I forgive you for breaking my heart by accident.
I forgive you for forgetting about me.
I forgive you for the things you could do to hurt me, the things you might do.
I forgive you for the fact that you might not even come close to doing any of them because you may not even ever speak to me again.
I don't forgive myself for falling for you over the course of a few hours,
But I am working on it
Because I think I deserve my forgiveness, too.
I was angry for a long time-
It is my first line of defense.
I manufacture anger like armor,
And I live in it until I am healed enough to see the truth,
And the truth is I forgive you for not choosing me.
And I'll always forgive you
For whatever you do.
And I hope you do things.
No, not so that I can forgive you
But because if you are close enough to hurt me ever again it will mean that
*You
Are
Close.

I wanted to give you something,
Because over the years I feel like I've given you so little.
My gifts never really made you smile or cry,
My achievements made you proud but not ecstatic,
And I always just wanted to give you something.
Something that really meant something.
Something to thank you for letting me understand you,
And for making me,
Because through the growing pains and questionable methods,
And quite literally as well,
You did make me,
And I am very glad it was you, even though people think I shouldn't be.
I wanted to give you something that would tug at your heart
And reach you truly.
I guess I always just wanted to give you something
That mattered.

As much as I love you,
You are not the girl I love.
You wear her face.
You speak with her voice.
Your mannerisms and little quirks are like a mirror of hers,
And my smile is a remembrance of my joy at her beauty.
I am still caught by you.
I stay by your side to see the echo of her in your eyes,
Unable to leave her behind no matter what
Even though she has ceased existing.
It is ingrained in me to get as close as I can to her, you know.
But you?
My darling, the one I treasure more than life itself,
You are not her.
You are not the girl I love.
The girl I love walked away from me last January, when the world was bitter and bleak.
And she never came back.
Not even for a moment.

I want to be something extraordinary because I know you.
So that I can turn around and say,
"Here, this is for you."
And have it be something that shocks you.
Something heartstoppingly impressive.
Something that life's works are made of.
Something that people need muses to even dream of being.
I want to be amazing because of you.

You are loud
And you are drunk
And I turn up my music
Try to mask the shrillness of your laughter
The bus is dark
And it is late
And I sit in my usual bubble of stillness
As if I am alone.
I hate that I can hear you.
Takes me out of my head
And into your world
Where I've got no power.
I sit and gaze out the tinted window at the streetlights
And a car passes- whoosh
Sudden like a knife
Its sharp slice of color through the blackness
Stirs my blood
And I check my thoughts
You are still
So ******* loud
And so ******* empty
Here
Take some of this
And burn with it.
See if you laugh then.
But I say nothing to you.
That is your place
And this
Is mine.
My heel connects with the grungy floor
And strikes a spark
Bang
Like a gun.
Bang
And flames lick the soft rubber of my boot
It smells like a car wreck.
I look away
Disinterested
And wherever I flick my gaze
Embers flare.
Fire races down the walkway towards the back window
Orange and
Breathlessly fast.
Long shadows dance on the walls
Glint off the windows
And throw your faces into sharp relief
Now you look
Like laughing corpses
Skeletal and distorted in firelight.
I like you better this way.
My coat catches
And I feel the heat as
The flames from the floor
Lap at my fingers
Like whining dogs
And I feel them blister
But they remain smooth and white.
I flex them, testing their new hardness
They are bone white
Bone hard
And they clink together
And the flames
Do not matter.
You are still loud
And drunk
And laughing
And you have no idea
Who you're sitting across from.

How strange. Everything is just so...strange.
And what if you loved me, for real?
What if someday you decided that this love was what you wanted?
What then?
Would it be like it was? Would it be better?
Would I fall back into your arms and forget everything since you?
It scares me to think my other loves would be erased if you turned to me and said you wanted me.
It scares me, perhaps more, that they would not.
Can you imagine that?
Can you imagine, after these years,
You loving me and me loving you
And finally us finishing what we started but...
Me always loving someone else as well?
Honestly, it would be so horribly ironic that I think it might happen, just for that.
If I could have one of you, who would I pick?
How would I ever choose?
The girl I will love forever, or the girl who makes me feel like I'm flying every time she looks at me?
The security of you-have-seen-my-hell or the thrilling fear of you-could-create-a-new-one?
The romantic, dusky gold of the past, or the pure, hot silver of the future?
What if you ever kiss me again,
And I melt like I used to,
And you own my soul?
And... what if it happens,
And I don't...
And she owns it?

