and if there comes a day where the whole world seems to crumble
if meteorites begin to shake the earth as we know it
and the galaxies beyond us start to swallow our home
if the stars that died one million years ago disappear with the rest of us
tell me you'll still trace poetry on the crevices of my skin even if it's covered in dirt
tell me we'll build a shelter from this planet while it falls apart
nothing can shake this love
asteroids can't destroy us
black holes will never swallow us whole
and know that if the ground we walk ever collapses beneath us
I will find you in another universe- one far away from here
and I'll love you just the same

my heart has been my achilles’ heel more than a time or two
but I can’t help but be grateful that after everything, the world hasn’t been able to harden it
human nature is selfish motives
but empathy and I have become well acquainted
let my tombstone read “she was soft”
let me give love like I’ll never run out
let me be your resting place
and if you need the air in my lungs
or the organs in-between my bones I’ll give you those too
and if all I ever do is make others feel loved, that will be enough for me

we used the right words at the wrong time
we were kids, tired of our hometown
cranking the heater and writing poetry with our hands in the humidity on your sunroof
you'd kiss my fingers and talk about us
another us, far from here
where we had already spent mornings in bed that faded into quiet afternoons
I told you I'd miss you and we left the spaces between us as some kind of divine obliteration
I'm forgetting the taste of october
and you are learning how to brave the chill of december without the warmth of me

It's a cliche, the way past lovers always come back around
as if it's written on my skin that I tend to forgive more freely than I should
as though they are checking in just to see if I'm still waiting
hours, days, months spent shoving their name down my throat
to convince myself the ending was mutual
and then one day, long after the waiting turned into progressing
they have the audacity
to ask if I'm still anticipating their realization that they 'loved me all along'
to ask if I still want them, because suddenly they feel alone
suddenly they need me
but I am taking every step in the opposite direction of you
I am worth more than a second-thought, than the regret you feel from walking away

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

you’ve been told that you love too much
as if the way they receive it is your fault and not theirs
you’ve been brutalized and burned
and they kept saying that maybe if you were a little less of this and a little more of that
you wouldn’t keep waiting for people to hurt you
like maybe you should work on giving in moderation
but believe me when I say
someday you’ll find someone who welcomes the depths of you
you felt like you had to hide from everyone else
he will never reduce the galaxies in your mind to mere constellations
he will love the way you give and the words you write
but he will love the way you love the most

take the time you need to find yourself
I know that love seems impossible when you're hurting
and I know I still have things to learn and wounds to heal
I will think of you in the in-between
I'll pray that what is meant for me will never be lost

one by one I am burning all of the bridges
the warmest I've ever been was the night I lost you
it hurt the way it does when you swallow a pill
your chest tightening and the strangest discomfort
and it seems like it might feel this way forever
until it doesn't
losing you didn't feel like a disaster
it messes with my mind because I've never known how to let someone walk away
without begging them to stay
it's as if from the first night we met I was preparing for goodbye
I've had far too many glimpses of the kind of love that wrecks you
to ever settle for going through the motions

I keep having dreams that feel like memories
and I can't distinguish the difference between the two
all I know is there's a space between us thicker than the shadows in my room
and I keep tangling my thoughts in search of ways to feel worthy of you
I wonder who you're holding tonight
I wonder whose lips graze yours at 3 am while I'm trying to forget you
most days, I wonder if I could strip goodbye off your tongue and replace it with apologies
as if words could ever be enough to clean the mess we made

someday, years from now
when you are waiting for her to come home
and your mind drifts to thoughts of me
and you like to think that I'm wandering aimlessly
drawing maps out of the past hoping they'll lead you back to me
you should know I've found a new resting place in the stability of someone else
I show him every scar and the stories behind them
and he smothers them in a kindness that cleanses every record of you
I left your memories with my shoes at his doorstep
and I stopped missing you when he welcomed the parts of me
I always had to hide from you

