

If you love me
find a way to let me know
but should you find that you can't,  
Please find it in yourself to let me go

I'm gonna trace it down on wooden end tables
on tiled floors
on carpet runners and floorboards
on asphalt, cement, brick walls

I'm gonna trace the cast shadows on my good days
when a moment seems too good to be true-too fleeting
I'm gonna walk around getting it all down just the way it was

the grand shadows of the trees lining the street to my house when I'm coming back from long boarding
the delicate shadow of the glass vase on the table at the cafe when you smilingly whisper to me the secrets you're composed of

I'm gonna outline the shadows of moments with white chalk
like they did in the movies when someone died
because these moments are coming and going too

and memories aren't enough for me anymore
I need solid proof it was all real
shadows of moments just the way they were

For a little while I forget that you're forgetting me.

You’re not finished here so don’t you dare
Treat yourself with such poor care
You are still beautiful and you have worth
You’re scared of the things that no longer hurt

Your past battles haunt you relentlessly
I can here them whispering when you are near to me
I fill your ears with words of new
And calm and pure, and wise and true
I fill your hands with mine to hold
In case one day you find loneliness growing old
I fill your head with thoughts of tomorrow
I fill your lungs with laughter-I empty your eyes of sorrow

But when we go our separate ways
I fear the fog, I fear the haze
That eats you whole and clouds your view
Of all the things you’re capable to do
Everything gets heavy and everything seems out of grasp
And I can feel you quitting-your breathing turn to gasps

I pour these things from me to you
And hope they will suffice
Until you learn to do it for yourself
Until you learn to treat yourself right

And I think I have much more to say to you than I actually am
But I think I was meant to say it a long time ago when it might have actually mattered

Letting you go is made easier in knowing you're not the same person I let in

I'm dying can't you see?
If you love me leave me be
I'm your remedy
But you're my disease

With each of your confessions I waste away
You cling to me as I decay
You think of me and ruin my day
My existence hangs on the words you don't say

So as my blaze fades to a dull glow
Please find a way to let me go
Because I think we need to perish or slow
Before I can relearn how to grow

I still have what's yours
and I tell myself as long as I have it
I have the insurance that you will come back for it
this is my guarentee that I will at least see you again one day
at the very least
but what if not seeing me outweighs what it is I have of yours and you abandon me all the same?
I'm just hoping you won't forget to gather up what it is you left here
I don't want to be stuck holding onto something you're never coming back for

I don't know how to matter to you