you were a wound that wouldn't stop bleeding,
i was the gauze volunteering itself.
i don't know why i never accepted that you only ever put yourself first;
i guess i thought if i loved you fiercely enough you would see that i was worth placing at least second.
i think of our softer moments and it takes all i have to keep from unravelling,
even though they only lasted as long as the summer did.
sitting beside you in your hospital bed late june,
i know now that you just needed a distraction from your detox,
and that it wouldn't have made a difference if I'd just stayed home.

it's 7:25 in the morning and i'm outside smoking a cigarette beside grass so cold that it appears blue.
nothing will rid me of my thoughts reluctantly drifting to you.
thought takes shape in the form of smoke clouds
billowing out from my lungs on this quiet morning.
i realize now what little concern i have for my own well-being.
you never warned me of how abruptly you would change;
i was the poor ******* who saw your flaws and decided to keep loving you anyway.

i think of the feeling of when we kiss and how i can almost taste your soul
and so the breakdown begins.
i loved you so tenderly.
i remember the spring.
i guess our moments were just moments to you,
but to me, they were the beginning of our life together.

Sometimes I like to imagine what it'd be like if we had met when we were 6.
I imagine us both meeting at the playground;
Playing tag,
Climbing things,
Catching bugs.
A world of wonder for two young souls where anything is possible.
I imagine a great dragon breaking free from beneath the ground and swirling in the air,
I imagine a forest fairy who reveals herself only to those who have the capacity to believe and keep her existence a secret.
I imagine asking you,
"Wait, so are we friends?"
The way I would after playing with someone new for the first time,
and I imagine you nodding your head the way children do and saying, "Yes."

You may not want to hear this from me, I understand.
But I'm going to allow the words to escape.
Fair-warning.

I'm sorry things aren't going smoothly in California. A lot has changed, I'm sure everyone just needs time to adjust.
They care, I'm sure they just don't know how to help.
I'm sorry you're trying to find ways to fill the emptiness and it's leaving you bored. Boredom can be dangerous.
I bet you feel like Milo, stuck inside on a rainy day.
I hope you wake up one morning and without realizing it, you are filled with peace, joy, and curiosity as you discover your new surroundings.
I really do.
And I assure you, you've not been forgotten.
Not by me, not by anyone here.
I'm not sure of their reasoning, but I've kept my distance so you could walk the streets of San Diego without feeling the weight of the people missing you back home.
Also, because I can't shake the thought of not meaning **** to you anymore-- why would you care to hear from me?
It's shrug-worthy, but you are thought of every single day.

I read your poem and it resonated with me until the lines about emotional abuse in regards to our relationship past.
I am sorry you feel as though you were emotionally abused while we were together.
Your feelings are valid, your thoughts are valid, but from the bottom of my heart, I can't agree.
I am adding vinegar to this story caked in mold.
Forgive the smell.

During our relationship, I would end things because I thought I was doing what was best for the both of us.
Though my intentions were pure, it was undeniably impulsive of me
and I am truly sorry for being so **** fickle.
I left because of the red flags I saw-- a defense mechanism used by trauma survivors of abuse-- I left to protect myself from someone who I loved deeply but was indifferent, manipulative, and passive aggressive at times.
I went back because of how much good I know that I know there was and still is in you.
Your faults do not define you.
I loved you at your worst. At your best. Especially on the days you couldn't describe how you were feeling.
You didn't need to tell me because I understood.

I left to protect my heart and so you could find someone who would make your eyes light up just from walking into the room, because I knew I couldn't.
Seeing you smile at everyone and seeing my smile met with your bored eyes, I'll admit it kept me up at night. I'll admit it kept me silently crying from room to room.
The rejection I'd feel from someone who would make it clear he wanted me only when he would **** me.
Lights out, keep my distance, repeat again tomorrow.
It seemed there wasn't an end to the lonely nights spent by your side.

It was my choice to stay in such an environment for the time that I did, and I don't regret it.
I stayed for the days we were in-sync. The days we would look across the room at each other with a knowing glance. The days we would walk for miles and laugh along the way. The nights we would drink and get so dizzy as the room spun
with nothing to keep us grounded but our lips pressed against one another. The nights we would undress and lie in bed, talking, sharing stories, kissing one another's skin.

