The sun glows differently this time of year
Strong and fierce, dragging scorching bodies to the cold release of water
I know no other love this strong

Butterfly flickers and seaweed dances in the sunset afterglow
Souls come out to play in that humid haze
A little too early, but too long to wait
Kiss me, hold me before its too late

September has come and I can feel the change in my fingertips
     You are home again and I am moving slower
Warmth arises when I look at you, maybe its the heat
     Or the way every step you take matters.

You look at me as if I hold secrets, as if I am a grand and open sea, undiscovered
     And the next moment, like the dreamy memory of a path you once took,
The sound of a drum, the smell of pine wafting
     Unchanging, unforgotten

I may know nothing at all,
    But there is one thing I am sure of—
My soul aches to be near you, to feel yours sing back softly
    I know the seasons change for a reason
The tides push + pull, hearts pulse for years on end
    And that you my dear, are as stable, as steady as the earth beneath my aching soles

You lift me up,
You carry me home.

Our love’s only remains belong to photographs. But not, printed, or digital,
Photographs in my mind.
See, I never thought once during the holy nights we spent together to take out my phone and capture the beauty of your skin under the moonlight.
Somehow I knew our time was too precious
The pictures in my mind are something of a different kind,
Magical and dazed
All around you I see dull purples and blues, but your silhouette only, a burning red

Before cameras existed and all we had was art to remember each other by, there was no truth. Only the perfect imperfect visions of one another. 
I think that’s how I would like to remember you.
Thick paint on a blank canvas, never concrete — no one to say yes or no, to tell me whether or not the beautiful things  you whispered to me were true or false

Maybe that’s why I can’t forget you. I can’t look the other way when you're walking by. I only wish that time would slow down so I could pretend we are walking together. You are art to me. I choose to see the beauty in you, when I should be seeing your flaws, your imperfections, pointed out clearly in film.

Because aren’t we all lovers? And aren’t we all poets? To me, breathing is writing, every move we make tells the long and ever-so-dramatic tales of our lives. And doesn’t life imitate art? Do we not read to be aware? Of fictional characters and how all their sighs, and breathes alike spill out like ink onto a page? And we understand them. Humans and art alike. And aren’t we just art? Each and every single one of us?

What I mean to say is I watched feature-length films begin and end with the bat of your eyelashes. A kiss to the back of my hand. Your arm around my waist is an art form in itself.

My mind is a dangerous place. Please, don’t come too close. I may paint you too deeply into my painting, I may love you too much, I may never want to remember you any other way.

I.

If I could take my pain, and wrap it up all pretty, like a present under the tree, your name would be on the tag

Your face is a ghost under my fingertips, empty promises laced with the scent of his cologne

But not yours, you, you don’t smell like him, you don’t laugh like him or smile like him and your eyes are empty chambers.
Two blue jail cells, without anyone to stay, see the only eyes I know are brown
The only men I know how to love are
Not you I wish I had words to describe but I don’t and I find it hard because the only comfort I feel lives in a face I haven’t seen in months

II.

My heart is used to being used, but this time feels different
I’m used to silence on the way home, final words lies, but this, it felt
Tired
Aching
Like a worn out song too many times played
Like a book begging to have the pages closed,

III.

I’ve ran out of ways to change.
I cut my hair, started drinking bitter coffee
Just to keep myself alive for the next moment
I feel the change in my skin, my eyes feel older than before

Maybe that’s why your hair is long. Maybe that’s why you stopped wearing glasses. Maybe you couldn’t stand the idea that I once knew your short hair and glasses, maybe I left a scar bigger than you’d like to admit

Because
You left all these scars, and they hurt like hell
And they all look like you running your fingers through my long hair — see I can’t stand the idea that you once knew my hair as long

My fingers tingle when I hear your voice
It makes me want to run away, but move 5 steps too close
The ghost of my past self dances under the skin I have since overgrown

IV.

To the boy who felt nothing like him,

I’m sorry things didn’t work out right
I’m sorry that you couldn’t see the fire in my eyes
You see so many have tried to put me out,
But I’m still burning,

