you looked at me
through half-closed lids
sleepy smile on your lips
my hand touched yours
swiftly exchanged the smoking gun
I watched your lips wrap around it
and wished it was me instead
if I could freeze time
it would be that moment
locked in the smoky room
and the prison of your mouth

do you remember when we met?
back in that crowded apartment?
dimly lit and packed together with no room to spare
some people wait
their whole lives for that moment
and all I remember is seeing that smile
at the corners of your mouth
but was it really a smile?

months later you flashed me
that same smile
at another house party, in another crowded apartment
where everyone knew that smile
light danced off your eyes
eyes that really knew me
gold and emerald glimmering back at me

we stumbled home in the snow that night
with the same glassy skin
it was then that I knew
how I felt about you-
it was then that I remembered that smile
that smile
that didn’t really look like a smile
but nonetheless
that smile everyone knew

when you and I were us
I used to picture picket fences against green grass
perfectly made beds and rainbow bouquets
but somewhere after three word whispers
and before black lace on bedroom floors,
we turned into just you and just me
and that's when I realized-
we're no longer those golden little things  

really, you and I
we're just this thread
this thread that we keep pulling and pulling and pulling
until I’m naked in front of you
like I have been so many times before
but not just clothes naked
naked like the kind where my skin
has turned into the words I’ve left unsaid

naked like the kind you feel on an operating table
your eyes dissect and slice into me like sterilized metal
foreign and unforgiving
I miss the way they looked at me before
and that's when you see it -
the feelings I can't stop feeling
and these cuts they burn

because I know I can't have what once was
I can't leave my love on this table and make you take it
as if that's ever what you wanted
instead you slice and slice, taking these pieces you want
and I say nothing, I do nothing
but sit there, naked, holding this thread
waiting to stitch myself back together when you leave

sat in the intersection till the light went red,
too busy looking at you instead,
you turned to me in your blackout frames
and laughed as you said my name

there we stood in the dead of night
cups of whiskey in the pale moonlight
saw you smile from behind your glass
as you said you’d marry me with a laugh

and I know it was probably just a joke
but I swear I felt it when you kissed me
never wanted you to let me go,
wrapped up in arms that felt like home

slept away half the day
tangled up in hills of grey
boots next to yours under your bed
picture of you dancing in my head

now I know Wallen said it best
when he said loving a cowboy is different than the rest
I’ve tasted your laugh and you've tasted my pain
now that I’ve loved a cowboy, how could I ever be the same?

watching you behinD the wheel was a view
even The sOnoraN desert couldn't cOmpete with
i remember driving home From Your mOm's
you tUrned to me and said your Mom adored mE
as The girl you couldn't love,
i thinK tHat's the one thing
I'll always have Over the girl yOu did.

we went OUt for dInner with friEnds
and came hoMe without touching hands
tweLVe hOurs and One text later
we ceased to exist...
as if I evEr expresseD the slightest desire
to neveR be with You