I'll be by the water, lost and found,
A total ******* mess, a thrilling sound.
I can't see my silence anymore.
And they knew I was going down
The day I said I wished you'd come around.


I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine,
I'm fine.
I feel as if this fate was bound.


I told them all with grace,
I'm fine.
I didn't really know the truth.
What happens if I lose my mind?
And then they'll see I never knew.
I need a melody, a sign.
That mine is not a love divine.


I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine,
I'm fine.
It's a fine line.


What happens if you're everything?
And I die again.
Your light seeps into me,
What happens then?
I know that I am going down,
The question now is when.
Love, you're everything that's ever been.


I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine,
I'm fine.
Until the day I'm not again.


The odd thing, now that I am here?
I'm not afraid.
I've never felt less terrified.
I hope this wonder never fades.
Until I lose my pride again,
I am the glorious charade.
My love is what the world forbade.

I'm fine, I'm fine,
I'm fine.

You are the monster under my bed
That crawls up through my pillow and wraps its claws around my mind in the dark.
You are the sunbeams that reach through my windowpane and make it
Let go
You are in my head when I smile, like a consequence, like an instinct
And you are behind my eyes when I squeeze them shut in pain or fear
Like a promise.
Like a bell tolling I hear your name when it is silent and cold outside and the stars are piercing and I am fragile as ice, cracking with the sound of it rolling through my head.
I hear it slide along my skin when I run my fingers through a cat's fur and marvel at the softness and warmth and comfort.
You are in my mind.
You are wrapped around it.
I have made you a disease because you refuse to be a cure
And I will die of it
And good.
Good for you, that you will finally know what you're doing to yourself
By seeing it worn on someone else
You
Darling

You are my nightmares.
You are my daydreams.

You are the insecurities that gnaw at my stomach whenever silence falls and I squirm with thoughts I don't want to think.
You
Are the shadow that falls on the street when I wander at 2 am because I cannot be still with your name burning holes in my bones
And you are what I wake up from full of longing and disappointment when I find my dreams were false.
You are every thought, tacked on, dragged behind, holding on so that
I know of nothing now that you do not cause
That does not cause you.
You, darling, you will be the death of me.
I promised.

You know what? I need to tell you something. I'm ****** up. Yeah. I didn't know I was still so bad. I fooled myself into thinking I had control, when, once again, I really had none. And I trusted you when you held me, and then when you pulled away it hurt, even though I knew it was coming. Hell, the whole thing happened BECAUSE I knew it was coming. The relationship, the love, the breakup, and the fallout happened in one night, and I wasn't behind the wheel anymore by the end.
But that's not what I need to tell you.
I need to tell you that even when I was in your arms, crying, I still didn't know if I wanted to be with you. I'm so used to wanting you, it's a natural setting. But I remember it distinctly (and I sort of hate how distinctly I remember that night, because the good parts hurt to know they're over and the bad parts are embarrassing as **** and bring up questions and issues I don't want to deal with, like will I ever be able to be close to someone I love without being sick with fear? And why the **** does that even happen anyhow? And why did it have to be you who saw me fall apart, again?) But... I remember thinking, "Do I want to be with her?"
I remember wondering if I loved you as much as I love her.
And it's not that I thought "No, I don't."
It's just that... I didn't know the answer. I truly did not.
I think you need to know about this girl.
She is the girl who, 3 days into knowing her, I took her face in my hands and looked her straight in the eye and said, "I am going to FALL in love with you." and she smiled.
She's the girl who kept coming back to me even though I'm crazy, and I told her all about it, and wrote her poetry far too soon, and cried in front of her, and she had a boyfriend, and she never expected me.
She's the girl who picked me flowers at 3 am from the trees by the Sociology building and couldn't keep the grin off her face when she saw me catch my breath just looking at her. We broke in, and we pushed each other down the hallways in wheeley chairs in the dark, and she kissed me on the little bridge by the lake because we couldn't keep our eyes off each other.
Everything I do that makes you squirm, because you don't want anyone to love you that much, that's the stuff that makes her grin even when she doesn't want to. Even when she thinks it's a terrible idea to be out in the middle of the night with a girl she barely knows, holding hands where somebody might see.
She is the girl I was sure would **** me over, who hasn't yet.
And that doesn't mean she won't. I know that. But...
When I met her, I told myself it wouldn't be like it was with you. I wouldn't love someone who hated all the little things I thought about them.
So I just said them.
All.
From the moment we met, if I thought she was beautiful, I let myself whisper it to her like a prayer. I've traced her face with my fingertips. I've handed her every poem I ever wrote about her. I've woken up in the middle of the night beside her, and told her with just my eyes that I was terrified she would be gone if I closed them, and she said, "It's okay, come here." and held me until we fell asleep again. And the next day, she didn't hate my weakness for her.
She knows that if she walks away from me, I stand and watch her go until I can't see her anymore, and even then, stand a minute more just hoping I'll glimpse her again.
Every time I walk over that bridge where she kissed me, I throw a penny off and wish for her.
Every time I see a flower growing and I'm going in that direction, I pick it and I leave it there for her, because I like giving her flowers, even if she never sees them.
Every single night that I walk outside, I look up, and find the first star I see and say her name under my breath. I do it so often that I do it in my dreams without intending to.
I wear that bandanna because I wore it on Halloween, when I was a gypsy and she kissed me on the 4th floor at 4:30 in the morning, and I was brave enough to ask her if she was ******* with me, and she was brave enough to tell me she wasn't, and I was crazy enough to force her to meet my eyes and say, "I am in love with you." and she was crazy enough to smile at me and kiss me, instead of running away.
That was the night that, after she went into her room, I sank to my knees in the hall and cried, and I thought to myself, "Come back, I'm still here. Know I need you." and *******... the door opened, and she walked out and saw me wiping tears away and held me,
And I looked up at her like she was god and I kissed her fingertips and asked her how she knew, and she said she just did.
That's this girl.
And yeah, it's unlikely this will end well. Look at me, and my life, and my emotions, and the **** I've been through, and what a ******* disaster you and I can be if we are both stupid at the same time.
But the thing is... I'd rather be me than you. I'd rather have these experiences. It hurts, and sometimes it ***** so much I wonder what the hell is wrong with me, but loving someone the way I can is worth it. And someday, if I am brave and stupid and strong enough to keep opening my heart after people mutilate it, I will find someone who loves every single thing about me that *****. I believe that.
It might not be her. And if it's you... it's not the you you are right now. But it will be someone.
And if someday you find that you love me, and you are ready to try and give me what I need instead of giving me what you think I'm demanding and then taking it back, and I've found someone like this girl, or someone even greater than her.... Then I'm really sorry.
I'd rather be me than you. I'd rather risk everything, every ******* time, for that tiny chance that my love will work out, than spend my life being practical, and recoiling from the people who give more to me than I think I deserve.
**** deserving. **** plans. **** fear.
Even as I am consumed by it I can say that: **** fear.
That's what being brave is.
I know that people I love can have that effect on me, and here I am, trying to find them anyway.
What's anyone's excuse? Fear? **** that.
Life is so short.
I want to love someone so much that I love the stars.
That I love every flower I see growing.
That I love every lucky penny and little footbridge and time the sun reaches through the clouds.
I want to love someone so much that the happiness they give me scares me.
That I feel home. Everything else is a waste of time, time I don't have.
Somewhere somebody will take me as I am, and she might not understand fully, but she will be tolerant. She WILL understand that I am easy to misinterpret, and easy to push away, and hard to help. She'll get that whatever she gives me, she better MEAN it, FOREVER, because it is worse to give me something I need and take it away than to just leave me without anything at all. And she'll stay when we fight. And she'll stay when we don't. And she'll smile when her beauty takes my breath away, not because she necessarily agrees with me, but because she feels lucky that anyone could see her in such a beautiful way and still accept her flaws.
Someday I am going to BE happy. And it'll take work, and it'll take me getting hurt by a lot of people, and it'll take me wanting to give up and never quite being able to, but it will happen. Because I can't give up.
This girl I fell for who's not you, who I miss, who I dream about, who I hope will love me... she's a symbol. She is the knowledge that there are people out there that I can love who will want to BE loved.
And maybe this all goes to hell, who knows?
But it's different. It's new.
And I am sick to death of the old dance, of being misunderstood and pushed away and blamed because I'm always willing to apologize.
I did that to her once. I said I was sorry for being too intense.
She said she didn't want me apologizing for who I was, that I didn't need to throw myself at her feet, and I told her I'd never known anything else.
I am afraid of her, just like I'm afraid of you. But the thing is...
I need to try for this. I need to try everything I can to find someone I love who will have me. She's given me so much, just by tolerating me in a whole new way.
Because when I met her I was shocked. Every time I'd do or say something and think, "This is it. She's gonna think I'm crazy. She's gonna RUN away right now." she'd surprise me.
Every time.
And every time she'd say something ominous and I'd be sure she was trying to get away from me and freak out, she'd surprise me then too, by saying things that were actually constructive, that didn't imply she wanted out, that honestly weren't hurtful because they were nothing compared to stuff I'd heard from other people I loved.
If there's a chance this could work, I am taking it.
I have the flowers she picked for me stuck in the dreamcatcher above my bed.
I have this flyer... See, one night at 3 am, she showed up at my door in her blue sports bra with her hair trying to reach its way out of a messy bun. I love her hair. It never stays where she puts it. And when I opened the door she blushed and stuttered and handed me a pink flyer and ran off down the hall before I could soak up her presence. And I closed the door grinning. It was a poetry slam flyer, and at the top she'd written, "Mikaila, do this. -TM". As if I wouldn't know who it was. As if she had been standing out there, just gonna slip it under the door and walk away, but had knocked instead last-minute. I love her handwriting. It looks like it'd be hers. I kept the flyer, long after the date for it passed. I have it, and when I miss her I sleep holding it. I'm pretty sure she actually knows I do that and still talks to me. If that's not extraordinary, I don't know what is.
The night I met her, she kept tripping over her words, apologizing, as if there was something she could say that would make me like her less, or something. I think I've spent more time looking into her eyes in the few months I've known her than I have looking into yours in two years, because you and I, our whole time together was so full of hiding, and she and I have never hidden. Hell, half of our conversations are through looks. When we met we didn't break eye contact for two hours, I swear.
When I think of her I smile like hell, and it doesn't hurt, it just feels... it feels like wondering if you made the school play you've been rehearsing an audition for all summer.
Like not knowing if the college you wanted to go to will accept you- If it doesn't happen, it'll hurt so much, oh... but if it does. If it does your world will be JOY.
And that's enough. The hope is more than the fear. It's stronger.
And maybe it'll do its damage, maybe life has a whole new torture laid out for me.
But I'm doing this.
And if I lose her, I will not lose my faith in love. I will not punish myself for it.
I will open my heart and say, "Somebody come in." and somebody will. Over and over until someday, someone will decide they like it there, and stay.
And if it's you, I will be ecstatic. Shocked, but ecstatic.
And if it's her, I will make her tea every morning and hold her hands when she has nightmares, and listen to her rambling stories, and learn the planes of her body the way I know the curve of her face because I still see it in my dreams even though I haven't seen her in 3 months.
And if it is neither of you, it will be someone.
Someone wonderful.
And she will be lucky, and she will have someone to love every flaw she ever hated in herself, and she will be forgiven for every sin she never spoke, and she will be supported through every loss and every heartbreak, and she will be given wings instead of shackles. And she
Will
Know
The
Difference.
Sometimes, when you love me, you say that my life will be more extraordinary than yours. And maybe you are right. But if you are right, it will only be because I am willing to do this to myself. FOR myself. I am willing to take these chances. And maybe you are too, who knows. Who am I to assume?
All I know is that I have taken chances with you, many more than you have taken with me. And that's why you have the power. And I don't mind. And I'll keep taking them. Because there are very few people on earth who I think could make me happy for the rest of my life, and you are one of them.
But you are not the only one.
And if you never want me for real, somebody will.
Somebody wonderful.
And that's why I'm still here. And that's why I won't ever be able to quit, no matter how bad things get. Somebody wonderful is waiting for me. You, or her, or somebody else.
Somebody wonderful.