Your words
Are my home.
I live in them
As you live in me-
The little ghost of loving you
That cries out in exquisite joy
And pain
At being close to you
But never close enough.

I don't think people understand what happens to me after I see you. They think you bring me pain, and sadness, and leave me broken, because sometimes I cry after I've spent time with you. My mother hates you for that, more than anything. She doesn't understand. They don't understand. I don't cry because you make me sad. I cry because you make me happy. Spending any time with you fixes whatever it is in me that is broken and limping, and makes me whole while I'm with you. It's just that when that's over, even temporarily, normal feels a lot... suckier than usual. And that's why little things set me off, in the days after we're together. I cry a little easier, I'm a little unstable. Because I'm coming down from my best. Not down to my worst, just... back to what "most of the time" feels like. I only cry because I wish I could be that happy all the time.
Nobody gets that.
They all think you hurt me. Even when you were trying to, you never hurt me beyond repair. It was the losing of you that did all that, and it still does. When you leave a room, I feel it, in a little tiny echo. The panic and loss and sadness that comes with you being farther from me than you were a moment before. It's shades of that, when you move away from me in any way. But people just don't understand that the only things that can cause that kind of reaction are the best, most worthwhile, most precious things in our lives. So precious that the mere notion of being parted from them brings us a vertigo of terror. If nothing and no one were that important to me, I think my existence wouldn't mean a thing. All it is, when I'm sad in the days after we see each other, is simply this: That I miss you.
Nobody gets that.

Have you ever been in public, and you just want to cry so bad your teeth hurt?
And people pass you,
And you think, "What if you could see behind my eyes?"
And they don't and you're relieved
But also disappointed.
And your fingernails and the tips of your hair
They burn with pain
And it makes no sense because
You know they are dead.
But they hurt like hell,
Anyway,
And your eyelashes feel like somebody's pulling on them
Real hard
They hurt, too,
But your eyes refuse to tear up for it
And you're relieved
But also disappointed.
Does that ever happen to you?

It has been a long time
Since my hair has held the scent of cigarette smoke
From the sighed stories of a girl who has seen too much pain
And not enough tenderness.
It always comforts me
To wake in the morning
With that little reminder
That for once I showed love without
Destroying anything.

We are still
Young
We are so ******* young.
Life is racing by
And it feels like we must be finished
Growing up
But it’s not true.
We are so young.
I am unfinished.
Hindsight is 20/20
But darling
I spent so much time reading
The poetry of your skin
That I’m nearsighted now-
I see only you, larger than life
Because you’re so **** close
And
When I look forward I see only hazy shapes
And things to trip over.
You know me better than anyone
But
I wish I could tell you
That that’s not saying much.
I wish I could tell you that I’m sick
Wish I had blood to show you,
Or skin and bones proof,
Wish I had an X-ray or a doctor’s script
To prove to you that I have lost control
But
I’m sick in a way that you can’t see.
You only see the shadow of it
And I get to look at its face
Days in and out-
Its face is what I imagine they were afraid
To write in the bible
About the devil
And it’s lookin
Right at me
All the time
And when you touch me it sinks its teeth in
Because it wants my joy to be its venom
Instead.
I wish I could show you
That if my outside matched my inside
I’d be in the ICU
Full of little clear tubes
Breathing through a soft engine.
I wish I could tell you
It’s not your job to find a cure
For my mind
That
I just want your love
I just want you
Here.
I don’t wanna look at that face
Days in and out
Without your hand in mine
To steady me.
Your fingers feel like the moment right after your chair tips
And you thought you’d fall but you didn't.
They feel like
“Thank god.”
And I don’t know how to ask you
To be my chemo buddy
As I drip acid into my ink veins
And try to heal from a disease that will never **** me
But will always be about to.
It’s hard to heal
When your treatment is heavy volumes of war instead of peace
And I don’t know what I’m doing.
Please believe me that when I speak
Nothing is a lie
That I never know if my demons will pull my puppet strings
And make me a hypocrite
And then retreat like shadows to let me take the rap
Alone.
I wish I could show you
The IV that pumps insults into my blood
Things I’ve seen in people’s eyes
In yours
Things I’ve heard fall- surprise!- from my lips
Like poison dripping from fangs I didn’t know I had.
I wonder
If a snake bites itself
Does it die of its own venom?
It sort of feels
Like that.
Please believe me
That I don’t want to spill my secrets to you
Like someone sliced my stomach open
And let me bleed them out everywhere
Please believe
That I am sick
And I am not faking
And I am not trying
To hurt you
Or lie to you
I am only trying
To be.
I’m just trying to be
And it’s a hell of a lot harder
Than it looks.