****, now I'm remembering too much.

The point is
I put you first.
Forget my own mental health, yours mattered more to me then.
You didn't ask me to, I wanted to. I wanted you. I wanted to be your friend.
If that is emotional abuse on my end, please enlighten me as to how.
Because I'm still feeling the neglect yet still hold you lightly in my head.

I left to pursue someone who I thought deserved a second chance.
I was convinced you were bored and didn't really care who I ended up with, that you were with me out of convenience.
I felt unwanted.
Later on, after we got back together, you said if I ever went back to him, that would be it.
I understood.
After we broke up, I hooked up with him.
The same night you slept with someone else.
I didn't hold it over your head; we weren't together. But you held it over mine.
To be honest, I think it's ****.
I think it's unfair.
For me to forgive you for going even further than I did and for you to not reciprocate.
Your drunkenness is not an excuse, my dear.

You slept with someone else and I forgave you.

I don't need your forgiveness, in truth, I did you no wrong-- we weren't together when we ventured out to different people-- but it would be nice to move forward without this ink splotch mucking up the clarity of things.

Once I'm convinced of something, it's hard to unwind the coils, unbend the metal, and begin again, you may be similar, only you'd know.
But I think you'd learn a lot from this if you took a step back and slipped into my shoes for a moment. Really reviewed our time together with a fine-toothed comb.

My error was in not taking care of myself, trying to take care of someone else, and doing a **** job at both.
This year was one of the most exhausting 12 months of my life. My physical and mental health took quite a beating.
I wasn't in a place to tend to the issues I kept ignoring that I'm digging up now for my own sanity.
I feel better now,
and I hope once things settle down and this depression fades, you will too.

I want to humbly and sincerely apologize from the depths of my being for ever hurting you.
I am sorry for the times I woke up in a bad mood from not sleeping well the night before.
I am so sorry for not just walking away when I was irritable so you wouldn't have to remember it.
It is over and done with and I am pouring water over the embers of what we used to be,
but still, I am sorry.
I forgive you-- even if you aren't sorry.

I thought about listing the things you've done, the ways you've hurt me, but pressed backspace instead.
It doesn't matter anymore.
It's forgiven.
It is now forgotten.

I respect that our views of the events that transpired between us clash, I respect that things might not ever be the same again.
But I'll be ****** if I didn't wish that we were given one more chance by the Universe to get it right.

You are still someone I love deeply, someone I would take several bullets for, someone who will be spoken of as a lesson for my future children.
I will tell them of a young man I once knew who revealed to me what it meant to selflessly love someone,
and when to walk away.
I will tell them of the story that you are.
A breathing legend.
My old best friend.

You move me.
You move me like sunlight on the dew drops of wild flowers.
You move me like the loud rumbling of thunder.
Like an intense game of laser tag; sweating and running and chasing.
You move me like Louis Armstrong's fingers on his trumpet.
You move me like my mother smiling down at me from the kitchen table when I was six.
Like Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,
Like the smooth surface of my first hand-made bowl.
You move me.

You move me like the wind in my face when the car windows are rolled down.
You move me like my first paint set.
You move me like holding my first nephew, staring up at me with his small, blue eyes.
You move me like The Ground Is Lava.
You move me like the pen on this paper,
racing to scribble down my next thought.
You move me like snapping hair ties, like broken records, like drippy nail polish.
You move me like the rain drops on my window during a violent storm.  
You move me like a long, unwinding road.
You move me like holding my crying sister.

You move me like T.S. Eliot, John Green, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Neil Gaiman.
You move me like a fast swivel chair.
You move me like my first knocked-out tooth.
You move me.
You move me like my first kiss in the second grade, smiling and giggling and nodding at, "Do you want to do it again?"

You move me like your bruised fingertips.
You move me like nervous glances that are shot away when you look back at me.
Like our first hug, when I didn't want to let go.
Like my blistered feet when I snuck out and ran to see you.