Half of me is here,
In a warm kitchen
With a girl I love
Who I'm not in love with,
And she loves me too
And she's not in it either,
And she's busy from stove to cabinet,
Making food like it's art, like it's poetry, like it's smiles,
Like she makes things
Because she just does that.
And half of me is here,
Warm and content and smiling,
And half of me is here.
It's just that half of me wanders.
I feel the cold, because half of me is out in the night,
Wandering through frost
To find her,
That girl with the wild hair and the lightning strike eyes and the voice like a summer morning,
And I wonder where she is, what she's thinking.
Maybe she's putting on lipstick in the mirror,
Tying her hair up in a bandana
Because I've never seen her without one,
Not ever.
Maybe she's getting ready for a party
One that I could be at were I not here,
One that would probably end in me hurting over her
But...
She would be there.
I would see her.
I feel it reverberate through my soul, a certainty,
That she looks beautiful tonight.
That her eyes are warm like a fire dancing in a hearth.
That she is not thinking of me.
It warms me more than the heat from the stove,
And makes me shiver with a cold more frigid than the night could ever be.
I shouldn't be near her, not today, not so soon.
And I'm not.
And I'm hurting over it,
Because it's hard to do what is healthy for you, sometimes.
I miss her with a vengeance.
It woke in me when she finally spoke a while back,
And I melted at the thought that she'd thought of me.
I shouldn't see her tonight.
Her and her friends, who give me odd looks when I smile too bright at her.
Her and her boyfriend, whose stony stare, last time, made me think he knew I loved her too.
I shouldn't see her because she will not see me.
And so it's a good thing that I'm here,
In a warm kitchen,
With a girl I love,
Who has henna drawn up her arms because I put it there with tenderness,
Who has a smile in her eyes and an understanding heart,
Who will, tonight, hold me with her whole being
Should I break at the memory of you
And tears leak through my cracks
And shards of glass ****** to the floor from my crumbling heart.
She will be there in the dark to tell me
It's okay to love you.