there are very few people in the world who will ever truly understand you
so let them say what they want, you are not in control of the way you are perceived
don't allow temporary people to explore your soul
the depths of you should only be welcome to those who can appreciate the valleys you've walked and the scars you wear like tattoos
there are people that will praise your failures and hope you stay tethered to the pain of your past
I hope you understand these are the ones that need love the most
I hope you learn to give it from a distance
you'll find that it is necessary to let things go, people too
you'll find that burning bridges isn't always a catastrophe
I hope you learn to love the sound of walking away from what is no longer meant for you
you were made for more than this

to the only one who can rest my anxious heart
to the only one who can quiet my foolish thoughts
to the Father that created me
knowing I would turn my back on him
to the one whose arms were open when I returned
to the sweet promises you have always kept
to the one whose pursuit was steady in my wandering
you're the only place I can make my home
so even in the uncertainty I will dwell in you
and I am not sure of almost anything
but I am sure that wherever I go, you are with me

It's sort of funny in the saddest way.
To find pieces of myself in a man that was never really a part of my life at all.
I wish I knew you well enough to have memories other than playing trivia at a table by the bar watching you stay well past last call.
Fighting with your wife over who would drive home.
Spending every other weekend you had with me staring at the bottom of empty bottles.
And slurring "I love you's" like I might believe them.
Isn't it all I ever wanted?
To be loved by you?
And does anything ever really change?
Can people really change?
You were sober for 5 years after you almost lost your life.
But now I keep waking up to drunk text messages.
Parallel to your drunken confessions in the middle of the night while six year old me tried to comfort you.
Biting my tongue and staring at the cieling fan so I wouldn't cry.
I don't have to hide the tears anymore because you're in another city and I won't ever tell you how bad you hurt me.
But Dad I keep letting men hurt me who tell me they love me at 2 am and I wish I didn't feel like it's because of you.

i pray you find this message
before it's lost in the sea
i pray it finds you
and you find your way back to me

I sink in sadness when I think of the parking lots we used to make a fortress
you still exist in every 2 am
we made the most of the night and we made the most of the daylight
passion never burned so bright in the afternoon
you kissed the indentations in my shoulders and I don't think anyone will ever understand my silence as well as you
lay beside me and teach me the art of saying goodbye
the only thing we never perfected

He smelled like a bar I was too young to get into and marlboro lights
just for a while, I wanted to live something new
to wake up to pancakes in the morning and kisses on the cheek
instead of with my heart broken from the night before and a sinking feeling in my stomach
I hated you for the things you chose over me and the love you never gave
I hated you because a daughter should never have to beg her father for a relationship

I am yours in the first month of fall when the trees begin to dance their autumn song.
I am yours when the sun smothers your cheeks and I envy the way it kisses you.
I am yours when December air pulls against your lips and sends shivers down your spine.
I am yours in the crowd of a million people and I am especially yours when the silence of your solace drives you mad.
I love you.
and I am yours.

people see what they want to see
and maybe it’s a weakness you’ve grown out of
maybe it’s a past you’ve shed like second skin
people will hold on to things you’ve let go of
so you’ve got to love yourself
enough to make up for the ones who spite you
enough to tell yourself you’ve done a good job
when your head hits the pillow at night
people will say things intended to cut you and leave you with open wounds
you are not the mistakes you’ve made-
do not let them convince you otherwise

you have to learn to outgrow things without it breaking you
you'll revisit memories and places like old friends
and the most beautiful thing will be the way you've changed, when other things have stayed the same
certain pieces of your life are only meant for seasons
certain people, too
there's a melancholy beauty in walking away
let them go, with a soft kind of ruthlessness
endings don't have to be tragedies

whenever I thought of you I thought of summer
temporary feelings and short-lived love songs
the seasons took so **** long to change and God knows I did too
then the sun kept shining all September and sometimes it felt like it was shining just on me til it burnt my skin and ran me dry
summer just wouldn't stop coming back and I hate to admit how many times I did the same
but October is peaking through my windows and you haven't touched me in 25 days and I think this time I meant it

