i’ve given up on days that begin in late afternoon,
skipped breakfast and lunch,
days that fade slowly and end with
****** cut-out holes in eyelids because
the second i close them and it all goes black,
every moment with you comes back
played on fast-forward, the memories moving so quickly
that both our faces are blurred
and it feels like everything i’ve ever felt for you
is overflowing the tub, filling the washroom with
suds that take forever to melt

i’ve given up on those days.

i’ve traded them for ones that begin with
sunrises instead of sunsets,
days that are spent falling forward
instead of trying to chase the past, and i don’t
look back and see something broken, or
something that was better off left unopened

i look back and see our bodies so close together
that you can’t tell where yours begins and mine ends,
i see my heart that grew twenty-three times its size,
i see you and me wrapped up in something that
i didn’t know existed outside of blurry 35 mm
and overdue and falling-apart library books
that sit on the nightstands of middle-aged women
who are bored with their lives

and i’m just so happy i got to love you at all.

but i’ve folded up all the days spent with you
and taped them in the messy pages of my journal
and now i’m running into the sun,
running away from every lie that’s trying to
wedge its way in between my ribs,
running in the opposite direction of words like "regret"
and any feeling that insists that none of it was worth it

because all of it was worth it.

every moment we were together pumps
through my veins, and it will always be there;
it will be there when we’ve both graduated,
when you move out west,
when you kiss your family goodnight,
when you sit in your backyard with tears
in your eyes because you’ve lived a life
you are proud of

it will be there when i finally make it to new york city,
when i kiss someone who isn’t you,
when i find the answers you inspired me to search for,
when i sit on my rooftop with tears on my cheeks
because i’ve lived a life fuller than i could’ve ever imagined

and you and i will live these lives apart,
we’ll move on and forget what it felt like
to wake up beside one another;
we’ll find what we’re looking for elsewhere
and we’ll understand why this all had to happen the way that it did

but what we had will always exist somewhere,
in rotting apples and old mail and unplayed mix CDs,
in mosaics that line the city streets, in sirens and
red and white flashing lights that shine through
your window while you are asleep

you and i were magic,
we always will be.

she was falling through constellations
like tissue paper;
she found herself feeling too human;
not human enough.

let's jump fearlessly into the galaxy next door.

i am falling in love with the way he stands so self-assured, two feet planted in the ground as if he has always been here. he is the empire state building and i am just another
breathless
tourist.

i have come to hate
the way your lips catch
on the corner of your words
or the nape of my neck,
yesterday
i unbuttoned your ribcage
and crept into your skin
but everywhere i searched
i wasn't -
the final blow
was not the absence of myself,
it was not your cancerous grief,
but in the bellows of your torso
buried in your bones:
i read her name
and felt nothing.

gritting our cigarette teeth
pretending like we don’t know
that we’re just killing ourselves
hanging languidly from my
bruised lower lip
and tracing shadows on my tongue -
when we were younger you told me
that you wanted to be johnny cash
and that i could have been your june
but, i replied, i’ve never much
liked the summer.