I always wanted to pretend that nothing changed - that my feelings were steadfast
that who I loved then I would still love now
as if life weren't made up of seasons
I was scared of losing the passion and maybe losing the pain
but aren't we all made to move forward
and if love always stayed we wouldn't cling to it like our last breath
everything is temporary and I haven't decided whether that comforts or terrifies me

when you find yourself entangled in your own empty bed sheets
9 pm on a Tuesday and thinking of my velvet skin
when you begin to miss me and my wild thoughts and the way I never knew better than to speak them
keep it to yourself
don't you dare tell me about the way you turn over at 4 am and forget I'm not there to pull closer
don't call and say you wish you would've done things differently because God knows I gave you that chance
don't be selfish anymore
just let me be and let me believe you didn't care the way I always thought you did

I don't think I'll ever love you but if you want the rain I'll be a thunderstorm
& if you prefer the warmer weather I'll burn so you can see the light of day
I'm not saying you'll ever be the one but I'm so used to all of these thoughts making me crazy
and with you I swear I never think at all
maybe I stopped believing in soulmates a while ago
but if there's such thing as bodies meant to dance and lips meant to touch
I think that's you and I

I learned to stop dancing with the memory of you
to stop hoping someone else might fit in the depression your body left on my mattress
you were not my saving grace
I wake up in the morning and my sheets kiss my bare skin
the sun running across my shoulders, warmer than your hands ever felt
I am whole without you, I am whole by myself

unspoken words never suited me well
I’ll whisper the reasons I’d like to see you in the morning,
mostly for the way the sunlight and shadows dance across your skin
If your fingertips promise to adore more than my body in the dark
I’ll always wish to be more subtle and you’ll wonder how a broken heart could remain so open
the wounds he left when I was six never healed but I’ll let you nestle in-between them
just please don’t make me feel weak for shouting how I feel from rooftops
I’ve never known how to love with anything but all of me

there are people that only come to teach you about loss
words that I swore sounded like promises only meant to be fleeting
because you showed me everything I wanted
and became something I had to let go
and you made the future sound so pretty with no intention of seeing it
and you crossed borders and oceans and concrete walls to get to my heart
and I took your counterfeit one and held it like glass
and I keep searching for the sun in other people forgetting how much I love the moon

maybe it's easier to fall in love with strangers because they'll never watch while they rip you apart
they won't shy away at your tendency to say more than necessary or the thoughts you shouldn't speak but always do
they don't ask for quiet corners or hidden love or pieces of your heart without knowing the whole
if you were never mine or I yours there's no worry in my memory holding onto you
no 4 am whispers or hands feeling empty when you're gone
and he'll love me unconditionally because he'll never know enough to stop

tell me you've been thinking of me
how you always preferred roses but you saw sunflowers in my room
and love never seemed less about romance
tell me how your mind aches for me as much as your body
but your knuckles grew white at the thought of his fingers on my skin
tell me what it's like to miss me in the chaos and not just at midnight
all of the words you don't know how to say and maybe that's why you fell in love with mine

I lost myself somewhere in-between our ending and all of the might've been's
I wanted it to be you
the kind of love that was always more forest fire than fairytale
and all I know is you left me someplace in the middle of "I miss you" and "I need space"
I fell into your hesitation because it was all I had left

I always wondered about storms
if walking through the mud ever did anything besides ***** up my shoes
and make me think of what it's like to breathe without fear of being left behind
my dad always swore he loved me but I only remember him by bar stools and beer bottles
the sound of rain against windshields on the way to his house
was it my fault I've never seen him on my birthday?
the thing about storms is they never have mercy
they don't care about the one that swallowed you yesterday
and it rained for twenty days straight but I still wasn't clean