Where we live the sun is green.
The birds are singing and the ocean is shining.
But it's okay because we forgot how to feel.
And then the ice cream started to melt.
Because you need so much time to write.
(And I love listening to you sing.)

I often think that the only redeemable quality about human beings
Is that you may love one.
All the greed and cruelty and abuse,
All the mindless, pointless politics,
All the power mongering antics of the higher-ups
And the pervasive ignorance of the masses-
Sometimes it makes me wonder
What we are even for
If we are on this earth and choose to pollute it
And refuse to learn from our mistakes,
And avoid responsibility instead of helping those who suffer,
And cut corners so that some may be rich today
While the rest pay the price tenfold in fifty years.
We are a people of billboard ads
Our greed 300 feet tall
On the side of every highway promising
**** girls
And new cars.
From far off we are millions of empty business suits
Headless and heartless,
Puppeting through streets and behind desks.
I have never taken full ownership
Of my humanness.
Humanity- that is another story-
We have come, in our vanity, to associate that word with
Kindness, empathy, and emotion,
But from a big picture point of view,
Those concepts have no place in the description of humans.
I have always rejected, to some extent,
My fellowship with these people
That I spend my life near.
There is something other about me to them,
There is something other about them to me.
But, like many toxic things,
Humans
Are addictive.
Humans are a drug I can't quit.
And I look at all the destruction we cause,
And the horrors we invent and implement,
And the injustice we ignore,
And I wonder why I have such faith in me
For my foolish race.
And all I can think of is that
There is only one reason that we are allowed to exist,
That we are at all redeemed for our crimes,
But that that one reason
Is immense enough to hold:
When I wonder how anyone could justify us as a whole
All I can think of
Is that the only truly wonderful thing about human beings
Is that you may love one.

I still have that stupid flyer you gave me.
I should throw it out.
You came to my door
At 1 am
And tossed it at me,
Blushing,
And disappeared down the hall,
Stealing the brightness of the fluorescent lights
So that when you turned the corner
The whole hallway
Dropped in saturation
A few shades.

I still have it.
I found it in my bag the other day.
That's a lie.
I know where it is in my bag.
It has its own pocket.

When I closed the door and unfolded it
I saw you'd written on the top,
As if you were going to just slide it under my door and go
But changed your mind last minute.
You wrote my name.
You knew how to spell it.
Nobody knows how to spell it.

That poetry slam happened a month ago.
I went to it.
I don't need to know the time and date anymore.

I should throw it out.
I should at least put it in a drawer or something
Instead of having it with me.
I like to pretend
It's there by accident
(Even to myself.)
(Like, "Oh wow, look at this paper,
I was meaning to throw that out
Ages ago.
I forgot it was even here!"
Lie.
As if I don't know full well
That I leave it there intentionally.)

You signed your note:
-Tm
As if I would have no idea
Who gave me this flyer,
As if I wouldn't stupidly treasure it
Because you ripped it off the wall
Just for me.

I should throw it out.
(I won't.)

I wait for you
Like a tree waiting for the rain
Like a seed beneath snow
Like the birds wait for dawn
Like the wolves wait for moonrise.

I wait for you
Like a breath held
Like an unfinished thought
Like a step almost taken
Like a dissonant chord.

I wait for you
Like sustenance
Like peace
Like salvation
Like an answered prayer.

I wait for you
Like a tree waiting for the rain.

My entire life
The world has told me
To be satisfied with what I get.
To be quiet.
To be gracious.
And my entire life
I have needed more
Wanted more
Been...
Hungrier
Than anyone else I have ever met.
And the world said
Be satisfied.
And the world said
Be silent.
And so I learned to fit inside it.
I have been taught to need less.
I have been obsessed
With needing less.
The world has said
Be satisfied
Do not demand
And in my quest to please it
The only answer I have found
Is to never be satisfied.
To be quiet
To be hungry
To need, and never ask.
What I get, I rejoice at.
What I am denied, I never covet.
But give me something and ****** it back
And you will find that it was much more important
Than you ever thought.
I have been conditioned
To be silent.
But I have never been
Satisfied.
I need.
And I have never seen my needs met.
And I have learned to live this way
But only barely,
Only by my fingernails.
The world said
The more you need
The less power you will have.
It said
Be satisfied.
Be silent.
Be gracious.
Be
Sorry
For your hunger.
It said
Do not demand
And as hard as I have tried
I have
Failed to obey.