Like the playful nudges when we walk rythmically side by side.
You move me like your slant rhyme.
You move me like my shaky leg.
You move me like the late nights spent looking at photos from my past.
You move me like new shoes on linoleum floors.
You move me like the purple bags under my eyes.
You move me like the first time you introduced yourself to me.

You move me like my first communion as a child; disrespecting the purpose to the practice and just wanting to down a shot of grape juice.
Like the printer that won't stop shooting out pages.
Like your tangled imagery and verse.
Like my first hat.
You move me like rushing water.
You move me like falling out bed.
You move me like when our hands accidentally brush against each other in the hallway.
You move me like refusing to give up and trying again.
You move me like the way I dream of moving you.
You move me.

come back, come back,
come back from the dead,
before the acid went straight
to your head.

come here, come close,
come hold me again,
the way you used to when
you were my friend.

you're near, you're far,
you're somewhere between,
you're hidden in shadows
and leaving unseen.

i feel the pull when
i'm thinking alone
it sticks to my teeth
and clings to each bone.

It has been almost two months since I last felt the energy of your lips against mine;
I've forgotten for the most part the way they tasted after you smoked a cigarette out on your balcony in the cold.

I've learned by now that I'm at peace when I suppress the memories and pretend you do not exist.

That probably isn't healthy but at least it helps keep your ghosts at bay.

Some thoughts, though, are etched into my memory due to how much I tried to remember every little detail while we were together
otherwise I knew I'd forget-
how your pupils expanded and contracted,
how the sky looked,
how much the air weighed-
You and I both smoke often and don't put much faith in our memory but I'd be ****** if I didn't try to remember.

I think I tried so hard because deep down I knew what we had,
whatever we were
was temporary-
but it was pure,
and it was rare,
and it was so beautiful.

I desperately tried to remember you sitting there beside me the first night we were alone together,
walking around downtown and passing back and forth pineapple ***** in a bottle of mountain dew,
picking each others' brains,
talking about our past.

We became inseparable within days.

As puzzle pieces, we fit perfectly.
Even our friends thought we would be great together,
you and I both **** well knew it.

I still remember how far away you looked as you played the song you composed on the piano and that it was so ******* beautiful I tried to hide my eyes that were welling with tears.

I didn't care that you weren't really mine as long as I was still falling asleep in your bed and feeling you move closer and drape your arm over my waist in the wee hours of the morning.

Peering out of your window half asleep, I had the perfect view of the sky.
I'd watch the sun rise and look over at you and I felt like I was finally home, which was a relief since I felt unwelcome at every single place I had ever lived.

One night, your friend drove you over to my house;
you had drunkenly texted me saying you wanted a kiss.
I sat on the couch and anticipated your arrival,
trying to calm my pulse,
not having a **** clue the end was rapidly approaching.

After all, it's hard to see the end of the road sign when you're too busy looking at the breath-taking scenery.

Lying next to me on my bed in the dark,
you touched my face and whispered, "I think that deep down, even if we're not together, you are mine... and I am yours," and I believed you because I was always told that the truth comes out when the drinks go down.

We were so sweet to one another; taking each other's temperature while we were sick and lying together in bed just talking for hours on end.
We agreed time flew with one another. We kissed and laughed so much.
I was content.
I thought you were too.

We stopped seeing each other as much,
Our conversations dwindled and I could feel you losing interest.

I watched you slip from my fingers and I couldn't do a **** thing about it.

Less than a month later, I went over to your apartment and you were high on the couch with your coworker's legs draped over your lap; the same girl I tried to befriend.

I looked away from the eyesore but you pulled me back in with torturous small talk.
I did my best to seem relaxed but my thoughts were burning into my exhausted brain,
how could you?
I cared after you and you repaid me by rubbing salt into the wound.

I knew then that I had lost you and I did everything I could not to shut down completely.

My autopilot is a reckless flier;
always has been,
probably always will be.

But despite the sharp turns and rough landing, I have been going to bed before 8 am and remembering to eat.
I have been taking my vitamins and drinking water.
I have been getting high with my friends and trying not to think of your voice.