I was listening to sad songs on the way to work and crying in the grocery store before it was over
as if my heart knew before my head that you were too good to last
& it's not about how little or long I knew you or the way your lips felt against mine
time was never a deciding factor and I didn't lose sleep wishing I were kissing you
maybe it was me and my tendency to make things so much more than they are
but I always felt like I lost you before you really left

please don't use my lips to forget about hers
if my hips are thicker and legs smoother  I hope you don't find yourself craving faded memories
I won't let her scars scare me away if you promise to stay when my tears fall needlessly
and God I'd love to say we found each other easily & unscathed
but my bruises are still purple and sometimes I wonder how he is
please believe me when I say he never made me laugh the way you do and I know you only want me on your passenger side
we have loved before but never like this

the skies are blue here
laces of red & I'm reminded of you
whoever, wherever you are
I hope you are okay
I hope you are thinking of me
& I hope the skies are blue where you are, too

every morning like paradise
and heaven doesn't seem so far away with you
euphoria is your tan skin against mine
& there are one million thoughts in my mind
all connecting back to how to hold onto this moment
I know tomorrow we'll be strangers once again
please just hold me for today

he asked to undress my mind before my body
to know my 4 am thoughts before his fingers traced my hidden skin
he touches me across oceans; drowns himself in all of my layers
whispers that he wants to visit all of the worlds inside of me
slowly, for he knows the wounds are still healing
but he kisses all of your scars
and I hardly think of you at all

you were too much like the bottom of a bottle
4 am; an hour for the lonely and the searching
my head spinning and body drowning
yet somehow alive enough to dial your number
every ring another bullet in a wound
and your prerecorded voice I knew better than my own
every bit as empty as before
yet somehow I thought you’d make me whole

I swallowed your poison for the sake of passion
so you’d see the way I’d do anything to hold your gaze
eyes locked in mine for all the wrong reasons
you’d call me crazy but at least you’re saying something
tell everyone how I’m insane cause you love messing with my head
I lost my mind to all your games but God I loved to play

my pillowcase knows the secrest of us
I remember waiting for you and I thought I needed you more than the steady air in my lungs
like losing you would result in my own self-destruction
two days of silence and tears fell in my sleep
because you were the one and then you were a stranger
and just as briskly as I loved you I lost you
and I felt everything and then nothing at all
and I held you for a makeshift eternity
and you were something divine before I remembered a boy is just a boy

you probably think you drained me that afternoon
stole the last bit of hope I had that love is more than bare bodies pressed against each other in the dark
but I still have the same fire in me I’ve had since I was six years old
hearing my father slur his words at 2 am while I pretended to sleep, trembling hands and sweaty palms until we make it home
and I swore I’d never choose a bottle and a hollow heart over someone I was meant to love
but if I didn’t need a man then to show me I was worth more than empty promises and inconsistent affection
what makes you think I’d need one now?

how many foreigners do you have to let travel across your body
to feel the way you did before he broke you
darling they don't fit inside the holes he left
you know better than to believe this is how you forget
burn the bed sheets he laid on, the only place he ever wanted you
shred apart all of the memories until the pieces are too minuscule for your mind to replay
learn to breathe without his hand in yours
and he will feel it, when your heart stops wanting him
silently remind him you are the best thing he ever lost

and I don’t mean to get so far ahead of myself, because there is so much time for things to fade away rather than fall together
and I have worked so hard to learn to protect my fragile heart
but maybe it’s in the way I thought he was so perfect, so pure
I see you dancing with the devil
but I swear you’re the light for me
and maybe it isn’t so much in the the way someone pretends to be but in the the thoughts they never speak
eyes wide open at 3 am and the music you played on our way home
unravelling you makes my head spin and he’d only say he loved me in the dark

they say that love either means everything or nothing at all
and I was never one for in-betweens
but when I wished to stop needing you so badly my bones cracked when I felt you pulling away
I never meant to stop feeling altogether

I used to trace words against your skin
invisible ink pouring from my fingertips
drunk on the idea of you
as if you were ever more than a troubled boy
making messes of all your past lovers
I’m five months sober and your eyes aren’t my weakness anymore

I am not for everyone and that is okay
but how dare you see a fraction of me and mistake it for the whole
I am not a few raindrops I am a hurricane
a meteorite blinding your eyes- illuminating through the empty night
I am volcanoes aching to erupt & a mystery you could spend the rest of your hours wanting to unravel
black coffee at 5 am, a bittneress you'll get addicted to
I belong to myself- no one's baby and my own hand to hold
the storm inside me will always drown out your whispers
and you will keep searching for the reason why I'm unscathed
your judgement is clouded and I was never one for explanations

so if I was just another body to touch to make you feel less alone
another heart to distract you from your ruins
If I was just another nonchalant goodbye
& girl who loved you more
I can be on my way knowing we were never what I thought
but if your face grew warm when I walked into a room
if I made you want to play with fire
if my kiss burnt your skin and you are still cleaning the wounds
I'll understand why I keep letting strangers feel my lips-
closing my eyes and pretending they are you
I'll know why I still have bruises the shape of your mouth
in places no one sees
even though you haven't touched me in five months
when you swore you'd never meet a girl like me again
I hope you knew you were right

