He says he loves you and you feel a surge of euphoria. You feel like water that's just been brought to a boil. You feel everything all at once and you feel it violently churn like the ocean inside you. You feel so much that you might burst if you felt anymore. Your legs tremble under the weight of it all. He sees your passion in the way you look at him like he's forest, like he's sunset, like he's mountain. He feels your panic in the way your hands touch him like he's lightning, the way they clutch him like he's lifeline. He squeezes you gently and you realize you've been holding your breath. The words escape your lips in an exhale and you know right then and there that nothing will ever be the same again.

TWELVE. THAT'S THE NUMBER OF CHESTS I'VE GONE THROUGH - TRYING TO FILL YOUR SHOES OR AT LEAST COVER THE FOOTPRINTS YOU LEFT ON MY HEART BUT NONE OF THEM ARE LIGHTNING OR EVEN MATCHSTICKS NO MATTER HOW MUCH TEQUILA I POUR DOWN MY THROAT. I CALL YOU  THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY  BUT THE TRUTH IS YOU WERE GONE LONG BEFORE YOU LEFT AND NOW YOU'RE BACK BUT NOT HERE TO STAY. AND YOU'RE NOT THE SAME AND I KNOW YOU NEVER WILL BE BUT YOU DO THIS TO ME EVERY SINGLE ******* TIME. AND NOW YOUR EYES ARE GOING TO HAUNT ME WHEN I'M ASLEEP AND YOUR VOICE IS GOING TO HAUNT ME WHEN I'M AWAKE AND I'M GOING TO SIT AROUND AND COMPARE THEM TO THE NORTHERN LIGHTS AND NATURAL DISASTERS LIKE I HAVEN'T BEEN DOING JUST THAT FOR THE LAST NINETEEN MONTHS. NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES I NAVIGATE THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE IT DOESN'T GET ANY EASIER AND THE WORST PART IS YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.

I'm not
looking for comfort
but it's also no
coincidence
that every time
someone dies I find
myself wrapped
in a new boy's arms.
Like
maybe
this one
can catch lightning
in a bottle or
make my pulse mimic
thunder
again.
Like
maybe
this time
his heat on my skin
will
sear the
vacancy inside me
shut.

the truth is no one ever taught me how to fix a flat tire or how to ask for help or what love was even good for in the first place

and the truth is that the cookie was good but the lemon icing wasn't and the truth is baking should be done without any kind of lemon at all

and the truth is i wish you'd hold me close enough that our skin fused together and i could burrow into your spine and learn all the things you won't teach me

and the truth is you were never good at making eye contact but i dare you to look at me long enough that i can trace the line that connects your iris to your pupil and count how many shades of black a person can produce

and the truth is i don't know if the grass has fingerprints but i know that yours are cigarette stained and no better at letting go than mine

and the truth is i am a dump site and you are an inhale and i am clockwork and you are a melody and i can't keep my teeth off your eloquence

and the truth is my feet are covered in acrylic paint from leaving smudged footprints in sparkly things

and the truth is i don't want you all to myself but you can pretend i'm yours when i'm engulfed in the ocean and making it hard for you to breathe

and the truth is i'm looking for a different kind of intimacy from you

and maybe it's just some teenage girl talking but the truth is that i want to drown with you. i want to burn with you. i want to scream with you so violently that the body that crushes my lungs crumbles and i become a balloon for real this time

and the truth is, if you hadn't called me beautiful, i would have mistaken last night for a paradise i don't believe in

It takes this boy three words to figuratively melt all my literal progress, to turn my thoughts right back into the whirlwind of memories I've spent the past twelve months trying to silence. At last, I stopped hearing his voice in the howling wind but two missed calls and a couple 2AM texts later and I can't think straight. I see his smile in the spaces between my fingers and LOOK ALIVE, SUNSHINE ricochets around my skull, firing my synapses sharply while his hurricane laughter echoes between my neurons.

Three words to rip all of my unexpressed feelings from their neatly-packed shoe boxes and send them swirling around my head in that violent vortex that took a year to subdue.

Three words to unleash the chaos I had finally repressed.