When you hurt me and I'm okay about it, it doesn't mean that you've taught me to be stronger, or improved my outlook, or...done anything positive, actually. If you hurt me and I don't fall apart, it only means that you were the last connection I had to my feelings, and that by cutting it off you have cut the last of my ties and sent me drifting away from everybody in my life. When I actually love you and you actually hurt me, any "okay" you see, and tell yourself you've made me strong and wise enough to achieve, is actually just a slow paralysis of the heart, a spreading numbness that, honestly, scares me more than any pain.
Heads up. The silent treatment is actually never helpful.

People tell me I have sad eyes.
They always have, ever since I can remember.
They're right.
Big sad brown eyes, like a child when they first realize that all living things
Die.
Like that moment, if that moment had eyes.

They look sadder right after it rains:
Whenever the rain stops, something inside of me curls back up to sleep
And I ache to see it go
Because it leaves such an echoing space
Like a single harp string struck all alone
While the others glisten with silence.

Sometimes
If I am very lucky and very patient,
I find someone who makes me feel like rain does.
I wake up inside, tentatively at first, a shock of green pushing up through snow, and then all at once
Roots digging into the core of me.
I look at her and I can hear the hush of a thousand shifting whispers
See lightning sliding through her bones and spreading along her skin.
My heart becomes the thrum of hot air high up, yearning for thunder but too human to reach it.

It is then that I'm told my eyes are saddest.

Funny, to be sad about joy
But inside I become a storm, a hurricane trapped in glass,
My body so dangerously brittle and transparent, a thin but hopeless barrier between me and a world I want to touch ferociously
Frantically
Wickedly.
Words are not enough-
I could build stone temples to this feeling
But it would only grind them to sand.
I hum inside like a tuning fork struck, unable to hold all this chaos in such small, fragile casings.

It is a fearful joy
It is joy that knows its hunger
Will be its starvation:
All storms end.

It is the joy and not the sadness that touches my eyes,
But they are so alike
Both filled with a longing too vast for either.
I reel with it,
For when I find my moments of freedom
The world has texture
And I want to spread my palms against it and never be torn away again.
I hold tight, searching every corner for a place to anchor myself
A scalding certainty seeping through me in layers
That it will always be too soon, never close enough,
That before I can begin to discover what people really meant when they created god,
This vibrant place will slip away and fall to dust
And the grays and browns of my stable solitude will bloom again
And crush the color from me.

So many times it's happened
And yet each time is like the first
Like a child realizing that all living things
Die--
The surprise
The grief
The innocence
All over again
And I am left so tired, washed up on the shores of myself
Bleached by cold light which slices through my haze of passion
Revealing
That it has only ever been me in here
And only ever will be.

People tell me I have sad eyes.
I expect they always will.

A kiss is just a kiss.
Unless it's not.
Your hands are only hands,
But they're not.
Not when they're tangled in mine.
There is nothing else in my life that fills me with such joy that I think I will disintegrate
Just because
How can flesh and blood and bones
Possibly hold a feeling like that?
I tell you you're killing me
But that's what I mean.
It's not the fear that I'll lose you
That makes me wonder if I'll live for another minute.
It's the bliss that you are near me.
It's not what it sounds like-
It's not pain.
It's so much joy that my hands shake.
I don't think we were made-
Fragile as we are-
To feel things like the things you make me feel.
When you touch me,
I am unmade for a moment,
And it is exquisite.
Maybe you think I see you through pain and fear
But those
Are only my defense
Against the idea that I could feel so safe, and so complete,
And so perfectly happy that
The smile in my heart could break every bone in my insignificant shell of a body
If it were to crash over me in full.
Maybe I'm scared of that,
Of the fact that when you look at me
Every part of me, down to the atom, thrills with electricity.
Maybe you think I hate myself, abused and tossed aside,
And that is partially the truth,
But when you look at me and smile
I love every cell of me
And they all love me back
And together we decide that nothing that can be touched with fingertips
Is possibly vast enough
Or durable enough
Or beautiful enough
To hold the feeling of looking back at you.
A kiss is just a kiss
Unless it pulls you apart by the molecule
And lets the light shine in on all the little tiny spaces between.
This body is no instrument fit to play the song I hear when I touch you.
This beating heart is no vessel for how alive I feel when you pull me closer.
I am too tall not to fall to my knees and gaze up at the lines of a face I love madly,
But I am too small to hold that love
Far
Far too small.
That's what I mean to say.