If I could, I would count all the ways my troubled disposition
led to the breaking of my own heart
or maybe how your fugitive tendencies always caught up to you
the faintest sign of affection
and you disappeared before I could muster the words that might’ve changed your mind
it’s inescapable, the moon will ceaselessly pull souls like ours together
our hearts are magnetic but you lost your innocence too young
and I was always searching to fill the emptiness I didn't know was there
again and again, the demons within us will be too heavy to push away
so they will overtake us
consume us until we become a slave to all of our wrongdoings
and I’m sorry I kept asking you to fight away what we both knew would only break us apart
you can write poetry in our shadows but they will always follow behind

Love is not giving yourself away piece by shattered piece
to convince him to feel about you what you feel for him
it is not a million misused chances for the stubborn hope that the pretty words you write will make him want to stay
it is not allowing him to treat your body like a hotel, to come and go in his own pleasure
because he knows better than to think there will come a day where you may have changed the locks
love is not an inexhaustible cycle of sleepless nights
spent wondering what variant of himself he may show you tomorrow
if he shows you one at all
love is not stripping yourself of all the armor you put on to shield away all of his demons
his lips may taste like honey but baby they burnt your skin
and he is already painting her the pictures you thought were only meant for you

I still feel you in my sleep
your morning hair against a pillow
skin like silk rubbing up against mine
tired voices whisper words I didn't think I'd have to hold onto
eyes remain shut, afraid of facing the light of day
but some things are inevitable and I suppose that includes you and I and us together
I knew then that you might've loved me
but that isn't always enough to save us from ourselves and all our chaos
so I let you walk away
I just hope when you find your legs entangled in hers
you wonder about the love we could've made
if you had ever learned to wait for something true
I hope you ******* lips when she climbs onto you
& you remember the way I made you feel without touching you at all

There's all these quotes about how who you love is the person you think of when a certain song plays, or at 4 am when you can't sleep-
or the first person you want to tell good news to
& in a lot of ways I suppose you are that person for me.
but I've come to realize that the worlds sugar-coated version of love is complete *******
it's degrading
it does injustice to the things I would do for you.
I have held onto you until my knuckles bled and then I have tightened my grip.
I have never told you that it is too late
because I could wait a lifetime and still fall at my feet because you would finally choose me.
I think of you every second
I miss you when I breathe- when you are laying beside me.
See, the world's idea of love is pretty.
It doesn't include when you use me up and run me dry and I keep giving.
When I ask you about your day but your clothes are off before I have the chance to tell you about mine.
When you only tell me how much you care when I am laying with my body in front of you
willing to break every promise I have made to myself.
When everyone around me sees that you are destroying me & I feel used
But I would still do anything in the world if you asked me to.
How I am so tired of the way that this feels
but never enough to lose you completely.
But if I never talked to you again I don't think you'd feel any different
And still- I see this beautiful person in you
I see everything I know you could be even though you never would prove it
I look in your eyes and I still want to spend the rest of my life with your hand in mine
You will always be enough for me

You wouldn't understand the words I wrote about the way my hand felt resting in yours
you didn't care that I made you my home
that in the sorrows of this life you had a way of letting me forget about it all
& I thought that I could make you adore me
with the things I said;
how I couldn't make sense of anything except the way your chapped lips felt against mine
& the way your eyes looked while we sat beneath a street light
the effortless movement of your hands when a song you love played
I closed my eyes in those moments, in fear that what we had was fleeting
I worshiped you and you never had to ask me to
I know that some people are born with the uncontrolled capacity to give more love than they could ever possibly be returned
I just wanted you to have the same fondess I did
for the way my stomach never got used to seeing you
the way it felt like a lifetime and I could choose you everyday
& the thought of spending the rest of my days by you never scared me at all
& even after everything I'd let you have me all over again
if you wanted, that is
but you can't beg for someone to want you in the same way you want them
maybe in another life this isn't real and you see galaxies in my eyes the way I see everywhere I want to be in yours
but I know that in this life all the words you never said are breaking me apart
and there are so many miles between us
and I'd give you the world but you wouldn't let me