I dare you to stay here for a day
find me in-between white sheets with yesterdays hair
and your t-shirt hanging off my shoulder
find you with your silk skin tangled in mine
let's forget the difference between the two
call out of work
tell them you aren't feeling well
but tell them you're in the sweetest hands
we can watch the sun rise and fall from the same positions
we can be the only lovers left in the wicked world
find my hair caught in your mouth and my feet curled against the edge of the bed
call it working from home

sometimes I wonder what it would have felt like to call you mine
to get lost in a sea of blankets
and hear your voice on my walk to class
I'm still holding your secrets like porcelain resting in my bones
there are nights where my mind is lost in the confessions we never made
and I find myself missing someone I never even had
isn't it pretty to think of what we could've been?
you'll always be my favorite almost

I want you to learn about forgiveness
I want you to tell your mother you know she didn't mean to project all of her emotions on you
that she was only your age when she had you and you are still learning too
tell her that you love her, that the best parts of you came from her
I want you to call your dad
I know hearing his voice makes you clench your fists
I know your muscles still hate him even when your heart says you don't
tell him the way his absence had you crying on your bathroom floor before you knew what a panic attack was
tell him the reasons why you blame him for the way you love
then tell him you forgive him
you forgive him even though he never asked you to, you forgive him for yourself
I want you to make a list of every person that's ever wronged you
I want you to burn it and I want you to wish them well
the kind of love you've found, pure and warm
there is no room for resentment in a heart like yours
and then I want you to forgive yourself
even if you feel like you don't deserve it
be gentle with your mind, give yourself a place to rest
you are doing far better than you think

I made you into something you were never worthy of being
I built a castle out of ruins and laughed along while you burnt it down
someday, you'll return to those ashes and realize what you walked away from
I brush off the last memories of you and go on my way
there's no room in my future for you to seep into

what are thoughts and prayers without exertion
give me a guideline on how to hide from a stranger
shooting up a grocery store
but ignore the warning signs of a mass shooter
buy me a bulletproof vest to send my child to school in
because we care more about the right to own a gun than the right to protect innocents
this is not about what the rights are for, but for what they are being utilized
we cannot have compassion for the wounded without outrage for the wound itself
we cannot be okay with avoidable tragedies for the sake of pride

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

I want to be a greeter to the new seasons
to allow the new love, new sunrises and sunsets
the moon looks different from here
I gave away the old shirts and kissed the new lips and let the old worries stay awhile
change is the only thing we're promised
I made my old bed in a new room and danced in the kitchen in my same socks
I welcomed the softer skin and sugar-coated voice, the life that changed when I stopped looking back
everything shifts and I adjust
it's me, a new me, the same me
somehow different
somehow just as marvelous

if you remember me
remember me curled up in your duvet watching you play guitar
remember my hair caught in your mouth and the way we'd laugh in between kisses
remember our firsts and how wonderful they were we couldn’t help but come back for seconds and thirds
remember how the parts of me and the parts of you kept getting tangled in each other
how when we walked away we were both left trying to separate the two
remember me and I hope it's easier to breathe knowing the kind of love this world has to offer

if this is what the wrong love feels like can you imagine us when we find the right

I am aware of the reality of you and me
but I like to believe that in another life we are what we aren't in this one
and I'll never tell you but the spaces between us became so comfortable
I felt like I'd spend my whole life waiting for you to fill them
I've become aquantainces with the truth and I know someday I won't think of you at all
but still sometimes I imagine us, in that alternate universe
the sweetest escape from what I am so painfully aware of

I will not exhaust myself for the sake of making ends meet and let my dream wilt away
I refuse to settle, to find myself engrossed in a mundane life
in a town where the people are all pretending to not be miserable
I have spent too many minutes trying to fit the mold of what I thought I had to be
I want to believe I can come back to myself
like an old friend at a corner booth, caught in city winds
a foreign place but a feeling all too familiar
I'll meet her in a coffee shop, writing with ink stained fingers
this is the me I've always liked the most