I have no protest signs or support groups.
No one is petitioning for me in Congress,
Or campaigning for my equality in the hallways of my high school.
No one throws bible verses at me,
Or pushes me into lockers.
For the most part, no slurs are slung at me
No repent demanded.
But I face the same as every minority.
I am the Quiet Repressed
Lack of notariety only adds to my persecution,
I have no sisters in suffering to hold me up.
The insults called me
Are called by me.
Whispered in my mind when the fear flickers in someone’s eyes.
Freak. Unnatural. Too much.
I cannot hold a protest sign.
I cannot demand my rights from the people I’ve terrorized.
I cannot ask to be respected.
Do not think of me.
I do not live in you.
Deny my existence, suppress my need for understanding.
I am the silent presence, smothering all I touch.
And so, chaotic, I can touch nothing.
Nothing.
(Cassandra- “she who is ignored”)

In the mirror my skin is white
White.
Like snow, like clouds, like ashes.
Pure and milky, porcelain and unblemished, pale and alabaster:
White.
Such a pride, such a power.
My skin is white, but my soul is not.
In the mirror, wide dark eyes in a pale face.
They are ashamed.
I look at them, study them, wondering:
Am I?
Could I?
ARE we who we were?
We, who beat down the broken, scorned the helpless,
Yoked our workhorses to the plows of liberty.
We who doled out lashes and harsh words.
We who stood idly by, apathetic and indifferent.
The blood that courses under my white skin, almost translucent, showing blue veins- that is the blood of generations.
It IS we, is it not? Us.
We killed them, we used them.
Doubt blooms, full and supple, spreading inside of me as I stare at myself.
We'd all love to think we are above cruelty,
but could I be so blind?
Could these eyes have looked the other way as another person was wronged, broken, chained?
Could this heart have made excuses, hidden behind "God", hardened against empathy?
Could these pale hands have lashed an ebony back, in another life, another world?
All for what?
A color, a heritage.
Could these ears have heard the songs, assumed the meaning, mistook the words?
Sing of a brother beaten, of a child sold away, of a way out.
Where is the land of "liberty"?
Could these lips have uttered insults and racial slurs, at people who were not people, about lives that were not lived?
What right have I to think I would be different?
In the mirror, I see not just myself, but all of us.
I see the privileged whites, men ruled by avarice, women corseted by tradition, fooled into believing that they were always right.
That WE were.
I look at us, and I do not see white.
I see souls, stained red with black blood.
And I see tears on an alabaster cheek in the mirror.

I could say
That without you in the world
Silence would fall on the whole planet
All at once
Like a blanket of snow
Like a curtain on a lit stage
And everyone would become a silent film-
Playgrounds
Board meetings
Lovers
And
Crowded trains
People standing puzzled,
Voices stolen by a universe
Holding its breath.
I could say that the color would leech from everything-
Traffic lights and flowering trees and oceans
Bland and gray and flat,
Husks of beauty.
I could say that all the strings on all the violins in every orchestra
Would snap at once
And hang limp
Like bits of litter caught on tree limbs.
I could say that
Every song would be wiped from every page
And every long fingered pianist
Would freeze at his work
Hands shaking
Suddenly unable to remember
What his own mind sounds like
And unable to cry out
In dismay.
I could say that the stars would slide like tears down the face of the sky,
That the old gods would turn in their graves,
That the roar of the world would come to a halt
So suddenly and so completely
That every person in it would stop and stare upward
A billion faces all lit with fear confusion and grief
A billion voices
Bitten off like unwary confessions.

I could say all of that,

But I won’t.

Because after all,
It would only feel that way
For those who knew you,
Wouldn’t it?

For everyone else, the sun would rise like always
The wind would whisper
Time would march on
As it always has.
Colors would remain firmly in place
Just as beautiful
As any other day.
Music would swell in subway cars and concert halls and little houses.
Children would laugh and shout in schoolyards
Deals would be struck, fortunes would be made
Vows would be said
And bows would be taken to thunderous applause.
Choirs would sing
And raucous men in bars would shout at tv screens.
People would swarm blithely through airports and streets and museums
Murmuring, laughing.

And somehow...
Somehow that is so much worse

Because none of them would know

That silence should have fallen

And didn’t.

I will never touch you.
I know that.
You will never even know I want to.
I called you beautiful today
In the trappings of a joke
And I saw it hit you
And have an effect I never expected to cause
And it thrilled through my bones
And I know
I will never touch you,
But
I know, too, that when you look away
My eyes follow you with
A sigh never spoken
And in my head
I see it all
I
Could drag my lips along those sculpted shoulders
That your shirt falls from so carelessly,
I could run my fingertips down your spine
And I could breathe into the hollows of your throat
And how is it
That you look like someone carved you from marble?
Every inch.
I dared to look at you in the mirror today
When your back was turned
And the breath was pulled from me
By how much longing could well up in my heart in an instant
For someone so distant.
And what if I just told you?
Sat there and told you
That I am afraid to try and draw you because
I won't do you justice.
That you undo me
And I don't know why.
That I could show you more passion
Just by meeting your eyes instead of glancing down
Than every man who has ever traveled the valleys of your body
And created the rivers in your soul.
I will never tell you.
I will never touch you.
I will only smile when you look at me
And long for you when you don't.

I am asking you to be kind to me.
Let me remember.
Let me dream.
For however many months,
Don't let it fade.
I've read articles, I've researched for years
The mind, the logistics of memory.
I did it out of love.
I've explored it with the singular focus of a dying man
Scouring old books for evidence
Of the Fountain of Youth.

What can I do?
A certain perfume
Worn
To jog the brain and keep a memory in tact.
A gesture or a way to breathe
That brings you back to a lost moment,
A song or maybe
Just the deliberate reconstruction
By the detail
Of a beloved face in the air before you
Although you know it isn't there.

You can train your mind
To conjure ghosts.
And I have done so with mine, over years,
Even when it turns the talent on me viciously.
Am I toying with insanity
Inviting it in?
Perhaps.

Memories are gossamer, fragile,
Like paper so thin and pale and delicate
That you can see right through
And one touch of your fingers,
Even the lightest,
Powders them to silky dust.

I've sought relentlessly
Every trick and association,
Every scientific shortcut
To keep my treasured moments close.
I've touched, willfully, every detail of every second I can recall
Touched the smallest lines and angles and
The little places where the illusion wears thin
Unable to hold the potency of reality
Only its reflection.
I have made myself touch every single moment
That I know it would be easier to leave alone-
Memories are not meant to be so scrutinized.
The price of keeping them is the uncomfortable proximity
To something good which is long past
And the peculiar grief that it will never come again.

But there are things
There are people
In this world
Simply too important, too essential
To let go of.
There are memories
Worth the unsettling work of holding them.
There are moments
I would rather die than not relive.

Please,
I know you are more extraordinary than math equations and good grades
And pages and pages of poetry.
I know that with all of our hidden corners
And how little we know about our minds
You must have a way, you must have a gift for me,
You must have a chance to keep this close.
I am asking you to be what you are.
I am asking you to let me remember.
I am asking you to send me dreams and smiles
And to never let those blue eyes fade to the sepia of old memories
But to keep the vibrance that stops my heart
Alive in my head.

I wish I thought people all did what I do,
I wish I thought they all noticed.
I wish I thought they all had such a wonder for humanity in someone they love.
But I don't.
I've seen proof that I am rather alone, just here,
Rather unique where I am in life.
I don't think she can find your soul.
I don't think she would love what I would.
Mostly because people just don't.
My special talent, my dubious gift,
Is to see all the terrible moments of a person's mind and heart
And love them like they're salvation.
I see beauty as a full package thing.
I love one thing, I love it all.
I love your little petty rivalries and your scars and your self destruction
Your insecurity and your ugliness
I love your carelessness and your lack of self control.
I love all the terrible things you've done,
No matter how much destruction they've caused.
I love it all as much as I love your triumphs.
It is my talent, love.
To love.
And I just don't think it comes around often,
Offered like a tribute.
Nobody wants the cost of giving a love like that,
Except me, it seems.
That is why
I just don't think she can dig down and find everything you hate in yourself
And love it like it's perfect
Without trying to fix it.

I don't think he can see your soul.
I think you picked him so he wouldn't
Because you tired of my love
Terrifying and deep
When you hated all the things I loved you for.
I understand, love,
But he doesn't want to see your mind and heart,
He doesn't want to find it all so he can love it all.

I don't think he can find your soul.
I don't think she can find your soul.
I can.
And I won't hate
A thing I see on the way.