I can't be what you want from me.
I feel it in your fingertips.
I see it in your eyes.
They look like fire beneath ice,
Behind glass,
Hot, melting, but water and fire,
They hate one another.
How ironic that your eyes
Portray your soul the way they do.
Did you feel it from me?
I shied from your need-
Greater than I could possibly fill.
Not quite true,
And the guilt stings inside.
But I quell it-
I know you'd never want my lies.
But what else could I do?
I can never resist giving when I can give.
It's my fault,
Weak in my compassion,
For failing to see that by loving you
I doomed you
To love me too.
You'll never be the most, my dear,
And doesn't it hurt?
It hurts me too.
There aren't many who'd deserve it more than you.
I can love you in a thousand ways,
And god forgive me,
I am so terrible at clarifying them.
And some of them
Are locked from you like treasure
And I fear they're all you covet.

For every love the disillusion comes,
The moment I suddenly realize-
Oh no, I've lied again
And shut my weary eyes.

You hate in me what she couldn't stand,
And I always trusted you.
But in the end I've never known a soul
Who saw me and knew what to do.

You want just what everybody wants-
You want a part of me.
But just a part, a little bit,
To come out and be seen.

But I don't play in parts, my dear,
I don't divide myself.
It's killing me to show you smiles
And pretend I'm always well.

You're just like them! I realize
And oh god, does it sting
To know that all you want from me's
Another nice bright shiny thing.

I always respected you
Both for your pain and for your laughter
But all you ever want from me
Is "Happy ever after".

I've realized and **** me,
For I cannot take it back.
I've realized and now I know
I never had what I now lack.

You'll pout and despair, deny it,
But you've done what they all do.
When I show you storm clouds
You campaign for skies of blue.

I love my darkness, dearly.
Why do you cut it down?
Become my executioner
And banish every frown?

I don't want to smile, some days.
I want to be loved as I am,
Not for the shiny surface
That you constantly demand.

Maybe it's wrong to ask you,
When you've so much else to fight
But god, I just can't always
Flood my darkened soul with light.

I miss my lovely shadows,
My ugliness, my pain.
I miss having someone see them,
Someone else who loves the rain.

Why can't you understand
That your type of pain's not all there is?
Why can't you see I don't want to be saved,
Couldn't stand it being fixed?

I'm not your problem, not your pet,
I don't need your assistance.
Maybe I really push you
To condemn your **** insistence

That I be good and nice and right,
That I smile all the time.
I refuse to lose myself to that.
I will not waste all of that time.

Maybe I really push you
Because you're pushing me.
I force you to see just what you are
And you tell me what to be.

I won't endure it, love, I won't,
I'll keep on showing you my soul.
And maybe it'll hurt you
But you're digging me a hole.

I'll not see my shadowy essence
Buried silent once again.
I'll not reattend the funeral
Of all that I've since been.

You call yourself a shell,
And tell me it's misery.
But look, my love, just look
At what you're forcing me to be.

If you drain me dry of suffering,
And leach away my darkness,
If you hide what makes me special,
Tell me, what will I have left?

Don't make me laugh when I would cry
I can't abide it, dear,
But **** me if I won't be good
And act like I'm all here.

For I love you so much that I'll pretend til
I can't stand it anymore,
Because although I'm prideful
I am giving to the core.

Every morning, when I rise from my bed
I let your ghost
Settle in me.
I touch the necklace I wear every day
The necklace I plan to die wearing
And whisper,
"I love you."
Because I've tried hate-
It tastes
Like bile.
I've tried hard at hate
And I just love you
Too **** much.

When I leave my house and lock the door,
I turn away and look to the sky
And I whisper,
"I love you."
Every time you cross my mind,
I say it like a prayer
Because you are gone
And I cannot pretend I don't feel it
Anyway.
I look forward and...
Life is flat, like a comic book page.
Greyscale, like a cheap newspaper.
But I will color it with your name,
With my memories of you.
I will make things grow.
I will make them solid.
I will make them mean something
By loving you.

