if i could swallow amnesia like a pill,
i might just have to;
because i walk a fragile line between
forever and never,
and i’m about to lose my balance.
you are a cliche i refused to be a part of,
until you opened your mouth
and out fell the christmas lights,
the rainbow decadence of promise,
though what you were promising wasn’t so much
what i wanted as what i desired,
and even with the tickle of warning behind my veins
as they quickened in blood flow,
i thought for a moment maybe i could be worth something
you didn’t outright say i could be.

and i wasn’t surprised when it all took a note from the challenger
and exploded in my sky,
but i cannot say my body did not seize and shake,
my tongue did not swell until i was choking on it.
it’s hard to understand though, because i’m not in love with you.
i know i’m not; everything i felt was merely an exaggerated carbon copy
of what you professed you felt,
and yet it’s me who tasted salt twice in one day, not you.
you didn’t promise to love me in that way,
merely promised to graze my thighs with a tongue so strong
i could forget for a minute the reason why i said no
to being friends with benefits in the first place.

i think it’s not so much that i’m in love with you as
i think it’s because i’m used to being the second best thing
someone could have,
the not-quite option, the good but not good enough version
of what is so keenly desired by beating teenage hearts.
no one wants to be the second person that gets told good news,
the second person that gets invited out when the first cannot go.
i think it’s not so much that i’m in love with you as i love you,
beyond hormones and beyond friendship.
because there’s something between us that
is wholly poetic but cannot be melted down
into the human catastrophe of words.
and i just want to know that you believe the same.

truly, i feel as if you are my person,
and not in the sense that i will see us lying hand-in-hand
at the mantle of our graves with lips tied together;
i haven’t found that person yet.
i mean in the sense that we are the twins of a different mother,
we are the soulmates who don’t need to touch unclothed to feel
intimacy.
we are the best friends who go beyond that definition,
and i don’t know if i romanticize everything until it tastes too sweet to swallow,
but i love you a lot and i don’t want to lose you.
i don’t want to be your second,
and not because there is sugar in your lips
but because there are storm clouds in your soul,
and i’d regret losing someone who could understand
why our skies look so much the same.

There is a place between a relationship
and just friends

A place just past friends with benefits, but
still a few blocks from a relationship

Its saying cute and silly things
with only a hint of actual meaning

Its smiling at your message
but knowing you only half way mean it

Its staying up until 2 am to talk,
and not regretting it in the morning

Its unspoken I Love Yous
replaced by
I like you,
but not enough.

he looked at me
“friends… with benefits?”
i turned to him
“to be friends with benefits we’d have to be friends first
   other wise we’re just strangers ******* each other.”

                      [e.m.]

His lips on my lips,
And his hands on my hips,
I'd say it was wrong,
But it feels like it fits,
Like it's right,
It feels nice,
And I enjoy him so much.
And he'd be great as my friend,
But he's so perfect to touch.
And I want him,
I crave him,
I think he is fine.
I would tell him so,
But he's not even mine.

I’ve been wrestling this since last fall,
peeling my socks off around 2a.m.
and crawling into my nightmares
like a child on her hands and knees.
I’ve tossed my hair in the towel,
examined the scratches on my back
or the bite mark on my shoulder,
juxtaposing them to my flaws,
prying myself open and watching
the little memories flood
from my arteries like insects.
I’ve ******

the energy from my cheeks and given it
to my bones so they may carry
the weight of last year into this year,
the heavy balance between leaving your room
and sitting myself against the frame,
legs to my chest, listening to the unheard voices
telling me to stop loving you.
I’ve cut

you out like bruises on a strawberry,
throwing the bad parts into the black hole
to be grinded and deposited as to be rightfully
grown into something new. But this time,

after we made love on your floor
and counted the stars that left my mouth
every time you touched me like that,

I let myself cling to the light.
I stuffed the empty parts with your remnants,
and latched onto the goodbye kiss.
I’ve been wrestling with you

our bodies so close

since the summer ended and we rejoined
the feelings we spared just to pretend
that we didn’t hear the kettle roar
when we were finished.

I fell out of the top bunk once
completely naked
right onto the linoleum floor
of your dorm room,
praying that your roommate
wouldn't roll over and see my ***
at 3a.m.

I quietly crawled back up to you.
You cradled my spine,
I'm never letting you go again, I promise.
I told you I was fine,
so we both started laughing.
I had to cover your mouth
or else you'd wake the whole floor up.

You blare Kanye West from your speakers
when you're signing checks
or finishing that last math problem,
and I'll just sit next to you and grab
a piece of scrap paper to doodle on
while asking you stupid questions
just because I want to get you talking again.
Sometimes you take it out on me, but

sometimes we have cereal after ***.
You spoon feed me while I sit on your lap
in just our underwear
gasping when the cold milk
drops on our skin--
fruit loop kisses
and detangling my hair with your fingers.

I wear your Polo pull-over backwards
to the boys bathroom sometimes
just because it's closer to your room
and because my name is no secret anymore.

And on Sunday's I fold your laundry
on a gray blanket I lay overtop my ***** carpet,
because I love the smell of clean boxers
and you don't know how to iron dress shirts right.

But you kiss me with your mouth open,
and you hold me when I fall asleep,
and you're all I want to wake up to.

Please don’t call me beautiful
when your hands are between my legs,
and god forbid you say it as a seg-way
between you’re so hot
and my caution, your response
you’re sure you don’t want to?
I’m pretty sure the way my body looks,
nineteen and stress-infused with an Oreo belly
isn’t really what you pictured beneath my blouse,
and I’m positive you didn’t listen
to the story about my dad and the bad prom dress
because you cared. It was just sentiment. You said it was beautiful,
but really you wanted me to believe the act
like a description in the Playbill
and ride that trust all the way until the curtain dropped.
Please don’t call me beautiful
when the word ******* is before it
or if we are ******* because making love
is for married couples and you don’t even want me
sticking around for the ****** sunrise that peers
underneath your shade every morning.

Tell me I’m beautiful when I’m crying—
crack me open and watch the colors bleed
like a painting that hasn’t dried. Admire
the light that peaks through the clear parts
like a windowpane, no blinds.
Tell me I’m beautiful when I’m laughing,
when I’m reading my favorite part of a book,
when I’m stuffing my face with peanut-butter
pretzel bites and I haven’t washed my sheets in weeks,
and I’ll know you can’t be lying
because I’ve listened to the waves your heart makes
when you’re sleeping and I’ve called your smile
to the surface many times when you’ve tried
to deflect it back inside. You’ll know that
and you’ll know I’m beautiful.  
Call me beautiful
when you’re not even trying.
Call me beautiful when you’re by yourself
and the smell of my hair is still on your pillow,
or the memory of how dumb I sounded
singing my favorite song breaks your heart back
to the best little pieces.

i miss the heat of whispered gasps and tangled legs and i cannot help but wonder if there will ever come a day where technology has evolved and taken over so forcibly that we will forget what human touch feels like. i don't believe that even the smartest of computer geniuses could program the warmth of your hands into any micro chip. my nerves are still buzzing from the last touch and it's almost as if i've touched a socket with wet hands. we share a love that can never be outdated; a love that is water proof and forever charged, with passion that burns brighter than any electrical fire.

- o.m.h