They’d waited too long to say

“I love you”.

3 words. 3 syllables.

Yet they held millions of emotions unspoken.

and now that they’d done it, they wouldn’t,
couldn’t, stop

they told each other all the time, at the end of the argument
and before the good news.

In the middle of the storm, even though it was hard to see, and after, when the raging winds had settled on a breeze

before the rising sun turned the sky pretty colors and after it flickered out and faded away into the dark

Underneath the stars that their love had been etched into

There was no love until death for them, because it would never stop

I love you beyond

the gardener

skipping to a solemn beat
swaying down the row
crouching down, and watching seeing everyone grow
crying silent tears
and nurturing all,
all except one

untiring, yet wondering when life will be done
gardener gardener
you’ve helped me grow
showing me how change is good
“like this, like so”
gardener gardener
when will you sprout
when all your little seedlings are watered, grown and out?
it may be too late
you’ve missed your chance at your ideal fate
collecting all your dreams,
and shoving them into a crate
for now winter has come,
and you’ll have to wait.

-l.r

splayed limbs and warm sun and sneakers laid to the side and sun on my body and the sound of the water more than anything else

A midday shower to get the stickies off, maybe its all worth it

If I get to spend even a second in the wind, drinking in its cool caress, how could I remember to yearn for the warm sticky touch of another?

If I get to hear the rushing of the water so close to my ears, what phantom chatter of ghosts could permeate?

If I get to feel the sun kiss my skin the way it does, what significance could the absence of you hold?

When I have so much, how could my heart remember to need you?
When I have so much, how could my heart not want to share it with you?

You who I know would love it. You who I wish loved me half as much.

When I have so much, why does missing you take up any room for gratitude in this cluttered mind? I started off alright this time.

This is not a rhyming poem.

****** poetry, maybe 5 is my lucky number. But 5 is a lie I tell to and for myself. I seem to have been briefer to you than that.

The difference is that I say 5, and you do not say.

colorful ghosts speed past and pay her no mind
but she shines so brightly
she faces the wall, searching for warmth and stillness in jagged cracks
she reaches out, hand running against the callous stucco of the wall
it is
*****
a choice
for fun
but she does not miss the colorful ghosts
and the darkness that seeps through the cracks
beckons her further in
welcomes her home
until she is so far submerged in the unknown
that for once
she is unsure
but the darkness holds a warmth
that those phantoms couldn’t fathom
shadows envelope her light
the colorful ghosts finally still
they cry out
they never got to taste her warmth

when we get out
when i get out, i will dance with my eyes closed and my heart full
with my friends
we will sing songs
excited and pitchy and a little too loud
like our heart beats
tone deaf, but in sync nonetheless
we will hold each other like never before because now we know that at any moment, that string that connects our hearts and minds could be cut
when i get out i will take you to the moon, we can hop from star to star until we find what we are looking for
i will drive you to the edge of the earth just to hear your laugh and feel your warmth for as long as i can
we will spend hours trying to figure out how to fit our thumbprints together like puzzle pieces
we won’t stop until we get it
when i get out, the sun will
shine a little brighter than it had before
when we get out you will feel my love in every breath, deep or shallow, long or short
puffs of air littered with a trillion swarovski crystal hearts
just for you

bookshelf g(litter)
coffee grounds on fake granite
the surprising immortality of Payless and Ikea
a warm love that zips up and down halls
in and out of respective bedrooms,
where those mismatched mugs
reside on nightstands

even on the foggiest of days
i’ve been feeling so okay
cleansing water
a *** of coffee
the dreaded carb
a journey all the way uptown to frolic
cartwheels across the great lawn
all on my own
but it doesn’t feel like before
no clouds
heavy and grey
for as far as i can see
no boxes and no locks
i thread my fingers through the grass and we’re the same
inhale strawberries and bright blue
exhale luscious green
my outline glows
thought i needed hands
but i figured it out
well enough
well enough
i’m different now

I thought we were forever because we shone like the moon. But the moon goes away whenever the sun tells it to, and eventually, hearts sing different tunes.

-l.r

A perpetual summer on an end of New York.

Whether the warmth comes from inside or out,
spreads across my face or streams down my forehead in daring rivulets.

Stinging my eyes so I cant see the gleaming smiles in front of me.

Longgggg beach with wiiiiide bands of colors that kiss the sky at evenings call. Call

me down, Ill put my ear to the shell and ill close my eyes and ill smell the salt. Ill miss you.

You got in! I'm missing out. Let me help you in. Take that out. Take me out. Ill miss you much.

I want to go on the rocks. One, two, three, jump! They're checking bags, can they even do that? Can

I even do this? Without you? There’s no us if we end here at the end of long beach.

If that graceful sunset absorbs our love sure the saturation goes up a bit but what about me? It's only been gray days since us you know? You know I miss you.

Your days are still in color? Colorful days still exist for you?

My eyes dont seem to follow those rays anymore, I only get occasional sunrays so bright they’re blinding they blind me from seeing the gleaming smiles in front of me, from seeing the glint in my eye in the mirror it still stings that its just me now. Now

that we’re dearly departed.

Dear__,
what will I do without you? What is me without us?

Do you see you without me?

A long beach not so long at all
its the end of our perpetual summer at the end of new york.

I used to write of mismatched mugs
coffee grounds
fake granite
joy
what more are we than a blue black family
a pulsating bruise
that will fade away with time
like any mistake where that blue black blood
pools
gone in a while
ill remember the scene of the crime
how could I not
downcast eyes peer over my heart
a tough mound protected by soft skin
I will expect to see it
I will feel it's phantom pulse
the ***** gazes upon nothing else
insatiable
a memory will **** by
a time I can not get back
and I will recoil
those coffee grounds make me nauseous now
nobody knows but you
lifes sinister brew
we sip out of mismatched mugs
that bitter brew