I want your flaws tattooed on my skin
Carved into my ribs
Hard and sharp
So that I might love them from the inside.
Scary, isn't it?
I want to know you like I know myself
So that I might forgive you for every single thing
You can't forgive yourself for
And love you for every mistake
You hate yourself for
And need you for every reason
You ever thought you were useless.
I want to give that to you.
And call me crazy
If I think
That's not a really common feeling to have for somebody.

I wish I had even the self restraint it would take
To keep from following you home like a lost puppy
But clearly not.
If I don’t pay attention when I’m with you
I swear I could end up anywhere.
You could probably walk out into traffic
And there I’d be beside you.
Whatever it is that I feel about you
Pulls on me
Like a string tied to my heart
And I just
Follow
Without knowing why.
It’s ridiculous
It’s dangerous
And I know it
And I am completely helpless against it
Anyway.
I think you saw it for a second tonight
As you were leaving.
I think you expected me to walk away first
And honestly
TRULY I was trying to-
Sadly, I was trying
My best.
My feeble efforts did absolutely nothing.
Instead I stood there,
Frozen,
Feeling that pull to go wherever you went
And watching you look at me
Quizzically,
Watching you notice how difficult it was for me
And wonder about it.
I probably should have been embarrassed,
But instead
I was just stuck,
Stuck for a moment in this weird gravity
Struggling to break free.
And then common sense returned and I think I must have blushed
And said something strange
And hurried off as you turned away.
I don’t know how long this will last-
I don’t know if I’ll just be like this forever
Always sort of tugged towards you,
Or if it will smooth itself out eventually and I’ll be looking back on this with chagrin.
I just know that
Right now
I’d cheerfully follow you into hell
And there’s not a **** thing I can do about it.

I miss you but it does not hurt me.
It does not hurt me because
You say goodbye well.
The first time, in your car, when I finally kissed you
And I couldn't leave
You said, "No, this is a goodbye kiss."
And you took my face in your hands.
You say goodbye so well, my love.
I call you my love
But you are not mine.
It might be more apt to call me yours
For that is what I mean when I say love-
I mean
Be free and fly
But take me, have me,
Let me belong to you from wherever I am.
I have no desire to possess you
But I crave for you to let me be yours.
I ache for it.
That moment when you kissed me goodbye
You owned me
Not in a punishing way
But in a moment of pure knowledge:
You knew
That there was nowhere else on earth I'd rather be,
No one else on earth whose arms I'd rather be in,
Nothing else on earth I'd rather do than let you kiss me until my head
Spun.
You say goodbye
So well, darling.
That whole night
The last one
Was goodbye and hello
All at once.
I can expect nothing less from you-
You are everything, you are all things that conflict and entangle and war and embrace
You are goodbye and hello
Never and forever
Here and gone-
Unbearably close and unbearably distant.
I am not hurt because you touched me
With love.
I felt it in your fingers, in your lips, in the soft curves of you.
In the way you stopped and asked me if I was okay,
In the way you held my hand and told me not to let the world
Harden me.
I don't intend to. Your touch reminds me why I don't intend to.
You may be many things, my love,
You may even be gone,
But you are not cruel.
And that is so unutterably special to me-
For I have loved cruel people,
Some of the cruelest.
I suffer no delusions that I choose well.
I suffer no delusions
That I choose at all.
But this time...
This time I found you.
And you held my fingers in yours so tenderly.
And you brushed my hair out of my eyes.
And you told me
That you love the way my hands look
And I
Could never be sad
Remembering that.
It was the best goodbye
I ever had.

You can have
All of my wishes.
I will bide my time
But I refuse to force myself to want
Something else
Just because I am afraid I will only ever want you.
Right now
You're it
And I am brave enough to embrace that.
You can have every wish my heart aches for.
By giving them to you
At least I've made the choice.
Sweetly
Gently
Tenderly
I wish
For you.

Here in the dark with the music all around me like water, am I a tragedy?
If I walked and kept walking, would I shed what has happened to me?
Am I repulsed as I used to be, by my past and my helplessness, or is this what healing feels like?
Not the presence of joy, but the absence of pain?
We can never go back.
Like a crystal vase shattered on the floor, wholeness just isn't possible the way it used to be.
We can never regain innocence we lose.
I can't tell if I still mourn it, or if I just recognize the space it used to fill.
What will fill it now?
And yet it doesn't hurt.
Will I end up crumbling like you, darling, in a beautiful melody?
In bittersweetness and chagrin?
In irony?
It is bitter cold outside, and I don't recognize my silhouette in the mirror.
Is what it means to stop being a child simply to exist with losses you never thought you could survive?
Am I old, again, in another way? Too soon, again?
You'd think I'd be used to that by now.
I can stop now, you know.
Stop and think without fear.
I used to be running, running constantly from any moment to remember, from any reminder.
And now I have suddenly found that I can stand stock still,
And I don't know what to do.
I've been running for nearly a year.
How will I unlearn my curses and find a new way to exist?
But...thank you, world, for this chance.
I had stopped hoping,
So many times had I deceived myself that I was whole.
I didn't know that the only way to be okay was to accept that I never will be again.
There is a life in that, you know.
I think, for most people, that that is the difference between childhood and adulthood. The moment when you accept that you will never be innocent again.
The shock always hurts, the ripping pain of having it torn from you by whatever suddenly stripped the last of it away,
But once all the denial and grief and anger and madness has ebbed, you realize that
You have become someone new.

I'll never crawl all the way out of the swamp.
Something in me likes it there.
That was what I always found missing in you-
The monster.
I never saw a beast in you.
I saw just a girl. And just girls can be selfish, just girls can cut like razorblades,
It's true,
But they like to draw the curtains on it,
Polite.
I've known you long enough to be almost certain
You've never looked into the eyes of a demon that lives in your chest with you
And smiled back.
That's not your style,
Better than that

Better.

Down here in the gutter, we don't pretend at betterment.
Humans are ugly.
                                 I've decided that's why I love them.

Down here in the filth where the ***** work happens,
It is half love half hate
And sometimes we say things, do things,
That make your puritan heart flutter with indignation.
Sometimes the suffering is hot like a furnace and
We dawn our porcelain masks so that the likes of you
May feel secure.
But sometimes the grime, the blood...
Sometimes the work is... exhilarating.
Those of us who live down here,
Some of us have seen enough pain that
We've decided to find joy wherever it rears its pretty little head
No matter how ugly the reason.
I always wondered, if you saw in me the part of my soul with red smeared cheeks and hungry eyes
If you would condemn me
And now I think I do know for sure.
Nice people like you, see,
Just people,
Just nice people,
They love to think of themselves as accepting.
Forgiving.
Tolerant.
But tolerance is not only for the rallies and the pedestals
Acceptance is not reserved only for the good.
You're a just, nice girl,
Just a girl,
Just a nice girl,
But if you want justice
You've gotta be blind.
See, the thing about nice people is
They're only nice when the sky is blue.
They're only fair when it's fair to them.
I make no pretenses.
I may not be a saint,
A little rough, a little jagged, a little judgmental,
But at least I know I am.
At least I own it, always.
You just nice people, you always hit a point with me
When I simply... repel you.
Because, see, if you're lying to yourself
I make it hard.
Don't tell me you walk through this grimy world with no prejudices and no bias.
You may be a nice person,
But you're no better than the rest of us
Xenophobic creatures full of suspicion, lashing out in fear.
The only difference between me and you
Is that I choose to face the fact that I am not
Just
And accept the fact that I have better things to do
Than bury myself in walls of words I can't use,
Thoughts I can't think,
People I can't choose to seek out or avoid
For a laundry list of reasons that press down like lead weights-
We are equal: Equally depraved.
The only people I truly have contempt for
Are the ones who deceive themselves
And call the others liars.
I forgave you for a thousand sharp tongued judgments,
A hundred times when I needed you and you chose
You
Over me,
A million little criticisms you slung at me that found purchase like barbs in my skin
And you forgive me
Not one word.
Tell me about justice. Tell me I am the only one who lacks it.
Tell me to be
Better.
This world is not about the just,
And that is why I forgive you even now.
Next time you hear me speak
With pain behind my words of humor,
Let it lie.
Forgive me.
Because that is what
The best people
Do.