As ****** as it sounds, sleeping in the bed of someone new helps speed up the healing process, or numb the same wound that won't heal- I can't tell.

I know people are meant to enter and walk out of our lives at precise moments and that there are lessons to be learned in everything,
but I still don't understand.

I guess these things just happen
but gee, I wasn't expecting it'd be over so soon.

We never had closure and we're both with someone new now so these words, words, words are pointless,
but as long as they are still flowing, they are still alive which gives them purpose.

And that is a thing worth writing about.

We were a thing worth writing about.

I remember seeing explosions of bright orange and fuchsia Bursting and rushing through my mind's eye.
I remember kissing your eyes, nose, cheeks, and trying twice to kiss your lips but shying away like what I was doing was wrong.
And then slowly, carefully, you kissed my eyes, nose, and cheeks.
I remember the feeling of no longer being able to hold back
as I lifted my hands to your face and kissed you.

I remember the rush.
I remember not wanting to be anywhere else but there in your bedroom.
I remember you waking up for work and getting ready as I laid comfortably in your bed.
I remember when it was time for you to catch your bus and you cradled the left side of my face as you told me, "You're remarkable." and I just smiled with my eyes closed and let it happen. I let every second of you happen and I wanted more. I waited for more.
How could I replace that? How do I even begin to forget?
It's been 7 years and I still remember your eyes.
In every setting, when they were filled with wonder, or even when you were bored.
I could never replicate what I felt with you, as one-sided as it was.
You possess a certain magic that I've never seen in any other being.
Both light and dark, you beam.
I could never forget you.

It's alright to be a cog if you adore the clock you're ticking for.

My thoughts compensate for the lack of noise.
Here is to cough syrup and all things alike.

If you want to know the truth, the first dose was to stop the wheezing in my lungs,
and the second was to put an end to the sinking in my gut.

I miss watching your fingers dance across the keys of your keyboard and I miss the same fingers that would lift my shirt and dig into my back.

Yours is the only secondhand smoke I would gladly inhale until the cancer crept up and took us both.

I would be honored to drown in a sea of you and your demons.

Am I actually in love
Or am I just addicted

I'm swinging from limb of tree to tree
you're the moss bed beneath me
if loving you is giving you the space you need
I'll do my best to not intervene

when you awaken at 2:30 am and you step outside to smoke,
and everything is quiet,
and everyone on the bit of earth where you are is fast asleep
and nothing is pressing
and everything is still... and soft,
these are the kind of private moments I yearn for the most in life

I wish to live in a sea of satin;
with my brain as a cushion and my thoughts as the breeze

gently rocking, with sleep weighing heavily on my lids,

gently drifting, within dreams and prisms and visions of warmth

In the springtime between the everglades and mountainside
I have talks with the sun about moving on
but between the downtown city streets and 7:54pm sunsets,  
I don't know if I can.

In the summertime I find myself between the trees and the glow of light against your face until very late into the evening
driving down back roads
and talking about the past,
smoking funny plants
and speaking of our dreams.

You're lost and you don't know it,
don't worry, I am too.
There are too many things to say
and not enough time
as my thoughts collapse over the other in three's and two's.
entering the bacchanal with my own elixirs in my pockets,
the chorus of voices collide against one another into a harmonious babble.

it's 6:48pm where I am,
the sun is setting on your side of town.
if these roads could bend until they led me to where you are,
I still don't think I'd follow along.

I lost my heart to a bear trap
while searching for yours in the grove,
freckle-spotted strawberries
and cracked jars of honey
littered the path for miles on end.

I followed your gaze out of the wooden corridor and found cherry blossoms tucked between folds of linen as I greeted the morn.
Your grin is so fixed that
I look to it to find the humor
even if I'm the joke,
and I think of the way your eyes looked
when you were too stunned to speak; hand to mouth,
until I fall asleep and meet you in my lucid dreams.

Golden light floods the room
as dust slowly moves about.
It is quiet here,
but not so quiet that the silence is loud.
I can hear the air filling his lungs and slowly bidding them both goodbye with each passing second as he sleeps beside me.
What beautiful rhythm.

