Why do I love
                   you?
I love you for
      what you are,
and for
what I am, when
I am with you.
  
The creatures, that love makes
out of us,
           are more beautiful
than all of the stars
                                 in the sky.

once I was a waning crescent, pale and thin—incomplete
a silver sliver of light peeking unwanted in between the
folds of the velvet, midnight sky

and now, having gazed at my sun from a world away, I
am whole—I am full and complete—grand designs,
imperfections, craters—making me no less whole

when you are near it is not you that completes me,
but rather you who illuminates the parts of me I
thought were lost forever

the paradox that you both do and do not complete me
brings me as much comfort as the sun’s warm rays
on my cheeks and the moon’s cool gaze on my back.

For so long I have been suffocating,
in a world where no amount of oxygen
could ever ease my pain
I have tried time and time again to
fit in, to please, to belong somewhere
I was never wanted in the first place
and it is this excruciatingly vast effort
to be something, someone I am not
that has not only suffocated me, but it
has stifled and stunted my growth.
I was always trying to build something
beneath someone else’s weight and
I kept crumbling, but now it’s different.
I was trying to push my way through the
pavement, but instead I put down roots
in field I better belong.

Rock n’ roll music, Folger’s, and paint-smeared hands.
Dresser drawers filled to the brim with undeveloped camera film.
Blue bonnets and overgrown grass, pecans and crunching fall leaves.
Dirt roads and river-rocks, typewriters, polaroid cameras, and feather-quill pens.
Those hand-me-down blue eyes and brown ones that are “sometimes hazel.”
Crystal clusters and Lord of the Rings.
Countless mosquito bites and play-pretend games in the clubhouse.
Early-birds and night-owls.
Trudy; and Randy Hayes.
“Don’t touch everything you see,” and “If you say you’re bored, I’ll find work for you to do.”
Sweet tea and okra and southern dishes blackened and drenched in cheese or gravy.
Grandma always burned everything to make sure it was fully cooked, and to her, it was never burned, just “well-done.”
Cigarettes and carpentry and cookbooks. Wild blackberries and birthday parties at the lake.
Sleeping in all day and staying up all night and procrastination.  
Shepherd's Pie, potatoes, and four-leaf clovers.
“Nil Desperandum. Never Despairing.”  
I’m from a whole house that eats eggs for breakfast, and I’m allergic to eggs.
And trees as tall as buildings and buildings as tall as trees.
“You should never take the lord’s name in vain,” and “Jesus loves you, so you should love others.”
Day-dreams and stargazing and thunderstorms.
“All or nothing,” and “There is no try, only do.”
Old family pictures in dust-glittered frames.
We are crystals. We have facets, each one makes us who we are.
With only one window of our lives to express, we’d merely be glass.
I am a part of each of these things just as much as they are each a part of me.

Rock n’ roll music, Folger’s, and paint-smeared hands.
Dresser drawers filled to the brim with undeveloped camera film.
Blue bonnets and overgrown grass, pecans and crunching fall leaves.
Dirt roads and river-rocks, typewriters, polaroid cameras, and feather-quill pens.
Those hand-me-down blue eyes and brown ones that are “sometimes hazel.”
Crystal clusters and Lord of the Rings.
Countless mosquito bites and play-pretend games in the clubhouse.
Early-birds and night-owls.
Trudy; and Randy Hayes.
“Don’t touch everything you see,” and “If you say you’re bored, I’ll find work for you to do.”
Sweet tea and okra and southern dishes blackened and drenched in cheese or gravy.
Grandma always burned everything to make sure it was fully cooked, and to her, it was never burned, just “well-done.”
Cigarettes and carpentry and cookbooks. Wild blackberries and birthday parties at the lake.
Sleeping in all day and staying up all night and procrastination.  
Shepherd's Pie, potatoes, and four-leaf clovers.
“Nil Desperandum. Never Despairing.”  
I’m from a whole house that eats eggs for breakfast, and I’m allergic to eggs.
And trees as tall as buildings and buildings as tall as trees.
“You should never take the lord’s name in vain,” and “Jesus loves you, so you should love others.”
Day-dreams and stargazing and thunderstorms.
“All or nothing,” and “There is no try, only do.”
Old family pictures in dust-glittered frames.
We are crystals. We have facets, each one makes us who we are.
With only one window of our lives to express, we’d merely be glass.
I am a part of each of these things just as much as they are each a part of me.