My heart will never grow cold,

I’m just here,

Waiting

Patiently

For the final spark

i am my hands
and all that my gentle hands do
the words they write,
the wheels they steer,
the hands they hold
my palms are a story; i beg you to look deeper
see the cracks in my flesh, because those marks,
they belong to me
i want you to find your way through the dark
by touching only my fingertips

i am my feet
and all the miles they have traveled
the all too hot sand
and the all too cold water
i am bright red toenails
and sandal tanlines
use my footsteps as a guide,
step where I have stepped,
i will never lead you astray

i am my eyes
and all the beauty they witness
two doors to the soul,
creaking as they open,
letting the light shine through me
i belong to every single blink my eyes have fluttered
my own personal camera, they show me the way
please, get lost in my eyes
open my doors
do not be afraid of what’s on the other side

i want you to unwrap me,
unravel me,
understand me
you see, i am the overwhelming desire to be known
underneath what is on the outside,
underneath the layers that keep me together

my body is a home
let me shelter you with it
it is all i’ve ever known

he is the gum wrapper crumpled at the bottom of my backpack
a simple memory that lingers in my head for days
i want to understand, why i never feel like enough
a passing thought that makes my heart ache

the first snowfall of the season brings me back,
to a place when i still had a grasp on myself
wet snowflakes clinging to my dry clothes feel like stolen kisses
a soft, white blanket, is now unveiled to what is beneath,
a cold hard ground

although it seems like a dream now, somehow it is a dream i can not stop dreaming
frozen hands hide away in coat pockets in early January
freezing rain and a velvet dress for February
so much happiness yet to be discovered
hope, before the long, cold
unthawable winter

and as the snow melts to rain, i find myself wishing for that winter wonderland i lost myself in
summer was always meant for change,
and i guess that all started with you.

today my two cats turned fourteen
I wonder if they know
do cats feel age?
I don't want to

the water is no longer hot by the time it reaches the drain
it drags down straggling pieces of hair along with it
as I pull them out of my red itchy scalp
my hair is too long not to brush anymore
and i can feel more and more falling out every time
each strand is a thought
a struggling idea that wants to live but cannot
washed down the drain before i choose to act on it

I use two different kinds of soap because I like the smell of both of them

i realize that the moment between the kiss is better than the actual kiss
the longing, the reaching
the mixed breaths rolling in and out of open mouths
tells a much more beautiful story

I scrub at my face
I feel the rough spots, the bumps
I scrub harder
even though i know that no matter how hard i wash
it will not become clean
I will not be vibrantly beautiful
like it is in my dreams
and as i stand (or sometimes sit) in the never-changing shower
I realize that my life
will never be as vibrant
as my dreams

he is a flower growing in the middle of a winter
buds just popping up over a blanket of white
begging for a chance to live
he wants to thrive
i can see it in his eyes
i feel it in his touch

for i have never met a person like him
fearless
crazy in all the right ways
he teaches the sun to shine
and the moon to glow

i follow his lead
i step in his footsteps, much bigger than mine
he always waits for me
he is always ready to love, arms wide open

you lit flames within me
small, traces of you left in the nooks and crannys of my mind
a kiss on a sunday
a wink on a thursday
and all the while inbetween--
twigs and branches fell into the flames
silently screaming as they shrivled into the ash
taking each and every leaf with its newfound flame
until entire trees were falling to its wrath
a light so bright,
so bright that i could not feel the water i was swimming in
the slow, dark ripples bring my burning face in and out of its grasp,
taking me under slowly,
letting me long for that distant light
the hope that there was heat out there somewhere,
a warm embrace that would dry my damp and shivering soul

i believe that he was the sun
and we lived in the monsoon season
everyday i prayed for a simple ray of light
but instead i was met with constant rain,
falling,
slowly,
into my already wet eyes

that simple, stupid spark he started within me could not be tamed
for i had fueled it
instead of stomping it out

i think in my own perfect paradise, things would be so similar, yet so different.
i loved driving down the road, sticking my head out the window to hear the tires crushing against gravel, the chill wind driving my wet sleeve to flap in the wind, and the booming low chords of an acoustic guitar seeping through my speakers.

the moon was high and bright, and i felt that god was staring straight into me

but i wanted it to be us
sticky hands pressed together for too long,
hands that feel better together than apart
a necessity
not a treat, or a present

i don't want your lips to be my reward
i want them to be my routine, my way into your soul
again and again
and again

and as i found myself sitting alone in that church parking lot,
the first night of summer,
looking up at a moon i knew you were drunkenly looking at far away
i wished it could've been with you

a you with no rules
no ifs, ands or buts
just
simply
you

the minute i felt the gentle breeze brushing against my skin from between the dusty rocks, i fell into a daze
a dream almost,
the dream where that one thing you desperately needed was in your between your fingers, begging, just aching for you to capture it
and the minute you close your fist to hold it, it vanishes - like a cloud of smoke
you awake, and all that is left is a fist clutching the sheets
gone before you could comprehend what it was

maybe it was a feeling, maybe it was the dripping beauty that saturated my thoughts every time my eyes fluttered open,
almost as if my mind didn't believe we were still there
believed that we were still dreaming

and maybe, maybe it was the idea that this was a single place in the world where i would never feel sadness.
maybe i was in love with the idea that the beauty and soft purple flowers growing out of dust could heal my worried and tired soul