The Miserable

To everyone who's ever felt alone,
There is somebody there with you, I promise.
To everyone who's ever felt rejected,
Somebody wants you, I promise.
To everyone who's ever been pushed aside,
This is not the end, I promise.
You are worth something, as am I.
We will not be left to die.

To everyone who's ever lost everything,
You will rise again, I promise.
To everyone who bitterness has ever strangled,
You will know tenderness, I promise.
To everyone who settles for being the very last choice,
Because they can't imagine being the very first,
There is hope for you, I promise.
You are precious, as am I.
Someday we'll live undenied.

To everyone who's ever felt not good enough,
You are, I promise.
To everyone who's ever been destroyed,
There is a dawn, I promise.
To everyone who's ever apologized for existing,
You have nothing to be sorry for, I promise.
You are beautiful, as am I.
This is not the day you die.

You are forgiven for the sins you place upon your head.
You are loved for the flaws you scrawl across your chest.
You are exalted for your hatred, for your pain, for your mistakes.
You are respected for the humiliation you carry in your heart.

To everyone who's ever been forgotten,
I remember you.
I promise.

I think it’s hardwired into us
To wonder what our purpose is,
To search for meaning and for comfort,
To feel
Lost.
I’ve wandered a lot in my life.
More than my share, perhaps,
For the years I’ve spent on earth.
This feeling
Takes hold of me
And pulls me after it.
Like a string around my heart
Thin but insistent
It has led me
So many places.
I’ve boarded planes
With little plan
And crossed oceans following it.
I’ve emerged from sleep
Onto shadowy country lanes
Chasing the silver the moon left on the ground.
I’ve walked out in rain
On dull, slick cobblestones and watched
Unafraid
The underworld of London
Surge topside
In the dead of night
And swirl around me like the mist that clung to my heels.
I have walked and walked
Through fields shrouded in early morning dew
Met the eyes of animals in the dark
And held them in a moment of
Understanding:
We both of us are lost
Both hunted
Both free, but uncertain.
I have followed this feeling wherever it has led me
And it has always led me somewhere I could love
But never somewhere I could rest
Until now.
My heart pulled me to you
And I thought I would be out at night again
Scouring the streets
Searching for meaning,
Searching for
Sustenance.
I was ready to live that again,
Ready to embrace that odd agony of feeling,
The secrecy, the doubt,
Ready to leave a trail of blood behind me
As I staggered through the night and into dawn.
But you
Surprised me.
You saw me.
You
Loved me.
These nights, I find peace in my heart
And for once I do not wander.
I savor the warmth of my own skin
Content that soon your hands will bless it,
Will travel it like a map of the world,
Will bring
Light.

I don’t know what my purpose is
But I can guess.
When I look at you
I suspect my purpose is to be right here,
To love and love until I run dry
And simply fall to dust.
And maybe that scares you
But it doesn’t
Scare me:
Sitting here,
Curled up with tea
Writing poetry for you
Dreaming of your smile
I think of all the other callings I could have had-
A call to arms
A call for blood
A call to action or revenge or martyrdom.
I could have been called
To serve
To teach
To sacrifice,
To survive or to
Destroy-
And I look at this love,
This love that I would gladly let
Fade me
Like a step worn down by the shoes of someone familiar and welcome
Like a favorite shirt gone pale with washes
Like an old newspaper clipping in a frame in sunlight
Cherished but worn
Crumbling with time
Known as the back of your hand
Known as your fragile heartbeat,

And I think
To love is not such a bad purpose
After all.

I walk the line between loving cautiously with my mind, and loving recklessly with my heartbeat.
It's like a secret.
I keep pace with my life, but
I know I can weave a rhythm into everything I do-
"I love you, I love you, and more." with every step.
I move on and everyone sees me forward bound,
But I ground every footfall in the knowledge that there are nights I will pray to like altars,
Things I will sacrifice just to remember I want to.
This is what I am.
My body ain't a temple, but my heart is.
In there I stand so still I barely dare to breathe,
Because what if I kick up the gold dust heaped in patterns on the floor,
And destroy the map of where you've gone that I've drawn with my fingers?
And the air will shimmer with the fact that I've forgotten-
No.
Not a sigh too deep, or I won't see your face in my mind when I close my eyes.
I forge on out here, and I am ready to be everything scary and new,
And these months everybody will see the big picture- that my scars
Are paint-by-numbers,
Embossed on my skin in designs of roses and fairylands,
Ready to be art.
They'll see that I can make my footsteps ring like earthquakes.
And inside I will move slow and soft like rose petals,
Afraid to kick up that dust and skew the image.
I'll marry fast and slow, skin and sinew,
I'll meld my love with my defiance and this world
Will be different
Because I am in it.

When did I let myself trust
Again?
I thought sure I was just as far away
As ever.
But you never really know something inside out
Until you lose it
And it's the same with people.
You never really know what they truly are
Until you miss whatever that is.
I don't have friends.
I know it looks like I have friends
And a lot of you might even think you are among them
But I don't
I don't have friends.
I stopped talking to my friends.
I stopped way back two years ago,
When I lost everything and nothing could fix it.
And when seeing someone's face who wasn't her didn't hurt me terribly
It was still simply too tiring to have friends at all.
So I stopped talking to them.
Little by little.
They didn't wanna let me go.
Apparently I was pretty great or something.
But they did. They let me go
Because I am great-
At being persistent.
And I persistently pulled away.
And... that was that, really- I didn't have friends.
I had acquaintances.
I had a loose circle of people who I could talk to if I wanted
But who wouldn't miss me all that much if I suddenly bowed out of their lives.
I made a practice of doing just that-
Periodically leaving.
So nobody got used to me enough to like me too much,
Because I didn't have the energy to like them too.
It became that I only gave myself to love,
Not friendship,
Because when I lost love
Even the best of friends became completely invisible to me, hidden behind a haze of pain.
And I figured that must be a sign.
In a lot of ways, I don't do friends.
Or so I thought until today...
But tonight
Tonight I am losing a friend.
She is parting with hugs and promises to keep in touch
And I am sitting on my father's sofa crying
Because I don't remember the last time I cared about anyone I wasn't in love with.
How did I miss this?
When did I start making friends?
How many of them are there?
Will I even know before it's too late?
And why
Do they ever have to leave?