I was angry with myself
for never understanding when it is time to put hope to rest
for never knowing what love was and allowing you to define it
after a while, you learn that people are allowed to leave you
it hurts, the way endings always do
but begging them to stay hurts more
and you learn
you learn to see in yourself what you wanted them to
you learn to lift your roots from their heart and plant them beneath your own
you learn the subtle difference between infatuation and commitment
you learn you could swallow the person you love whole and you still couldn’t keep them forever
because loving someone does not guarantee they will love you back
I know lately it feels like no one really cares if you’re coming or going
this is the time to fall in love with your solace

and I’ve come to realize that if affection isn’t given freely, it’s not worth having
i’ve grown tired of driving down dead-end roads as if I could pave my own way out
and i’ve learned to know that it may look like love, but it feels a lot more like pain
and loving someone who doesn’t feel the same isn’t really love at all
and you could spend the rest of your life waiting for someone to realize they want you in theirs
and I knew, no matter what you said you were never going to be sure of me
so I’ll move move on with the realization that there are better things to come than what I’ve left behind
embracing the endings in what is not meant to be

I discovered you slowly
and I don't know that I ever believed opposites really attract
but you are my peaceful and I am your wild
I discovered your language and you tucked my hair behind my ear
assurance falls from your tongue like honey and it's got my hand stuck to yours for good-
"I love you
I love everything about you
even the things you hate, I love
and what you love I love even more"

you can taste the pain I swallowed on the roof of my mouth
I remember the night covering us like a blanket
and the sun shining light to all of our mistakes
I remember your shirt hanging off my shoulder
and the way it looked on another naive stranger, she wore it well
I remember the scent it carried, the scent of you and me
who am I without this longing that wears the shape of you?

I think the sweetest intimacy
isn't the ******* behind your curtain when the sunlight fades
but when I unravel all of the pieces,
stuck to me for twenty years
when you witness the uninviting parts of me
and just as I begin to feel shame come over me
you whisper "Come here, your scars are my favorite part of you"
sometimes I still struggle to see my heart as more than a bruised and beaten burden beating in my chest
but you look at me like it's the first time your eyes have seen sunlight in years
I find my place in-between your arms, passing time with you

I miss you in ways I'm still learning to articulate
like maybe the sea misses it's purity
or your sweater misses the way my shoulders held it
the grass misses the sun's light when night falls
and in the same way the dirt on the ground wonders if it will ever feel warmth again
I miss you as though you're never coming back

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

if my father has taught me anything in twenty years
it is to avoid a man with any resemblance of him
and it's not that I feel sorry for myself but if we're being honest
he broke my mother's heart before mine was ever intact
and I was born trying to piece together a mess of a man with no intentions of being saved
because I believed every drunken "baby things will be different soon"
and I thought that if you loved someone it meant pulling them out of the pit they dug themself into
so I keep letting people fall temporarily in love with me
and trying to fill the gaps of my past with boys with their own open wounds
hoping my words are a scapel until they realize I'm just a human and not a surgeon
I just knew what it felt like to have your heart ripped into shreds before I even knew what organs were

If there comes a day where you decide to strip yourself of the past
to dust off your worn out clothes and start again
If you move to a new city and meet a stranger with eyes like the desert at night
I hope you never grow out of the faint hope we always held close
I want you to know I left my heart in the same city we fell apart and I never stopped wishing you'd come back for it
It's still waiting to be found by you

how could I love myself
and hate the memories that have molded me?
my roots are planted deep beneath the earth
but petal by petal I am growing
making peace with my past
it hurts to stretch this much
but I have learned that I was made for more than just unraveling
and look at how far I’ve come, at how much I’ve survived
I’ve learned to love my dark parts even if no one else will
I’ve learned how to walk fearlessly through the fires I face even if they burn me

