I’m lying on the ground where you first kissed me
With my back against the cracks in the concrete
Back when I had summer breath
And you had child’s eyes

It was always sunny where we went
Hearts and hands intertwined
A heatwave of young love, and iced teas
And the way your tongue felt cool on my neck

And today it’s cold and the ground is damp with snow
But it’s as warm here as it’s ever been.

I’m looking at my reflection in the window of a coffee shop
That will always belong to us
And the love story that only a place like this could ever hold
Where the warmth of you drives away clouds.

It’s finally winter in Ann Arbor
So I guess it makes sense that you’re not here anymore
Because a thousand miles and winters couldn’t untangle
My love from you from here

“I miss summer, and long hair, and lab, and espresso, and the library, and everything about this place. But mostly I just miss him.”
(March 2013)

The sun is bleeding across the clouds
Throwing streaks of red across my fingertips
I'm a thousand miles above you
Coasting on the tails of winds that I only hope
Will return me safely to you

It's the sort of plastic cups and cocktail peanuts evening
That I wish we could share up here
Because my heart's beating to this sunset I'm finally on top of
While somewhere you're thinking of someone

I hope she's me.
Legs crossed and expectations shuffled
In seat 14A of the first flight I've ever taken by myself
Without taking alone

I know she's me.
Because I still feel you clutching me
Even with my nose pressed to the glass
While I wonder what would happen if I jumped
And if when I fell through this ceiling of clouds
It could feel as good as when I fall for you

I fell for you this morning
Not for the first time and never for the last time
When your voice was dry and your mouth was warm

And I'm up here painting the image of what you've done to my heart
Across the cloud in neon reds

There's a horizon to my left
And a sad story writing its conclusion across the sky behind me

Fading into the glow of embers bleeding out of me
Up here
Staining the sky

There’s tonic water at our bedside
And crumbs in our sheets
And that word still feels sticky in my mouth

“ours”
Like candy coating
Cherry red and saccharine
Like happiness my body hasn’t matured into

I’m a river’s mouth
Spitting out melancholy
Dripping from my lips

There’s music in the foreground
And your breaths are muted under the sheets

While I stamp this sadness out of me
With the press of your warm mouth
Wet against mine

Letting this inkiness run out of me
Staining the places hidden
Under your skin

I’m writing out nineteen years of
Cigarette smoke
That I didn’t have to inhale
To get trapped in my heart

Across your shoulders at night
Hoping one day
Your hands will wring this out of me

It’s early in the morning
And you’re up spinning ambitions
Into something I hope I witness
The cobwebs of

And I’m naked
On your side of the bed
Watching your shoulders rise and fall

Under the humming
Of our overworked heater
Falling asleep to the promise of
The way you look at me

Let me be yours
For at least one more turn of hours

I’m tired of playing tug of war
With your worn out affection for me
And your inability to tell me what you mean

Of standing in the glow of how you don’t even miss me
Not even a little bit
Trying to reach me out from under the door

I’m sore from longing for
The stolen bits of skin you’re still taking from me
Pieces of hip bones and freckled shoulders

I’m at risk of imploding
Under the conflicted forces
Of your admiration and disdain for me

And I already ripped myself open for you
A thousand times in the cross currents
Of my desire to be yours

And now you’re just emptying me out
And scraping the last bits of dignity
From my lungs

Pulling me in directions I couldn’t go if I tried
My stomach is knotted up between the poles of your feelings
Hovering over the line
Waiting for the drop

She’s the kaleidoscope aggregate
Of men who never loved her
And empty bottles of *****

Tucked into the corner
Of another someone’s mind
Without the mind to run away
From mistakes that made themselves habits

There are constellations
That she’ll never connect
Even if the stars lined up at her feet

She’d break them between her thumb
And her fingertips
That always taste like earth and bleach

Because she’s strands of sadness
Lighting her path through a world of love
That she’s always on the wrong side of

Watching the light
Waiting to cross

Today you’ve hollowed me out
Because there are holes in my shoes
From chasing you
Hoping you could fill the holes in my heart

And this is tugging me out to sea
Like a riptide
I think I’ve already gone under

Undercover in the shadows of your silence
As I watch you from a corner you’ll never come to anymore
And wonder what I’ve done

There’s something punitive about the way I love you
And I lost you when I thought it was you that was strangling me
But it turns out it’s still me

Today I’m the version of me that you would love to hold
Who’s broken and tired of trying on personalities like hats
I’m miserable

The me who needs to be scooped into your arms
Because my heels are bleeding from running
Away from myself

The version of myself who’s not here at all
Because I became yours instead of becoming me
So I never became anyone at all

There are no more arms to run to
And I’m alone
And it’s just a Tuesday

I’m drowning out here
In the ocean of apologies I still owe you

What if I’m forever lost at sea

We were driving through a lightning storm
When I was struck by the idea that I could end up like this

Like insomnia on winding highways
And background music

With you falling asleep to the soundtrack of our
Battering mutual affection

And nothing should be beautiful about a body that’s just at rest

But I steal glances of you sleeping
Like they’re hits

And my god, it just might **** me
Because how breathtaking you are
Injects itself into my veins
And my lungs give in

There was frost on the windows
And droplets of how perfect you are to me collecting on my mind

Recently you’ve been always on my mind
And under my skin
On the highway out in front of me

Just flashes of brown eyes
And kindness blanketed over me
When my own heart has been making me cold

There were signs that said we’re 1000 miles from anywhere
But I’m happy being nowhere with you
Or wherever it is we are

It was 4am
And my heart was thundering
While you slept at my side

Just barely out of reach