There once was
a moth that
had wings
of crystal
and when
he tried to fly,
he always dropped to the ground
and shattered into a million pieces.

Sometimes, I feel like that moth.

But I look into your
eyes and see
the
magic
that rests there
and I remember that
moths are beautiful, and
even when broken, crystals
are beautiful, too.

As you wrote my name in
cursive with your tongue
I saw explosions behind my eyelids,
I heard a melody that was
so blissfully new, yet familiar,
I tasted lightning and saw colors
that for now have no name here,
and only exist in that realm.

I have never been one to  fantasize about the unlikely, but you’ve got me in my head day in, day out, daydreaming about the day I finally come face to face with you once again, love.

I closed my eyes and in hopes that you'd
suddenly materialize, I breathed in, deep.
The darkness ebbed and flowed.
I slowly lifted each lid, revealing
an emptiness before me
and an emptiness within.
I wish I could summon
you here.

There is so much power
in the delicate touch
of your hands caressing
my own.

Yet, this power, a force
even stronger than gravity,
and softer than a feather
binds me
to you.

The whites are missing from your eyes, darling, and there's nothing
I can do to bring your body back to life.

And my darling, you know that I love you, but you love your demons
more than you could ever love me.


Found poem from lyrics in "Demons" by Social Repose and "Waking Up" by PVRIS.

She closed her eyes and shook her head in disbelief.
And I said simply, "My dear, if you continue to look at the world
through rose-colored glasses, perhaps you will never have to see the
demons at your feet.

Loving you is like when the desert reaches up to kiss the crying
sky as it rains.

And my god, have I grown madly in love with the feeling of
water running down my cheeks.

He was a desert and I was rain but he decided he liked the feeling of sun on his skin better than raindrops.

Everything I want already exists.

I will be happy when I wake tomorrow with the rising sun.

Nothing in this world could satisfy my desires, because I’ve already got you, and I desire nothing more.

Diamonds and gold,
honey and ice,
glittering,
should the two ever mix
it would be chaotic
but somehow,
they are charming
draped ‘round
her caramel
throat

Suspended in one beautifully, eternal moment.
The wind didn't blow, and world stood still.
The only way we could measure time was through our heartbeats.
You smashed your mouth to mine with a lust you couldn't hide, even
if you tried.
And your intentions became quite clear, then.
You were falling for me just as I was falling for you.
If only it was more than a dream.

He looked at me with lamenting eyes
which said everything he hadn’t with
his own tongue and that was how
disappointed he was with me.

He caressed my legs which were draped
across his own but stayed quiet as I
supped hungrily on water which became the
only thing I could stomach after all the
drinks I’d happily given into

But if only he knew why —if only he
knew how terrible a place my mind is.
If only he knew how blissfully deadened
my racing thoughts were when I ******
on the sweet, stinging nectar.

I will sleep with
       my eyes  o p e n .
I will breathe  u n d e r w a t e r .
I will drink my coffee  c o l d  if that is
what it takes to become less like  y o u .
The thought of being like you is so  p a i n f u l , I'd
rather  d r o w n .
Loving you is the most painful memory-I'd rather
p e e l  off my skin in the places you left your kisses. The places
you bit and licked and left your
l o v e .
Some say, "it is better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all."
I cannot bring myself to agree with such words, because the pain of loosing you
was far too much to bear than the idea of never having known you.
Call me a ******* coward for running away from this pain,
but if I have to face it another day,
I would rather
d i e.

You, earthling, how can you even
begin to attempt to fathom
what it means to live,
when you don’t bother
to attempt to fathom
what it means to love?

I’ve learned over the eons that
it may be air that keeps my lungs
full and my body alive,
but air doesn’t fill my heart
the way love does, and
air doesn’t breathe
life into my soul, the way
loving someone does.

His love was like an earthquake, and it rocked her world.

But one day, it destroyed everything she had built for herself.

