I  wonder  how  many
lifetimes I  have  lived
where    y o u    h a v e
****** me  over. How
many   centuries have
I   loved   you,   have  I
known your fingertips
better  than my  o w n,
have   I felt  t h a t  you
w e r e   my  answer in
everycrackand crevice
of  my  body?  In  what
life  will  you  get your
*******  ****  together?

... ..... ......... ........... ..... .......... ....... ... it's
reassuring  that  someday    rain   will
not remind me of  you banjos will not
make me think of  y o u r  fingers  my
couch will not whisper  "I    love   you
you know I   love   you" anymore that
song                    you like will not have
your                    laugh  ringing   under
i       t                  my      favorite sweater
w   i   l   l      no    l o n g e r    have   the
lingering s c e n t of your shampoo my
hands will not ache for your hands my
lungs  will   not  burn  from   a i r   that
isn't                                                   yours

you do not fall at my
feet yet you make me
feel that i am golden.

blue haze, i
wanted your
hubbabubba
chewed up
dreams, but
now i feel
like i am
drowning
in a garbled
mess of blue
blue blue
blue bluer
than your eyes
(no not
drowning-
you would
find that too
dramatic) i
am choking
on bits of you
that keep
surfacing on
my tongue.

i've started to put myself
back together with the pieces
i have left sitting around in my
apartment and while some of the
original sections are missing it seems
they've been replaced with something
like sugar, something like sunshine,
something like me with a slightly
warmer tint

I was
a                                                            ­        
t                                                       ­ 
t                                         en
racted to your brok
wings.

We've been talking
for longer than normal
and it feels sometimes like
there are bits of my heart
dripping onto my stomach
and I'm worried you can
see the warmth spread to
my face from the
sensation. I'm torn between
telling you and letting
this be a secret I share with
only my insides.

I will not
apologize
for wanting
to know what
it would be like
to sleep near him,
to know what he sounded
like as he was drifting off, to see
his tired eyes in the morning.
Because I was trying to find
something in   someone else
for the first t i m e  in forever
and  that's  okay.   I  will  not
apologize     for being selfish
just this one   time when my
life  has  been  a     torrential
downpour           o f         m e
g                        
i      
     v
                       i
      n
g            
every   ounce   I  have inside
of me to   o t h e r   people up
until this point.  I just needed
to  know  how  it  would  feel
to  be  next  to  someone  ­new.

I swear I've been doing really
okay.  I take  full breaths  and
I've  been sleeping  almost all
the  way  through   the  night.
I   don't  cry   w h e n   I  walk
through  the  l a s t  place  we
kissed  or  the   final    s p o t
where   you   told   me  you
loved me. I can watch your
favorite movie or listen to
yourfavoritebandwithout
falling apart. The antique
mall no longer turns me
i n t o   a   puddle   and
macaroni  and  cheese
only barely reminds
me  of  our   f i r s t
date. But last night
Kaitlyn and I went
to the  river  and I
stood in the same
patch of dirt where
I watched your notes-
all white and stark in the
moonlight-  begin  t h e i r
journey down south. I sat on
the big rock where Kaitlyn and
Chloe held my hands for what felt
like forever until my chest was rising
and falling  like normal (two months
ago almost to the date but god how
was  it not yesterday?) and  there
were  simply stars stars stars as
f a r  as I could  see, and t h i s
little,     tiny,     insignificant
piece  of  me  missed  you.

i am scared that
no one else on earth
will awaken anything
inside of me like you have.
please come back.

fifty-two sundays later and i
do not consider myself to be
someone who is healing but
someone who is recovered. it
still stings at the very bottom
of my lungs sometimes but i
no longer hate the areas of
my skin that you've touched.
i do not feel the fire of your
promises in my arms and i
can just barely recall your
laugh. did you ever think i
could have made it this far?