If I could, I would sit and just listen to your voice.
I find that when I remember my times with you
What hits me the most is just how every time you speak
I could listen for a thousand years.
I have this little dream,
It's silly,
But I have this dream that someday
We'll just lay down together,
And talk for hours.
And slowly I'll know you, the you nobody else sees,
And I could trace the planes of your face with my fingertips
And not be wondering if I'd ever get to look into your eyes again.
The danger is this-
I want you, oh, so much,
You hit me like electricity.
But I also love you in the simplest of ways,
In the most innocent, the purest, the least demanding.
I love you in such a way that I could sit and look at you
And never touch you
For hours and hours,
And be content, comforted, ecstatic, to hear your voice
And watch how the thoughts dance in your eyes.
I love you in a way that
I could just be with you.
Near you.
Just the simplest, easiest thing in the world.
I love you in BOTH ways,
And that is why you bring me to my knees.
I want your mind.
I want your body.
I want your soul.
But I don't want to own any of those.
I only want to touch them,
To show you how beautiful you are,
To adore you unabashedly and ask nothing,
Thrilled at anything I do receive.
That is the most dangerous kind of love in the world,
And I am addicted to the way it moves me.
I want to touch you,
Not only to pull you closer in lust
But to just feel that you are there at all,
Just simply to be near you.
Your nearness cures in me an emptiness I forget is there until it is banished,
And that is why when you pull away, I feel the tearing in my heart
Distinctly.
I just want to be... near you.
It is a craving that goes beyond distraction,
Beyond fascination or infatuation.
It keeps me up at night.
This is what I've always been missing.
This is what I search for every moment of my life:
You. In your entirety.

I love your hands. I know it's a strange thing to say, but I really do. You were leaning back, drumming your fingers on the stage and I caught myself thinking how perfectly made they were, how every line was so important, so lovely and smooth. Long fingers, and surprisingly graceful in their movements, at odds with the rest of you at times. They are hands I could picture cupping clear water from a pure stream, holding that kind of liquid light in a very natural way. I could picture them parting velvety soil to coax young green sprouts from it, lines and creases made more bold by the clinging love the earth would show you. I could picture them, too, gliding along piano keys, although I know you don't play. I think you could. I think those keys would love your fingertips. They'd sing for you. In the safety of my mind, I sometimes long to hold them, turn them over and learn the valleys of your palms like braille, follow the paths the years have carved in them. Not in a covetous way, but in a soft, gentle way. Those are the thoughts that make me blush, that make me keep my distance.

I don't tell you very often, but you're a really inspiring person,
And you're one of the people
(if not the person)
I admire most in the world.
You mean a lot more to me than I ever tell you.
We don't get into feelings a lot in person, I guess. It's just not part of our dynamic.
We talk about ideas and thoughts, but not necessarily how we feel about each other.

Often times before I go to sleep I think of you and miss you and want to cry a little because I think
We got lost for too long during our relationship, and I never actually got to tell you
That I love you
In a really special way that I don't think I'll ever love anyone else.
You've probably influenced my beliefs and the way I think more than anyone else,
And I'm really grateful for it,
Because no matter where we are in relation to each other, I always have a really strong connection to you,
Because a little bit of you is a part of me.

I really really hope you do live to be a hundred, or better a hundred and ten, like you said.
Don't start thinking like you're old- you're only as old as you feel.
I like to see you as eternal,
Like a tall tree that has seen every storm and sunny day,
That's always comfortingly there to support you or shelter you as the weather requires.
I know you're not, but I like to see you that way.
Even though I've seen your flaws and weaknesses as I've gotten older,
In my heart you always remain the person
Whose every word I followed without question out on the rocks or in the woods
Because I knew you'd keep me safe.
I guess I really want you to know that, because I've said a lot of things,
But never that you're more important to me than you think you are,
Or that I respect you a lot more than I let on,
Or that sometimes when I'm tired and my day has ****** I want a hug from you so much that I could cry.
In a weird way, you might be the person I'm closest to intellectually and spiritually and philosophically.
I just want you to know that that trust you had from me as a child
Isn't gone at all,
And neither is how much I love you.
I hope I meet many people in my life as extraordinary as you, but I sort of doubt I will.
Even though you have qualities I disagree with,
And you make mistakes,
The way you live your life is something I strive for,
And something I admire.
Every little girl's dad is their hero,
And my childhood sort of prevented me from telling you
That you're mine.

I'd like to see you
In the quiet hours of the morning
When even the birds have gone to sleep.
In those moments, the few,
When silence settles like a soft blanket
Over all the world.
When mist hangs,
Billowy and light,
Over the wet grass .
And among the tree trunks,
So dark and so moss covered
That they look like velvet smudges against the hazy blues and greys.
When the silvery drops of a midnight rain have clung,
Diamonds,
To the screen doors
And slid pure and clear
Down the windowpanes
And stuck, ripe and full,
In all the splendor of the tiny spiderwebs
That always suddenly drape the grass
Just before dawn
And disintegrate at the first real embrace of the sun's radiant fingers.
I want to see you then,
With your eyelashes casting long shadows on your cheeks,
In the slanted ray of moonlight that might
Gently pull aside the curtains to kiss your forehead.
I want to see you smile in your dreams.
I think if I were to see you that vulnerable,
I would never recover from how I'd feel
Just then,
In the quiet hours of the morning.

I wonder about this woman inside me, who gazes out,
Unimpressed.
I call myself a girl,
But there is no mistaking her for one.
Somewhere inside me, she is always quietly keeping tabs.
Watching, learning, predicting.
And see, she doesn't care.
Not at all.
While I am tossed to and fro in a maelstrom of tangled feelings,
She sits calm, blasé.
She has all the artful poise
Of an old time movie actress taking a drag on her cigarette in its holder
And letting her exquisite face remain aloof.
Every heartbreak that wrecks me
Barely merits a glance from her,
And I wonder what she is here for.
I really do.
See, love, I adore you
And many others I adore far more
But this woman, this cold eyed graceful woman
With slender wrists
And a penchant for raising only one eyebrow
In response to even the most shocking blow,
She couldn't care less about
Any of you.
I don't know why she is here, I truly don't.
But I do know this-
I rather crave, sometimes, the stillness in her heart.
There is a calm there that is
Unflappable
Unshakable
Unwavering.
Yes, I will lose you,
And so what?
Through her eyes people are only
Things to be lost.
Things that will fade out,
Wear out,
Get out
While they can,
And it matters not.
It is a delicate shrug
And nothing more.
The world is a yawn to her
Where it is a stab wound to me
And I admire her apathy
Almost as much as I fear it.

I am always so glad when I find another girl who writes love poems about women.
I get so tired of watching romances that tug at my heart....if I imagine I am the man.
Of reading books and finding that the plot revolves around obtaining a boyfriend.
Of listening to songs of love and heartbreak that I know were written about men.
I'm sick of knowing that it's more of an achievement to have a boy than it is to love a girl.
I'm sick of reading magazines and flipping past half of the articles- "8 Things Guys Notice About You Instantly" and "Make Him Hot For You".
I'm sick of being hidden.
It wears on you. Nobody ever talks about it.
Why does nobody ever talk about it?
I'm sick of knowing that if I were a boy, I would have been with many of the girls I've loved, would have been forgiven for more flaws, would have been seen so differently.
I don't want to be a man. I don't want to love a man.
I don't want either to be expected of me.
And honestly, I don't want to lose to a man.
But I know that that will be happening to me for the rest of my life, and so I swallow my pride.
And I watch other movies. And I write my own stories. And I sing my own songs. And I don't read magazines.
And I give everything I can to the girls I love, and hope that everything from me will mean more than something from a boy.