I was meant to be named Elise but my aunt stole that name away from my mother —from me

I never felt like an Elise anyways, but even so I’ve always felt a strange ownership of the name and when the girl named Elise sat
in the back of my painting class, I felt a kind of kinship to her, perhaps in name or what might have been in name.

I am endless, immense,
no God nor Goddess am I.
No fixed being,
no stagnant, static entity,
no trapped energy,
no universe.
I am ever revolving,
undulating, expanding,
experiencing,
growing, evolving,
understanding.
I am eternal, infinite,
unfathomable,
unlimited.
I am woman, and I am endless.

This isn’t just a wildfire, springing up with heat when the right wind catches it.
No, this is an ember, slow and smoldering.
I’m not angry with you, I’m hurt.
I’m not plotting my revenge,
I’m planning my escape.

This is where the ettin walks,
two-headed, three stories tall.
I’ve never heard the ettin talk,
save for his rancorous call.
Here, he lumbers, like an oaf,
towing up into the sky,
watching down upon the grove,
with his four golden eyes.
This giant is a savage beast
with a ram strapped to his back.
He is almost never at peace
except when he takes a nap.
The ettin lives up in the hills,
and walks between the trees,
guarding the grove from unwanted foes
and attacking those he sees.
The ettin carries an enormous club,
made from a withered old tree root.
He wears little ragged clothes
and stumbles around barefoot.

I had never thought I would
so greatly enjoy the mundane –
sitting and doing nothing,
no more than a good conversation
existing in the presence of good
company, but it has been revealed
to me, that I do in fact, take great
pleasure in time spent with loved
ones, doing nothing in particular,
but breathing,
existing.

He is forests and mountains and oceans
He is cliffs and caverns
He is tongue and truth and religion

I want nothing more than to explore every single inch

Sometimes, I am afraid of falling so totally and completely in love with you.
I know you wouldn't hurt a hair on my head and you wouldn't dare tear apart my feelings.
But I am afraid of loosing you and that fear, alone is far stronger than any magic you can do to ignite this flame inside of me.

She lay on the ground, dirt collecting on her bones and in her hair.
Feathers and twigs scatter around her as the raven builds its nest.
A gentle breeze stirs up leaves around her.
It never served her to have a heart of gold.

I'll whisper my secrets
to the stars and pray
you are far, far away,
because my darkest
desires, and
wildest dreams
were not meant for you,
my dear.
They were meant for the
boy with the tree at his
spine and
all of my fantasies
on his
fingertips.

It was you who kept
me warm on those cold,
Winter nights.
I had you running in my veins
and your love was a fire that
left me burning
for days.

I sat beneath the old saffron
willow, crumbling leaves
to dust in my soft palms.
Autumn creeped in once again,
setting the trees on fire and carrying
their leaves away with the cool wind.
I looked across the dirt road, at the
old, blackened house, bathed in sunlight.
The peeling paint leapt out like specks of glitter into the wind.
Years of memories were still trapped within its walls.

More than the leaves caught fire.

You are like a sky.
A fire across the clouds.
And I can't peel my eyes away.
Like a moth drawn to your flame,
I'd rather burn down to nothing, then to
fade from your memory.
I was a part of you,     the way each  
                                crater
adds a little bit of character
                  to the moon.
And you erased me from your life. Dressed me in nonexistence.
                      It was easier for you to look away than to wrap me in
                   your love.
I guess I flew too close to you, because
my dear, you were the sun, and
when you pulled me into you,
                      my wings
disintegrated, and
                   I crumbled away in your
warmth.

I want ropes, not roses,

I want teeth marks, bruises, not black eyes,

I want lipstick smears, not tear streaks,

I want passion, love, fire

but

I don’t want to get burned.

Fireworks sound inside my chest every single time I hear those voicemails you sent me at 2 a.m.

I love the thought of being the
             first
                    in
                       your
                            thoughts.
I truly admire the idea of being the
               pioneer
                      in
                       your  
                            mind.
And if I am not the pioneer in your mind, then surely, I am the pioneer in your heart!
I know this to be true by the way you look at me with your twisting, dark eyes.
The light that rests there is the light I put there.
And I will
                 cherish
                           that
                                 first
                                       forever.