when the desert sun rose on that Thursday spring morning, i brushed my teeth, and shrugged on the same shorts i had worn the entirety of the road trip
bell rock was the hike we would make
red powder built on my shoes as the wind pushed my sticky bangs around my forehead, and i stopped to look at the names, intitals and hearts scratched into the rock,
i thought about how proud the rocks must be, for people carved the letters of their name into them, just hoping, praying that a place this beautiful would remember them;
i thought, maybe they hoped that the part of them that carved their name along with their lovers would always be stuck in Sedona, smack dab in the middle of that lone desert paradise
while sitting on the top of bell rock, the red stone underneath me, cold and raw on my bare thighs
i felt the rocks speak
they told me, "do not be afraid, for i have been here before souls were poured into humans, i have lived long before you and i will live long after you, my dear; do not be afraid"

the mountains have eyes, i can sense it
they feel every snowflake wet,
and every hiking shoe dry,
loving, and embracing the beautiful home they created
and as for me, well, i wanted to be one too
i wanted to stand, and listen to the hum of the buzzing highway below,
and the hawks in the sky above
in the cool air of the desert
for the rest of eternity

i dont know how to live in a moment
i am always somwhere else
picking daisies out of a field
running through crowded city streets

i am never here

i am always there
with him
always with him
and he is always laughing

he is always holding my pinkie finger
and kissing my shoulder
he is always calling me, "baby"
he is always there

that is why i am there
that's where he is

and where he is
is not here

a little girl
3 feet high
and eyes of blue

she is so sweet
yet so sharp
oh how she reminds me of you

my love we are dancing in a pit of flames
we are sweetly singing as they eat up the curtains
i am a pile of embers
longing to keep the glow of fire long after it is gone

begging for just one more spark

im so scared to be me again
afraid of crawling after you
on my hands and knees
waiting for you

im so afraid that i will be all for you
and none for me

i see you in broken dreams
fragments of you scattered throughout my unorganized thoughts
visions of your head laying against my stomach
your eyes pouring into mine
ripped holes in our clothes
a cigarette hanging on the edge of your plump lips

i hated the smoke that lingered around the apartment
but i loved you too much to leave
there was something about the smell
that was so perfectly you

there was something about your deep cocoa eyes
when they looked into mine
on our late nights between the sheets
that begged me to stay

i loved you
i promise

everytime i walk through city streets
cold biting at the edge of my ears,
the smell of cigarette lingers in the air
and i think of your eyelashes, fluttering

I fill my mind with his voice
until I can not hear anything else
spend my days practicing what his hands would feel like
as they graze my skin
pretend how his lips would move as they mouth
my name

I take his hands, place the fragile key to my thoughts into his grasp
I let him open me, take out the fragments of my soul he finds intriguing
and keep them

I wrap my delicate hands around his strong neck
until he can not speak
and beg him to say he loves me

your love is terrifying. it makes me want to run and hide and peek out the windows to see what kind of damage it has done. my mind is so scared, and yet my heart is in awe. rain falls like a shower, and the pine needles on the trees are stripped off. you are a madness I can not handle.

but, I find myself trying anyways (I have no self control). I find myself opening doors and windows and letting my feet sink into the sweet soil, letting my hair drip with cold rain, my clothes wet to my body, the wind is chilling to my skin. Every drop reminds me of all my tears shed.

I want to control the madness, reign it in and package it neatly, put little red bows on a box that says,
"love"

there are some things that are not meant to be controlled, some things that you can't put a label on, and some hearts that are too wild for their own good.

days without you feel like winter
the frost from the window is crawling up my spine,
infecting my brain
i am only left to suffer the loneliness, the bleak white world
icicles dripping off my eyelashes, cold tears rolling down my face
dropping to my knees
it is so cold it is hard to breathe
sometimes, i just forget to breathe

i will never get that summer back, the summer of you
baby, my light,
the days were so long when you were here
i ran barefoot in the grass and kissed you endlessly
my body was glowing, you made me glow
sweat, smile, and love
the summer nights that you held me, i was so warm
so so warm
you are my song, my meadowlark

stop reaching. you are pulling on a rope in a game of tug-of-war and nobody is on the other side. you are only getting burns on your hands and mud between your toes.

learn how to breathe. learn how to splash cold water on your face in the early hours of the morning, and be at peace with the fact that there is cold water running down your chest.

understand that time heals all. understand that he won't come back, no matter how hard you try. some love is not meant for the real world

I look into his sweet doe eyes and wonder how I will ever love again
I want him to let me in, let me taste him, let me touch a body that was once part of
Mine
that's what he was. All mine
He loved with no boundaries, he loved fiercely. I wonder if I will ever
learn

The date is June 5th, the petals on the flowers have never looked so pink, so bright, and the sky is glowing blue. Sweet cotton clouds float, creating a perfect summer day.