You are adrift.
Like a brilliant green leaf that forsakes its branch and floats on the air,
Intricate and carefree.
The winds change, and you travel the world.
You flit from flower to sky, twist and dance.
You don't know where you're going.
You don't need to.
And me...
Well, I'm a river.
I press the ground.
I know where I am, and I know where I will be.
Nothing stops my course unless it is
Catastrophic,
Cataclysmic.
Nothing sways or bends me
Unless it is a force of Nature.
I am heavy- I bore into the earth,
Carve a path agonizingly deep and slow,
But I rush along it even though I know it leads to more of the same.
Many things pass me,
Many things touch me.
But when they touch, they stay.
They are swallowed up inside me,
Drowned at the bottom of my passion,
Swept into me and carried forevermore.
For although it takes a lightning strike to change my course,
It takes only the lightest caress to change my anatomy
And make me new.
My bones are in the riverbed,
Cold and clear, my veins rush and eddy, stretching their fingers to tangle in the treeroots,
And if you but touch me for a moment,
You are in my blood.
You scare me, because we are different.
I feel the wind when it picks up,
It kisses my face and I kiss back,
But I always stand my ground,
Even when I might desire the freedom of surrender.
It is my way:
I am a river.
Seeing you wheeling in the sky,
I am afraid.
If you follow an errant gust or passing draft
Far away from me
And over the green hills,
I cannot yank my skeleton from the ground
And uproot my veins from their stranglehold on the dirt
To follow you in your flight.
I can only watch, gouged into the soil,
As you float closer and farther away,
Land upon my rushing pulse and leave ripples that reverberate
Long after you have peeled away to investigate some new breeze.
You spin away again, here and gone,
Close and distant,
And I remain, here in the ground, pounding with the pulse of permanence.

Do you worry that I'll love you?
Sometimes I do.
But
I think that if I were to love you
I would love you the way I first learned to love:
Quietly, and with no demands.
I think if the worst were to happen
I wouldn't reach for you
Only tell you
That you are beautiful.
Perhaps
It has happened already.
I wonder if I fear it, sometimes.
But what I really fear
Is that you will fear it.
I wonder if you worry that I'll love you
And you are just too good
Too truly good
To do anything about it.
If you do worry,
You needn't:
If I were to love you
I would love you like you were made of glass-
Delicate, exquisite, and untouchable.

I cry missing you, too, you know.
I never know how
To tell you.
Because it is always when you're
Happy
And I just
Can't
Ruin it.
It's when you're out somewhere laughing
And I wait for you to come back
That I feel how far away you are.
Or days
Just days when I am alone and silent
And maybe I just don't feel you through your words
Like I usually can.
And eventually I can't do it anymore
And I sit down
Head in hands
And cry because I can't touch you
Because I can't look at you.
It breaks my heart in a new way
One I've never felt before
And have never grown strong against.
My only real strength is in anger, and
There can be no anger in it
Because you are still mine, and I yours.
There is nothing to be strong against, just the waiting, and some days I can't bury it deep enough
And tears well up.
I miss your skin.
I miss your eyes and your soft hair.
I miss your voice in my ear.
I miss holding your hand.
And I don't hide it from you,
Far from, I tell you every day as you tell me.
But this...
This sadness.
I don't want it.
It cloys at me.
And I don't want it
Cloying at you.
And so sometimes I still sit in it and cry
Because you aren't angry with me
And you love me
And you speak to me every day
And you're the most wonderful person
I've ever met
And you're
So far
Away.

Here we are in this cold world, and we stand
Shoulder to shoulder, close enough to feel the heat.
But we do not reach out.
We remain alone.
Haunts in a barren land, lonely souls full of hatred
Because we stand on the brink of connection, of salvation.
And yet we deny ourselves.
And when one cracks,
Cracks open like a wine glass shattered, leaking emotion dark and smooth,
The others deny them in coldness like the ring of crystal,
A toast to a life ended,
To a graveyard joke,
To a jolly good shred of plastic fluttering from a dead tree branch in the wind.
We deny one another, us fools full of yearning and need.
We punish, and it goes round,
And we know not who it is vicious to.
Us or them.
Us alone and lonely or them refusing empathy.  
Us striking rejection like a match or them pleading for tenderness at our coattails.
It goes round like the room's spinning.
We deny our hearts, and they quake in our ******* until we break,
And our blood like wine spills on the floor.
And around us the parlor talk goes on and on, and glasses clink.
Clink, clink, clink, all around.
Drink up to exquisite cruelty.

I know it sounds silly,
But I can't waste this book.
It doesn't feel like other books.
I know that is because you love it.
It doesn't feel like it's made of paper,
It feels like it's made of thin, thin glass.
I hold it like it's precious.
Something feels different about its pages.
They are creamy white and smooth,
And I think that to dog-ear these pages would be a crime.
I know it's silly.
I know it's crazy, actually.
But I can't just devour this book in a night the way I do all others.
Once I reach the end...
I will have reached the end-
I'll have no more pages of your favorite book to read for the first time.
I opened the cover as if light would pour out-
Slow, and careful-
And it might have, I'm not entirely sure.
I'm oddly nervous to travel the lines of this book,
To lose myself in it.
I know I'll be talking to you in the margins.
I know I'll feel insane for it,
And I know I'll do it anyway, in neat pencil,
Because I won't be able to help wondering
What did she think when she read this sentence?
What did she get from this passage?
I wonder if, like me, when you open a well loved book
You feel the impression of wherever you were
The first time you read it.
I wonder where you were
The first time you opened this book.
And I am apprehensive to open it myself-
What if I open it in the wrong place,
At the wrong time?
I'll never get the chance to read it first
Ever again.
Its pages are velvety, and their color is like soft whipped cream.
It's only a book.
But it's not.
It's one of the only things I know about you
And it's in my hands
And
What if I break it?
What if I **** it up?
What if I squander it and then
I'll never have it back?
And maybe it's
Just a book,
Yeah.
But when I touch it I feel closer to you
And a mere book
Has never had that kind of power over me before,
And I'm a little afraid
Of this book.
And I am afraid
That once I've read every word,
And my thirst for knowledge has sped the pages by
Like sand slipping through an hourglass,
I'm afraid that I'll love you even more
Than I already do.
And
Who knows what will happen then?

It is far easier to love someone all alone than to try to get them to receive it.
It is also much less fulfilling.
I try never to rest, never to retreat into myself
And let the love become more important than the giving of it to the person it's for,
But... I understand people who worship at churches.
They are not always worshiping God.
They are simply loving in the safest way possible.
They are writing love letters
On their pressed palms
To someone who can never, ever read them,
And what a relief it must be to know that.
What a comfort it must be to give love to an idea,
And so never have it handed back to you,
Unused, unwanted,
Like an unopened love letter with the postage still stuck on the envelope.

Dear Therese,

I don’t wear my glasses anymore.
Seems insignificant, right?
But I walk around this place
Unable to see beyond conversation-distance
And unwilling.

I don’t wear my glasses anymore
I don’t put in my contacts,
I just walk around, half blind.

And it might seem like a silly thing to write a poem about,
But

You’re not here.

I don’t wear my glasses
Because I know I won’t see you.
I know that if I search ten faces on the way by
Or a hundred
I will never find yours,
No matter what.
So...

I don’t wear my glasses
Anymore.

Love,
Me

Here I am again, it's 4pm.
Online searching "Ways to Combat Depression"
How did I get into the mess I'm in?
It's only 4pm.

The sun still filters through my window.
Cindy Whatshername says it raises serotonin.
How am I ever going to win?
It's...it's only 4pm.

All day long I felt the pressure,
Pounding like a hammer in my head.
Remind me how I'm not already dead?
It's only 4pm.

It's afternoon and the lists are full:
Vegetables, vitamins, a positive outlook.
But Cindy, I'm sorry, I can't buy your new book.
It's only 4 pm.

Once the sun has fled, it's true, it feels dark.
I never really appreciate its light.
But now it is a weapon in a fight.
Oh look, it's 4:02pm.

How early in the day can you regret it?
Waking up and going out at all.
These are just dumb ways to slow the fall.
And pass the time until it's later on.