Ultimately
I'm mad at myself
for believing
I could have
someone as lovely
as you.

how was today not enough for me when
today was you and that antique store you
love and you being so completely you.
when you dropped me off at my door you
waved the way I love with just your index
finger and I wanted to ask you to stay, to
come up and be quiet with me in my drafty
apartment, but instead I just watched
you wink at me and disappear around
the corner. why didn't I ask you to stay?

My lungs are bruised from

all this uneven breathing

and I want to hurt yours

until you feel the same way I do.

I'd
let this
w e a t h e r
pool up to my
door through my
windows across my
living room floor if
it     would     just
remind  you  of
m         e
.

i said goodbye to the first
part of you in Lawrence
thirteen days ago walking
pastthatantiquemall.itrailed
my fingers on its brick and
thought of you reclaiming
my heart in its basement
and i did not want to turn
into dust, did not feel like
melting into the nearest
gutter. i simply took my
hand from the stone,
continued telling
jillian about how
they closed our
hookah bar,
breathed
the early
fall air.

I think the problem is
that I spend too much
time watching your
hands
for your words instead
of your
mouth.

sometimes my mouth was too
sharp, my  tongue  was  too
fast, my eyebrow would
arch just a bit too high
and  you  would  get
that    slow   smile
I    loved,    s a y
"whoa    there,
sassafras."

I don't know how
to be friends with
you when simply
watching you talk
to other people
hurts my head.

I swear I just walked
right in with my heart
and begged "here have
this, have this, have this"
and I don't think you were
ready. I'm so sorry I put
my problems in your
care, but thank you for
taking them anyway and
tucking them neatly into
the pocket on the front of
your shirt (where I think
you intend to keep them).
You are the loveliest
person I've ever been
(and ever will be)
allowed to call my own.

i am passing days with only
the slightest       misstep that
before would  have brought
me to            my           knees.

i just wanted to be a vine
growing up between your
lungs so that when you
breathed you would feel
me there. not like a
tightness, no, but simply
brushing on the very
edges of your laugh or
rough sentences.

the inside of your mind must
be a beautiful place but you
never let me in, never let
me see, never let me
learn, never never
never

Rain no longer makes me miss
you but instead creates an ache
in this vein running through my
left hand where you used to
absently trace with your fingers
while I let the sound of your tv be
drowned out by your heartbeat
thudding beneath my ear.

But
I
wasn't
enough.
And I'm not surprised.

You
will always
be the reason
I don't think I'm
good enough but I
know I'm better than I
was four years ago. And
I think I'll spend the rest of
my life trying to prove to you
I'm bigger than how you made
me feel.

i wish i was in the u.s.
we live for these moments
where time is not too             far
ahead     or     behind,
when we whisper across
w a v e s  and  p a s t u r e s
that the only place we
see ourselves in five
years is rings and creaky
floors,    maybe    a cat
(maybe  t w o ,  love*)
and an old couch from
a thrift store in
leeds. this is the
time when you sing to
me all the songs we're
now calling  "O  U  R  S,"
and we make some kind
of playlist up for the rainy
days when you say you
feel unsettled and grace
is the only thing
holdingyoutogether.
there is comfort in
knowing that our feet
touch the same earth
day          after         day
step              after     step,
that we have no choice
but to only    keep
going    until we are
toe-to-toe,
heart-to-heart.

I     a m     l o s t.
I  rowed  my  boat  out
I think I was looking for you
but it was all murky water and
thick swamp air. I swear I could
hear you shouting for me, hear
you playing your banjo, hear
you whispering my favorite
Neruda  poem,  hear  that
conversation     with
R   o   m   a    n
("So he won you over?"
"I played on her heart strings."
"Mmm, yeah, something like that.")
bubbling out of every ripple in the
water. I picked up my flashlight to see
your eyes, see that bump on the bridge
of your nose, see those pieces of hair
that always stick up, see your slow
s            m             i             l           e
(god, my all time favorite smile
ever    on   a   person's    face)
but my beam caught just a
glimmer of your   h a n d
before  it   burned   out
I'm certain it was you
so I threw it in the
green w a t e r in
my final act of
frustration.
I am lost.