i saw it in the warmth of your hand when you played with the soft cold of my fingers. i smelled it in the short distance you kept between us every time we talked; in the way i forced myself not to smile because my mouth, so close to yours, didn't want to show that it wanted you. i touched it when my loud, black-out drunk cries were calmed by your quiet presence while sitting in the bathroom floor. i heard it sing when you called my name from down my window or when you showed me your favorite song. i heard it mourn when you told me that you liked her. i tasted it in your burgundy voice when it whispered that you were sorry and never meant to hurt me. i knew it was love when i forced myself to smile because my watering eyes didn't want to show that they wanted you.
i knew it was love because every time you kissed her i couldn't help but stare and wish i was blind.
i knew it was love because i wrote thousands of poems about you hoping one day you would jump out of the page and be here with me, until i realized your name didn't even jump out on my phone anymore.
i knew it was love because when my mind wandered around you it felt like a perfectly stacked box of cigarettes filled with every moment we shared and all i wanted to do was smoke it all until each cigarette burned out and faded with the thought of you.

however i knew it wasn't love
because the way you glanced at me from across the room can't compare to the way you contemplate her so religiously.

i knew it wasn't love because i wanted to be loved so badly that i accepted the smallest crumb and called myself full.

i'm glad it wasn't love because my name was a wooden ship that would simply break if i forced it into your bottle glass heart.

days handwritten in blue and white,
nights that smell like a past life,
the moments on which i rely
to glance back when i feel deprived,
and i know to be grateful means to remember
that no matter where i go
days will always have sun
and even if i change, i'll always have me
in the night there will always be moon,
yet no day or night can be complete
because i'll never find another you

We could make leaves jealous of the way we are f
                                                               ­                        a
                                                               ­                      l
                                                               ­                         l
                                      ­                                                i
               ­                                                                 ­     n
                                                               ­                        g.

you are
the peace after wars
the calm after storms
and everything
insanely beautiful
that shapes after
a tragedy

I’ve been seeping constellations for you-
For you to see the colors within me
But i can see the milky way on my bathroom sink
And I’m bleeding all over the broken bottles you left last saturday
And on the empty pill bottles I was prescribed to forget you

When you kissed me last you told me I tasted like a stranger
Even though I’ve showed you every galaxy I hide inside me
All my stars and the spaces in between them
You used to tell me you could see the sky in my eyes
But last time I heard you haven’t checked the weather in months

The stars are sleeping in my veins now,
I started saving them from my bedroom floor
But i can still feel you on my fingertips
I still think of you every time I look at the sky

I’ve been kissing strangers to forget the taste of your lips
But i feel you in the back of my throat every time I smile
I feel you in my voice when someone asks me about my plans for the future
Because my entire life I was told one day I will find my better half
And you always told me you were mine
But who are you to tell me I need someone else to feel whole?

in the waves
of your gaze
    my ship
  bursts into
     dreams
                                as my mouth
                           watering for yours
                                fills me with
                                     unease
                                                          ­              endlessly
                                         ­                                longing
                                                         ­             to permeate
                                                        ­           on your reverie
                                                         ­                  steam
                                    to dim
                                 the lights
                            of your sirenic
                                   breeze
                                                          ­           to undress
                                                         ­        the complexity
                                                      ­            of your mind
                                                            ­           scheme

                                        i solemnly live
                                     to hear your name
                                  that even the silences
                                               scream