school is out.
the air smells like sunscreen
and grass clippings
and some version of freedom
i’m still learning how to hold.

i want to be the old me again.
the one who didn’t flinch
at every memory.
but i never quite live up
to who she was.

there’s no more
funny band classes with him,
no more hallway glances
that meant more than they said.
and that hurts more
than i want it to.

but it was the worst year
of my life.
and maybe,
just maybe,
leaving it behind
is something.
not everything.
not healing.
but something.

in december,
i swore i wouldn’t write
another poem for sean.
said it with a sigh,
maybe even meant it.
i thought,
never again.

but then came january,
quiet and cold,
and somehow he was still
in the smoke of my breath.
a year since we began,
when i fell in love.

february found me
stitching metaphors together
like valentines
i never sent.
february saw the worst of it.

march marched in
with memories and melodies
i played our songs
and called it practice,
but it was always more.

by april,
i was blooming poems
like daffodils,
soft, persistent, yellow with hope.
a year since we ended,
but we grew again during that month.

in may,
every line was him
in some shadowed corner
of what i didn’t know how to say.
we were broken,
but stitched together once more.

and now it’s june.
i’m still writing.
still choosing him
in verse
because i don’t know
how not to.
so much for never again.

it’s funny how
you’re at your highest
and i’m at my lowest.
it’s okay,
if this is the price to pay,
it’s okay.
i deserve it,
you deserve happiness,
and all that other *******
you know i believe
but i’m too tired to say.
i’m just really sad.
not about this situation in particular,
but all the spaces,
in between,
inside,
every pore of my being.
but no i’m happy for you,
i really truly am.

i could’ve sworn
love started with an s
and ended with an n,
four letters that felt
like home in my mouth.

your name,
a prayer i whispered
into my pillowcase,
half-hope, half-memory.

i still trace it
on foggy windows
and in the quiet parts
of my day.

i keep forgetting
how to forget you.

i’m trying not to think too hard.
because it hurts.
because it always does.
but you can’t stop an overthinker
from thinking,
just like you can’t stop a heart
from wanting.

my head aches
with the weight of everything
i can’t fix.
my nose won’t stop running,
my cough shakes something loose
in my chest,
but not the part
that misses you.

and i do.
miss you in a way that
makes the room spin,
makes me wish i was
dumb and lighthearted
and easy.
but i’m not.

i think too hard.
feel too much.
want too deeply.
and right now,
i want you
more than i know
how to handle.

in the quiet depths of night’s embrace,
a thousand stars reveal their place.
we’re but flickers in a boundless sky,
brief as breaths, and bright to die

blade pressed into skin,
about to undo 26 days
of strength and silent pain…

but then,
my sister walks in,
and the knife stays still.

a breath held,
a moment stolen from falling apart,
and somehow, i keep myself whole.

summer took you away from me three years ago and i’m still trying to figure out how to fill my empty heart

summer with you
will be
forbidden meetings
and “tell me about your day.”
laughing in whispers,
loving in glances,
missing each other
endlessly and unforgivingly.

it will be
the ache of wanting more
and the sweetness of having enough.
murmurs of nothing across screens,
and talking in code,
listening to songs that only we understand.

it will be
the quiet promise
that we’ll stick together
in every way we know how.
new, different,
a little secret,
but still,
undeniably us.

i used to think love was fire,
bright, consuming,
burning everything it touched.

but with you,
it felt more like daylight,
quiet and golden,
something that warmed
without asking for anything back.

you had those soft gold eyes,
like morning sun
on a window,
and i wanted to be that light,
the kind you reach for,
the kind that stays.

i was sunshine, once.
i know that.
the kind that made you squint
but smile anyway.
but maybe even sunshine
can overstay its welcome,
leave behind a burn
you never meant to carry.

and now i wonder
if i’m just a sunburn memory,
the kind that lingers
long after the warmth is gone.

i smile,
and sometimes i almost mean it.
most times,
i don’t.
i wonder if they notice
how tightly it’s stitched on,
this grin
i wear like armor.

it drains me,
faking light
when all i carry
is the weight
of everything i can’t say.
my body rots quietly,
while my voice plays pretend.