There are so many things I'll never be able to ask you
like how did you sleep?
Are you hungry?
Do you want another cup of coffee?
How was your day?

All of the answers you won't tell me
to the questions I won't ask you.
I won't run my fingers through your hair again
as you lay your head in my lap, eyes closed.
Both of our hands interlocked as we watch a movie.
Or tell you goodnight as I slip into a deep sleep in your bed.
I'd never been so infatuated with someone
I'd never felt more lucky when we found each other.
I still have hope that you'll make my phone light up again
because you want to come back
and stay this time.
I would hold you like the day is long
I would whisper songs to you in your sleep.
I would kiss you as I once did.
your heart would flutter
and I would charm you like no other.
But the reality is even in my dreams you don't want me.
Last night, I dreamt that you told me you'd let me go a long time ago.
And I finally believe that.
I'm out of your hands and I'm fighting tooth and nail to silence the part of me that doesn't feel okay to be alone
I just can't stop thinking of what it was like when I was in your favor.
it was a long time ago,
and I can't change a thing now,

So tell me,
Can you believe this rain?

The next time you place
your worth into anyone's
hands
I want you to remember
that a heart alone costs
1 million dollars, kid.
Don't sell yourself short.

I’m not going to tell you that you should have stuck with your first choice and disregarded the voice that told you there was more waiting to be found in other people.

I’m not going to tell you that I was never happier with another person than when I was with you.

I’m not going to shed light on the fact that it isn’t my choice to still feel the things I do for you and that if I could, I would forget your name and that first week in January spent in your bedroom.

I’m not going to confess that I understand the things you haven’t told me yet. I’m not going to tell you that I was always willing to meet you where you couldn’t meet me

in hard to reach places,

high and low.

I’m not going to tell you that I have to force my hands to be still when I’m near you and that I have to consciously slow my pulse to ebb the heart palpitations. I never understood why you had the effect on me that you do and I’m thankful to be able to navigate through the side effects of loving you silently.

I’m not going to tell you that you’re making a mistake in not choosing me every day for the rest of our lives, I know you are, but where would telling you that get me?

I see you in your entirety and when you look at me I can tell it’s through a keyhole.

Oh, if you’d only open the door.

I’m not going to tell you that it’s your loss

and that I am well aware of how happy we could be,

and that your grin reminds me of the morning sun,

and that your pensive thoughts are highly sought after,

and that your birthmarks are like constellations against a summer night sky,

and that I could spend an afternoon counting them happily,

and that my lips miss your neck and my hands miss your hands,

and my atoms adore your atoms more than I’ll ever be able to articulate,

and that I haven’t been able to truly sleep well in someone else’s bed since leaving yours,

and that I still remember the things you said five years ago as though you said them last week,

and that I have to compartmentalize all of this because I refuse to be that person who can’t let go,

I want to, and none of this is my choice, and I’m trying to look away from the past, and the future looks so promising. I wish I could stop hoping to conquer life with you and really accept that if you wanted to be near me, you would.

I know it.

I wonder how long until these feelings fade for good. I  fell for you when I was nineteen and I don’t think I’ve gotten up since.

I don’t want to be the only one who still feels something.

I don’t want to be the only one who remembers.

What if bumble bees were named humble bees and asked permission before perching atop daffodils and daisies?
Or better yet, what if penguins wore socks and shoes so their feet weren't always so cold?
Would the sky fall down if giraffes' necks weren't so long or if sharks didn't have any teeth?
Would World War III start if hippos and rhinos knew how to tap dance?
What if dogs sang the alphabet and cows really jumped over the moon?
Would the Huns revolt and smash some plates if the sky were a dark shade of green?
Or what if butterflies hummed a hymn praising God Almighty?
What if all the fellows and felines and ferrets and fiddlers held hands and felt the wind?
What if sheets of paper came alive and pushed and pulled until they became a tree again?
Would the grass burn up and the moon explode if you stayed an extra hour or four?
Would our shoes run away to West Australia if maybe you said you liked me more?
What's the worst that could happen if you honestly told me what was running through your mind?
Would you stop being human or turn to dust if you woke up each Sunday by my side?