you look at me like you might drown in me
a body of water, to rinse away the exhaustion
you look at me like there are depths you've yet to dive into
uncharted territory
you trace the inches of me like there will always be more to love
like you will never grow tired of the skin I'm in
I've grown up knowing that my body is a temple
but I've never met someone so dedicated to worshipping it

there are nights where the rain's so heavy I could drown myself in it
the thunder's just as violent as my sadness
and I wonder why I feel guilty when you were the one who left
I met someone new but my heart was never meant to belong to anyone else
and I love him but I feel like he's only borrowing what's yours
your t-shirt is at the bottom of my junk drawer
and I think of how I could've done things differently
If I could, I'd do it all again
but if I'm being honest with myself I loved you the only way I knew how
with the kind of abundance that can suffocate
so I'll carry my heart like a weight and not an asset
because it will never be a blessing to feel this much

I think I was always running until I found you
I was infatuated with the idea of love but the real thing scared me
so I was a magnet for boys who didn't know what they wanted
and I always thought I'd find the one and confetti would fall from the sky like rain
but you crept your way in despite the differences between us
and I've never felt more at home than I do when your lips graze my cheek on Sunday morning
and there were never fireworks or symphonies but your voice is the sweetest sound
and I might ask you if you still love me on the days when the voices of my past try to creep in
but you sit with me for hours and listen to my thoughts on the world
and I never have to question, I never have to wonder
you love me in the purest way

did you know that there are at least 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe
at least 300 billion stars in the milky way
that a blood vessel system could stretch over 60,000 miles
that the probability of us existing at all is about one in four hundred trillion
that the probability of us meeting is zero, because the set of things that could happen in our lives is uncountably infinite
and I don't know if there's such thing as souls destined to meet
but I do know we could've lived a thousand lives and we still found ourselves here
there's something holy in the hand you hold out of the 14 billion others
and even if the ending is not what we predicted, I'm so lucky to be known by 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

In my head it's 2 a.m. and you're as awake as I am
heads against our pillows and we're both thinking of each other but neither of us know it
you're missing me
and you're unsure of whether you even knew me well enough to have the privilege of missing me at all
but you miss me for the things we never said
and in my head you're thinking of how you never really got close enough to wrap your arms around my waist
to tell me everything I made you feel and everything you saw coming
that never quite played out how you wanted
In my head even your fingers are sad when you think about my skin
even your lips burn at the thought of never kissing mine again
but it's probably just in my head

I know there are nights when ghosts of your past try to creep their way in
their whispers echo until your hands begin to shake
and you’re haunted by the pictures of past mistakes
you are so much more than the thoughts that claim you
maybe you don’t miss that part of your life
but it doesn’t mean it was a loss
forgive yourself for the days you felt unworthy
and for the way you reacted to the pain
you are more than the mistakes you’ve made

I've been drawing silver lines in all the words you never said
I should've read the silence as more than just comfort
you taught me that chemistry is vital
and your arms felt nice wrapped around me
but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't thinking of him
so believe me when I say I don't hate you
not even a little bit, not even at all
I hope you found in her what I wanted us to be
we both deserve the kind of love that makes our heads spin

If I was the kind of girl who kept her thoughts to herself,
If I could bite my tongue and bat my eyes without thinking so far ahead,
If I knew how to dip my toes in the water without drowning in affection,
If I were made to be subtle and delicate,
maybe it would be easier to find someone to lay beside on Sunday morning.
But why would I want a boy who only loves the watered-down version of me?
I'd rather spend my life in solitude
than beside someone who only wants me on the shallow end.

the devil on my shoulder whispers the reasons I should call you
it's the reason I'm thinking of you while he's driving me home
why I feel you when his hand is clenched tight in mine
it's foolish but I'd spend the rest of my life falling apart if it meant falling apart with you
your name blends with his and I have to bite my tongue
look what a mess we made