Watch funny movies, do yoga, try a new sport.
Take supplements, read books, set up goals.
Get some sleep, try to have some fun, and you'll feel whole.
I've done all that. It's only 4 pm.

I don't need advice I've tried already,
I've done all this so many times before.
I don't want to feel defeated anymore.
God, it's only 4!

They say it's caused by anger,
Well, I've got that.
I've got plenty in my life I can be mad at.
I've got hours to explain.

They say you have to face what you've been hiding,
Well believe me, I have really tried.
And several times over again I've died.
And you know... it's only 4pm.

It's 4pm and here I am, alone
Watching a funny show, researching
"Ways to Combat Depression" and I'm searching.
I know someday my search will have its end.
But...I don't know how to do this,
And how am I going through this?
Isolated within memories I always miss.
Toes curling the at edges of a darkening abyss.
And it's too much to continue to dismiss.
And it's
And...it's....

It's only 4pm.

I have nothing I want. But somehow I have everything I want.
I didn't get the girl. I didn't get the part.
It eats me up inside that she ignores me. It levels me that I wasn't good enough.
She's beautiful and it hurts, and sometimes I can't help but remember her tenderness, her hand on my cheek, her smile warming the world, her soft lips,
And her ****** promises that I believed.
Belief is terribly dangerous, and terribly traumatic, even if it only happens for the barest of seconds.
I'd cry about it, but I'm terrible at crying- nothing comes out even when I try.
But...there's this other girl.
I haven't known her long, either,
But the other night we were curled up in bed and suddenly
I started crying,
And I didn't know why but I couldn't stop.
I cried for everything I have lost, and everything I know I am losing.
I can't remember the last time I couldn't stop myself from showing an emotion, and I was truly terrified.
I think it was her hands on me. Her arms around me. Her understanding eyes.
I felt safe to and...
I just broke, and the tears poured out, because I've failed
And it hurts
And it's hurt for years,
And I keep failing,
And I think the reason I fail is that I try so hard, but I try in fear that I will fail for lack of trying.
And she just accepted it all and told me it was alright.
I didn't see the fear in her eyes, I didn't see the need to run from my need.
I saw only the same empathetic, frank calm I know shows in my eyes when I see somebody cry, because I love their truth and I want to know it.
I think that is why it took a very long time for me to regain control of myself.
Even though I've lost,
Even though I am not good enough for the people who decide who sings and who doesn't,
Or the girl who kissed me and then chose to walk away with my heart,
Or frankly, most of the world,
Who would shame me for the shameless way I am forced into love and my inability to shut up about it,
Even though I will keep on failing because I am too scared of regret to try any less than my hardest-
A trying that scares people and loses me things-
Even though, ALL of that... I am good enough for this girl.
That's the thing, see. I have nothing I want.
But when I'm with her I don't care that I have nothing I want.
I don't need it when she's there.
I don't need it all for a while, and I can BREATHE,
And I've never had that.
It's a different love than I've ever experienced. I've never loved someone in a way that hasn't ****** me dry and left me empty.
Sad, but true.
Sometimes I am loved in return for my love, but always it takes from me,
Always
It requires a sacrifice in blood.
This, with her, whatever it is,
It asks nothing.
What it takes is offered, what it gives is wanted,
It is an easy thing.
For 18 years I've needed comfort, and I remember getting it once, ever, before I met this girl.
And now whenever I am brittle and close to despair, I can last until I can see her,
And somehow the pressure lessens when I do.
So, despite all the failures I see coming,
All the falls and the bruises and the crushing disappointments that, let's face it, I set myself up for
By being a patron of a brutal kind of love,
I have discovered that there is a balm, a comfort,
Someone who will give what I need and want what I offer.
And that is, honestly, probably the only reason that I don't feel broken, even after all the things in these past weeks that would have broken me before.
So yeah, it's true.
I have nothing I want.
But I have everything I need,
Everything I always dreamed I'd have but never came close to finding.
Funny, how I always seem to be in the in between. I'm forever in the halfway, if I am happy.
But this is different, still. This is new.
Because when I am with her and I think of all that I've lost and all that I know I am losing by the second,
I can't feel the hurt that comes with it.
It's distant. It's a fact, but it doesn't... MATTER.
And I have never met anybody who can heal me like that,
Ever. And I think she knows that.
And I am honestly excited and inspired to find ways to thank her and give to her.
And for once, I am allowed to be, because I know she will not reject what I give.

My skin often feels like
An ill fitting suit.
Too big in spots
Too tight in others
With seams showing and scratchy fabric.
My life often feels that way-
Something I tug at that settles for a moment
And then shifts back into discomfort when I take a breath.
Sometimes its worn spots let in the cold wind,
Vicious.
Sometimes it sticks to me and refuses to peel away, suffocating.
I feel like a child in church
In her Sunday best
Who knows she must sit still and quiet
Even as the shoes pinch
And the stiff collar closes round her neck.
I sneak glances around me
Trying to discern if anybody else feels
This way.
They all seem content.
Comfortable.
Still.
Perhaps if I just breathe shallowly
And don't move a muscle
I will learn what they know
And settle into my shrink-wrapped existence.
"Tiny people with tiny lives-"
Is it the truth?
Or do they just look small
Because they've learned to squeeze into the space they've been given?
Does the woman ordering coffee in her business suit and heels
Sit up nights, unable to sleep for a longing she can't name?
Does the man mopping the floors
Dream of a woman he will never touch
Again?
I wish I could find those parts of people.
The parts they hide.
Because mine won't stay hidden.
There is something too thin between me
And the world
And it is poorly fashioned
And it is tattered.
And sometimes people look at me with disdain
As if I've walked out of my house naked
Unable to properly clothe myself
And I wonder
If they aren't
Right.

Last night it was terribly cold
But I lingered outside anyhow.
Walking home at 1 am, again,
I took the long way
Stopped by every spot that I could feel you in.
The streetlights still spilled light on the ground in rivers and puddles
And it was still gold
But much sharper- frozen.
It was dead silent everywhere.
I was alone, with my gloves and my scarf and my breath leaving little ghosts of your name hanging in the air
So cold it felt like it had an electrical charge.
I put on that song, and I let myself pretend you were beside me.
My fingers were stiff
And my cheeks were almost numb
But I walked slow to that song
That reminds me of you.
Wistfully I found the spot where we'd paused near the shops
And the one in the parking lot
And the construction site where we took photographs on that spectacularly warm December night.
You know
It's all closed up now.
There are walls where you stood before
And leaned close to me and made me shiver.
I shivered, remembering,
And pulled my scarf closer.
I felt lost. Even with the music in my ears,
I felt the silence of the whole world pressing in on me.
So quiet and still that to breathe or take a step was to shatter it like the gunfire cracking of ice.
I tilted my head back and searched the black sky
And while I'd been wandering the clouds had parted for a moment
And there it was, one star, bright and perfect.
And all of a sudden a smile snuck onto my lips like a surprise
Demure as a sigh, and then bold as a shout
And I was grinning, all alone in the middle of the darkened street.
Suddenly I was just so full of joy and awe that a laugh crept up my throat
And I had to hold it back to keep from splintering the black-ice night sky into little crystal shards at my feet.

I don't know how long I walked,
Slow,
Treasuring the moment,
Closing my eyes against the wind
And so that I could better remember your face.
And if some of my love slid down my cheeks
I didn't feel it happen
Only noticed a blurred halo around that lovely far-away star I kept glancing up at.
And I learned something about myself.
I learned that I carry my home around with me.
That if I really need it, it's there, in my heart.
If I really, really love you
I can remember you so completely that I laugh for joy.