I love the way you always
challenge me.
          The way you always
         keep me on my toes.
          The way         you always
get my heart beating
like a drum.
This time, it was a race, only the first one
     to cross the finish line
     was not the winner.
The way you asked me
       what I wanted if I wanted if I won and what would happen
                                                   if I lost.
I tried to hold out on you, love, but your dancing
   fingers and perfect rhythm get me every time.
And when I moaned softly, as our ballet met its coda,
               you yanked me so close that my chest was
   one with yours and you whispered in my ear,

                                                   “I. Win.”

I’ve been drifting for days, floating.
Restless, like salt-battered wood that goes wherever the wind pushes the waves.
Somehow, I always end up at your feet, awash in foam on those white shores.
Tell me, will you drag me out and set me on fire?
It would be more than drifting aimlessly on the breeze.

I tried to forget you,
I did, but you took root in me,
wrapped yourself around my
collarbones, and day after day,
I am reminded of how hard it is
to breathe without you.
Day after day, I pick the flower
petals off and am reminded
that you love me
not.

Flowers do not cower and close up their petals when someone does not like them.

Flowers do not exist to please others, but instead their singular job is to make this planet a better place for everyone.

Can you take me flying?  
                              Like we once did?
                                    Could you take my hand and throw me to
                           the sky with you at my heels?

I fear I am sitting still,  like a lake gone stagnant.  
                                      And I want to feel the waves in my bones,
                  the wind in my sails,  again.

So let me fly, my dear, for I fear if I cannot touch the sun,  again, my spark will go out,  for good.

I begged you to forgive the tears that rolled down my cheeks when I saw you again.
It has been so long and I’d almost forgotten the contour of your face in the moonlight.
If not for short notice, I’d have missed you again.
We always run in different circles, but tonight we seemed to cross paths.
You remembered every detail about me, love. Where to kiss, where to touch.
But every time we spend time apart, I forget where the treasure is buried in you.
Though, now I am beginning to realize it’s not in your body, but your soul.
Let this night be one to remember, not one to regret.
My dear, on the cold, bleak December evening, don’t you dare forget what I said to you when you held me closer than any clothes ever could do.
Don’t make me regret saying I loved you.

you’ve got galaxies in your mind,
and endless stars inside your eyes,
so, won’t you tell me why
you seem so terrified?

if only you could see how
terrifying a town
my mind is now,
you’d want to get out.

darling, it seems they’re right
when they’re saying things like,
there can be no darkness,
without also, the light.

Saw you standing there
beneath the dim gas station lights.
You looked so out of place like
the sun out at night.
Kept your head hung low, still
your eyes met mine.
Even though you tried to
hide its glow, I saw
your stardust inside.

Split down the center as if there were two.
The energy of one is colored a happy yellow,whilst the other is a saddening blue.
One light, one dark.
It is hard to know Gemini’s head and heart.

Two lovers tied
by invisible thread,
black, white ropes
like snakes tangling.

Their depressive
nature, a Gemini feed,
a cosmic cauldron,
stirring them to fall
apart together.


Found poem in Banks' song "Gemini Feed."

Bruises color your face
and the split lip he
gave you is enough
to warrant it,

but gin on ice
is never enough to cut
the sting of the morning,
after,

the pain on
the inside won’t just
go away with the cool rush of
juniper berries that
tastes like jet engine fuel.

He was a man made of silver,
but you were gold
like the sun and moon,
two different kinds of magic, that
seemed to enchant anyone who
dared a glance your way
electrum, you thought,
but you melted hotter
and he lower, and unless properly
contained,
he would run away
it saddens me to see a woman
of your worth treated like
you’re no more than iron,
worthless the second rust
sets in.

You’ve got this aura, this soft magic about you that keeps me in orbit.
I couldn’t walk away even if I wanted to.

There are two things that drive us -fear and desire
My deepest fear is never reaching my full potential
and likewise never realizing my greatest desire.
My greatest desire is reach my dreams and finding
true, passionate, unadulterated love.
The kind of love and connection that makes you feel
stimulated, satisfied, and fullfilled emotionally, mentally, and sexually.
But somehow my greatest desire is also to never realize my deepest fear.
You see, the two are interconnected, joined at the proverbial hip.
One cannot hope to reach their greatest desire without facing their deepest fears.