Come summers end, these petals will fall, and they will never grow again. They will never be as pink as they were that June day. The clouds in the sky will fall into rain, trickle into the ocean, they will never be placed in the sky the same.

I beg for lost time, try to save every moment in my mind because, I will never be sixteen again. I will never smell those flowers again, the glow in my eyes may never be as bright.

But, June 5th will come again, new flowers will grow and blossom in place of the old. They will be so beautiful I might forget about the others. I might find peace. Starting over never felt so good.

Thursday, February 19th.

The once lively suburban street resembles a ghost-town.
Children are locked away inside, hiding,
protecting themselves from the harsh bite of winter.
Living in Minnesota, the cold is everlasting.

I find myself forever wishing of better days,
dreaming of windy beaches instead of wind chill.
I wear dresses and shorts inside,
changing into heavy coats and dark colors to even open a window.

There’s a dip in my bed from sitting in the same spot for too long,
and empty water bottles scattered around my room like easter eggs.
The poster on my wall is slowly coming off, and I don’t try to fix it.
Music is overplayed, and peanut butter sandwiches are making me yawn.

Living in Minnesota, the cold is mind-altering.

i was never a big fan of mint, but after you kissed me, with those sweet spearmint lips of yours, i was hooked.

i was never a big fan of horror movies, but when we watched one, you covered my eyes and held me like i was glass, and i realized that i would probably hold on to you in the middle of a snowstorm.

i was never a big fan of hiking, but when we went on a camping trip, i could see that your eyes were the brightest thing shining in the night; and i wanted to look into them forever.

i was never a big fan of life, but on the night that my world spun and my head pounded with thoughts, you told me it was worth it; that i was worth it.

i was never a big fan of you, but after you picked me up in your old car and kissed me, and kissed me, i couldn't stop chewing mint gum. i still can't.

it’s almost impossible to live in the moment
i’ve only ever lived for the future.
the future is drilled into children’s brains as soon as they can think;
every school year preparing for the next, every skill built onto the last.
as a child i had many dreams for my future.
i always imagined being a teenager to be so much more fun,
i always imagined that boys would kiss me goodnight on my porch and nothing more
i never expected things to become as complicated as they are
there was so much i didn’t know.

some things never change,
and sometimes i still stare out windows into the dark,
imagining a future.
i have created a life within my mind much richer, more fulfilling than the one i live

reality seems so dull to me, because somewhere in my mind i am with you
sitting in a car at night, kissing your rough knuckles
i can feel your hands on my jaw and i can feel the summer air blowing blindly through the open windows; crickets in the distance, you, right in front of me.


and then i come back to my real life,
and i know this isn’t my future.
it never will be.

you are the boy that makes me feel like i own all the stars
you make me feel like i am one myself
sometimes i find myself thinking about you at times i should not be

sometimes i let my eyes wander straight into the sun
do you ever look at the moon and think of me?

you are a galaxy in yourself
the symphony of bright eyes and nose crinkles
protruding collar bones and chapped lips

you are everything
and i am just a star in your world
i wish i could be more

i changed for you
started parting my hair differently
wore shorter skirts
and painted my toenails
and i kept asking myself,
why am i doing this?
and it was all for you
the dumb attempts at extra eyeliner
i changed my laugh
and the way i wrote my a's

they always tell you
"be yourself"
but, i don't even know who myself is
I've been digging
I've tried so hard
i don't know who i am

i tried to be fragile
and when that didn't work
i acted like nothing could break me
i am so **** lost
and i can't seem to find my way out

i was reaching for your hand
i couldn't find it
and i guess
i never will

i want to inhale
your exhales
and kiss you until
i can't taste blood anymore

im sorry i can't help it that
i lick my lips imagining what yours taste like
and im sorry that my body shakes imagining
what yours would feel like against mine
and im sorry that my eyes water imagining
your eyes staring into mine
im sorry that im not enough for you

when you waved and smiled
i thought for a second
maybe
just maybe you waved at me
but i was dumb and wrong
because i turned around
and saw a pretty girl with perky eyes

ive never known love
ive never had the feeling
that someone will always
be willing to hold your hand
and thinks you're beautiful
when you haven't showered for two days
and how even when you feel so small
they make you feel big again

i wish i knew
oh god i want to know
love is like a secret
everyone knows but you
love is like an inside joke
your friends never told you
the whole world seems in love
and here i am

because you only like the girls
with cherry lips
and buys tongues
and laughs that carry
through a storm
i am not one of those girls
you like girls with warm hearts
and although mine is warm
hers is burning hot
and mine is a lingering luke warm

and ****, i bet your lips taste like diet coke and mint
and i bet every time that stupid song comes on
you sing really loudly
and i bet you and her dance to it
because you are in on the secret
that is better known as love