every laugh is a wince,
every joke a plea.
“you’re the sunshine,”
they tell me.
but storms don’t shine,
and i’ve been thunder
for years.

the count
has gone from
26 days
to 30 seconds

there’s a difference
between loving someone
and being in love with them.

i know that now.
because i love you,
in the way that feels steady,
in the way i’d hold your hand through anything,
in the way you live in my days
without needing to try.

but i am also in love with you.
and that’s different.

that’s why i think of you
when my legs ache
and my chest burns
and i want to quit,
because once,
you said pain means progress.
and somehow, that stayed.

it’s why your laugh feels like sunlight.
why the shape of your name
sits softly in the back of my throat
when i’m too shy to say it.
why i memorize your voice
like it’s the only music
i’ll ever need to hear again.

being in love means
i don’t just want you near me,
i want to be seen by you.
known by you.
still wanted anyway.

and that’s what scares me.
not the loving,
but how deeply i feel it.
how much i want to deserve it.
how quiet the ache gets
when you say my name
like i’ve never been too much.

there’s a difference.
and i know it
because i love you,
and i am in love with you.

and that truth
doesn’t hurt
quite like it used to.

i told you i felt like gatsby,
haunted by what was,
dreaming in green light.
but you just smiled,
said i was daisy.
and god, i hated how right you were.

because i do run when things get too real.
i do love in half-formed sentences.
and sometimes i dress the hurt in pretty colors
and call it grace.

but you,
you never asked me to stay frozen in time.
you said we don’t need to rewrite the past
to build something better.
you saw the wreckage,
and still,
you chose me.

maybe i don’t have to be daisy.
maybe you don’t have to be gatsby.
maybe we don’t need tragedy
to make this feel like love.

i slide the blade
s l o w l y
across my pale, soft skin.
it burns,
i don’t smile.
but it’s satisfying to watch
the blood pool in beads.
it hurts.
but it doesn’t hurt as much
as the pain i caused you today.
so i do it again.

it’s the kind of sad
that doesn’t cry loud.
it just sits,
quietly,
in the corners of the room,
curling into the shadows
until even the light
feels heavy.

the kind of sad
where you can’t tell
if you’re tired
or just empty.
if you’re lonely
or just lost.
where music doesn’t help,
but silence hurts more.

it’s the kind of sad
that doesn’t need a reason.
just wakes up with you,
sits beside you on the train,
follows you into class,
and climbs into your bed
before you can even
close your eyes.

it’s the kind of sad
where you drive in the car
and you think you’re okay
until you hear the music
and burst out into tears.
for no reason.

and you want to talk about it.
but what do you say?
“i’m sad,”
like it’s news?
like it hasn’t made
a home in your bones already?
like it hasn’t decorated
your ribs
with every memory
you swore you were over?

it’s the kind of sad
that makes you ache
for people who aren’t coming back,
for versions of yourself
you barely remember.
for a feeling that used to be yours
before everything got
so heavy.

but still,
somehow,
you keep going.
even when it hurts.
especially when it hurts.
and that matters,
even if no one sees it,
though you wish someone would.

winter tricks you into being sad
but then spring hits you like a truck
and summer makes you feel bad
fall is supposed to be the good one
it’s the never ending cycle

“can’t repeat the past?” he said.
“why of course you can.”
and god, i believed him.
still do, most days.
because i see you
in every flash of spring,
in the gold glint of things
i was never meant to hold.

the green light still blinks,
even if it’s just in my head,
a soft pulse saying
you were real,
you were mine,
once.

i built my love the way he did:
with trembling hands,
and too much hope.
like maybe if i hurt enough,
time will fold in on itself,
and we’ll be sixteen
and invincible
again.

but dreams die slow,
especially the beautiful ones.
and i’m still reaching across water
for something
that won’t reach back.

i keep thinking:
the past isn’t dead
if i still ache for it.
but maybe that’s just part
of the story i keep telling myself,
a softer lie
than letting go.

the sky is soft tonight
and so am i,
thinking of you
the way i always do,
reminding myself
of my overflowing love.

baby,
you make everything
feel like music again.
like late summer light
on tired skin,
like laughter in the car
with nowhere to go.

i’ve written you
a hundred ways,
but still
this feels like
the first time.