When I leave this town,
I will touch that necklace,
And say,
"I love you."
When I leave this state,
I will stop to think of you,
Take it off and watch it glitter in the sun,
Turning, turning,
Throwing shards of silver on the dashboard of the car
And I'll think your name,
Say to it,
"I love you."

When I leave this country,
I will take a deep, steadying breath before I step onto the plane,
Look back at a ground I've never truly learned to uproot myself from
And clutch that pendant,
That charm that reminds me
That I am always yours
And a part of you
Belongs to me,
And I will say,
"I love you."
Before I go
Even if I know you will not hear it.
I will say it,
But I
Will still go,
Missing you with every step I take.
And someday, when I leave this life,
Even if I have grown old and grey never having touched you
Again,
I will leave this life
Saying
"I love you."
And you can leave me.
And you can forget me.
And you can blame me.
But you cannot
Stop me
Loving you
And you cannot keep it from my breath
From the rhythm of my steps
From the beating of my heart
From everything my fingers ever touch and create
From every morning and evening of my life.
When I think of you,
I will touch that necklace
And whisper
"I love you."
Because I know
Finally I know
It is no use not saying it
When I feel it.

And how is it that I am supposed to live in this cold world for however many years are left with the absolute knowledge that a mere feeling can **** me?
Are my days numbered, and I cannot see it? I began to wonder that
As soon as I could think again.
Because my first thought beyond the pain was, "If this ever happens again I won't have the strength to survive it twice."
I thought I'd regain it, you know?
Recharge
Like a battery.
I thought that time might replenish what I had depleted in myself in order to continue breathing.
But I find,
Shockingly,
Nearly two years later that I am just as fragile underneath,
That the loss has lessened none.
My energy is still sapped, my soul still brittle,
And I am afraid
Afraid with every fiber of my being
Because this happened once,
And I felt the certainty in my gut that it could ONLY happen once,
That I would not survive it a second time.
And I thought that would change, if years were to pass.
I thought I would again become durable enough to take such a fall
And be so fragmented.
But I'm not. I'm just... not.
I am different. I always hated myself for the weakness of my heart
And lo and behold, it is even weaker than it was
And it appears that nothing builds it back up.
I am still as certain as the day I crawled to my knees finally
That if it were to happen again to any extent
It truly would **** me.
I am DANGEROUSLY exposed, still,
Like a raw nerve. So easily damaged. My god, I am defenseless.
If this happens again, that's it for me.
How ******* STUPID is that? That I have never tried to **** myself,
Never even let myself want to,
Through all the **** and against all the odds,
And yet I might still die-
Maybe even SOON!-
Of a ******* feeling
And have no say in it whatsoever.

What I'm saying to you might sound like "Please stay, I will die without you."
Sometimes it sounds that way to me, too.
Sometimes I peek into the caves of my mind
And my footsteps echo it back to me like rain.
But that
Is not what I'm saying.
What I'm saying is that I know I will have such joy in my life.
I know in my bones that I am not going to waste this chance I've got
To feel things.
I am certain that my life will be not just happy,
But spectacular.
I will never be safe, I will never be bored, I will never give up, I will never
Settle.
What I'm saying to you is that
I want you in that.
I want you to be the reason.
For a while,
Or forever.
Your choice,
Your freedom.
What I'm saying is much more than "I will die without you."
No,
I will be exquisitely alive with or without you.
I'm no fool, I know that.

What I'm saying is,
I'd rather it be with you.

You have to make your peace with the fact
That some of the most beautiful things you will ever create
Will be made in the names of people who don't even know about them,
And could never come close to appreciating the feeling behind them even if they did.
Your choice as an artist is,
Will you let that make your art less beautiful,
Or will it stand lonely and exquisite, because something in it is only yours?
There is a difference between loving someone and what loving them creates in you.
A person can leave you, can ignore you, can forget you, can misunderstand you.
But the art that you create in their name will never do any of those things.
This is your time to choose
Whether you hold what you create because of love as yours,
Or let someone else own-
And possibly destroy-
Something it's likely they haven't even truly looked at.

You have a kind face.
People with kind faces always draw me in, like a candleflame draws a moth.
I have seen enough of beauty to know
That people with kind faces can immolate you
With the terrible force of their loveliness.
But... they are so very warm.

You do have
Such a kind face.

What fills your mind when storm clouds flood your eyes?
Blue eyes, too
And sometimes you'll sit in exquisite stillness
And just gaze
And shadows will pass across your face
The way high flying clouds cast dark patches upon the lonely fields out west,
And I just have to look at you.
Your face is...
Achingly lovely.
That precise phrase.
When I look at you in passing, by accident,
The porcelain perfection of your skin,
The glinting depths of your eyes-
Full of secrets-
The way the light casts the shadows of your cheekbones along your jaw,
Your symmetry pierces me
And I gasp air
Like I've been hit hard
Because in a way, I have.
What is in your head?
You remind me of the sea.
Vast. Deep. Free.
Calm on the surface
And contained chaos beneath.
Brutal but unapologetically wild,
Sparkling but guarded,
And...shockingly lonely.
That is what I see in your eyes when you lounge, lithe, in that ratty old chair
And endow it with a smooth-lined grace it could never even approach if you didn't occupy it,
Arm draped,
Face dark,
Eyes brooding,
Like a sculpture that came alive one day,
Stepped off her pedestal,
And left the soaring, silent museum hall for the scathing disarray of the real world.
I wonder...
Does it disappoint?

In Shakespeare
People just die if the person they love leaves them.

There's totally something to be said for that.

The rain is making the grass grow thick
And blossoms push through the bark of every tree
And the wind is warm
And the ground is sighing its relief
Because you are home
Finally
And home is
You.

There is a type of perfect summer rainstorm that exorcises the heat from the ground in billows of mist and makes the world hazy.
The lightning sets the trees into relief and every so often a little light leaf will float to the ground.
The thunder rumbles, the sky crackles, and the clouds are leaden and low in the sky, brushing the treetops.
The rain makes it look like they are falling on you when you look up.
It catches in your eyelashes and strokes the side of your face with little rivulets of water, it plays in your hair and swirls around your ankles, a warm melody.
I met a girl once with eyes like a rainstorm.
Their steady gaze has never left me, for it felt like standing in one to meet it.

A kiss is like a conversation. It can be as short and sweet as hello, or goodbye. It can be a long argument full of anger. It can be a soft whisper of comfort, or a sharp demand. It can be shouted like a joyful whoop, or murmured like a private confession. Kisses are much simpler than words. We need less to say what we mean.
A kiss can say, I missed you, I need you, I adore you.
It can say you hurt me, I hate you, I forgive you.
It can say don't leave me, I'm sorry, please console me.
It can say come here, I can't live another moment without you next to me, breathing is not important.
A kiss can say things for which there simply aren't translations, for no words encompass the meanings.
And let me tell you one thing. When a woman kisses you, she is always saying something. You have to hear her, you have to listen, else how will you know what you've just said back?

There was a girl up on stage a moment ago
Who looked like you.
Just a little.
Just enough to catch my eye.
It was when she turned slightly and the lights hit her face a certain way
And suddenly it was your face
Your hair framing it with curls
Your eyes with the smile born into them by their shape alone.
And I caught my breath.
I couldn't look away.
I loved that girl for a moment.
Loved her till my heart broke.
And then she turned her head and you were gone
And I had to collect myself
From little pieces on the floor.

Now is just now.
Now is not then.
Now is not will be.
Now is only now.
It's only now.
And I can live through now
Knowing that now will soon
Be then.

(You're beautiful.)

No, no, that life is ended now.
This is a new one.

It ended as all lives seem to-
Suddenly, for no good reason, and without any real closure,
But it has ended.
It must be over, you must be over
Or I will be unable to go on.
So I am laying that life to rest,
The life of depending on you and letting your presence make me happy.
And if you resurrect it someday,
Clear the dirt out of my eyelashes and help me climb back up,
Then I will rejoice when the light kisses my face.
For now
It must be done with.
I want to continue.
I have no time to wait, no time to pause who I am and spend my nights wishing you'd come back.
I wish I did.
Oh, darling, I wish I could devote my life to you the way I crave to.
But you are gone,
And that life must be done with,
Tidy in my head so that I can't trip over it or cut my fingertips on its sharp edges.
If you are not here, you must be gone.
I can't spend much time in the in between if I want to survive.
I am sorry, love.
I am sorry.
This life I am entombing again, it will always be waiting for you, always willing to rise again and be tired
For the sake of loving you.
It waits.
Any time you like, it'll be there.
It waits. But I can't right now.