I retreat into the quiet world
Where wind sweeps softly
Through fields of poppies
Whispering sedative lullabies
While clouds of cotton roll by
Basking in salted sunshine
Light dances softly in the valley
To the songs of the morning

I blink my eyes open
You're still screaming

I drift back to the quiet world.

How dare you come back
After all these years
Just to see if I'm still here
I tried my best
You left
You ****** up
You took my heart
And left it unrecognizable
How dare you come back
Better than you were
You always knew
That I'd wait
Forever

Today I knew,
My forever was safe,
If anyone can hold it,
It's you.

If I could choose a different life,
I'd have already been living it,
If I could love anyone else,
I'd have left town years ago.

Putting on my outside face,
Is harder than you'd think,
I start with a smile I don't mean,
A laugh for jokes that aren't funny,
I place words in my mouth like:
"That's great" "I get it" "Oh, wow"
I place attention into my eyes,
Agreement along my lips,
I remember to swallow my pride,
And to bite my tongue,
The hardest part, though,
Is removing myself first,
The parts I worked the hardest for,
Are the ones that don't belong,
Yet I'll suffocate beneath my skin,
Just to make you more comfortable.

I got tired of filling my gas tank
Seeing fences around fields
Driving a decaying highway
I woke up to the sound of a lawnmower
I thought about the grass
How it never gets to grow
I got tired of filling my gas tank
Just to go no where with you
Listening to apathy echo
From minds I never could change
I thought about the yesterdays
How I never got to grow.

I fear that you're just like me.

I saw the worst of myself in him,
I fell in love with my demons,
Now I miss them.

Life is the burden of memory,
Forgetting is a gift of peace.

I lost everything with the secrets kept,
Now all I have are the secrets keeping me.

A world of chaos fell into silence
The stillness slowly sank into her
Warmth crept into chilled bones
As the dust settled, she wondered
"Is it wrong of me to be this safe,
And be lonely for my old fears?"

It does not end abruptly, nor is it brief.
It begins with sleeping in too late,
Sometimes lunch or dinner is forgotten,
Laughter sounds hoarse, even forced
They didn't do up their seatbelt yesterday,
Pharmacies will call for missed refills,
They won't make plans for next month,
Eventually they won't make plans at all,
When is the last time they showered?
Did you see them eat the other day?
Is their phone off?
Have you heard anything?

It isn't that I'm not enough,
No one could have filled that void,
I know I am not too much,
They were just too full to hold me,
I don't need to fit anywhere,
I am already the space I belong in.

Is it relapse if it's not a drug?
Is it a drug if I have to hide it?

Forever is too long.

What words can I carry when I meet you in the dark,
I have whispered so many nothing's to you under moonlight,
I know not the weight of the truth or the people that hold it,
Writing stories about you so that I don't have to live them out,
It all reminds me of a poem I read 7 years ago that left me empty,
I didn't know I could relate to these terrible, petty horrors,
I became a poet that loves nothing other than not being loved back,
I swear I used to be in pain long before I needed it to just to write.

You only ever call me
To see if I'll still answer.

Of course,
I always will.

I'm cancelling our plans again,
I listened to your playlist,
It was the first time this year,
I felt anything at all,
Happiness,
And then,


Guilt.

I'm addicted to happiness,
I wish it was my own,
I didn't leave,
When he asked me not to,
I only stayed,
Because I didn't want to.

You are everything I hate in the world,
But your smile feels like home.

I have spent a lifetime
Healing the people that hurt me
In hopes that without their pain,
They will not need to inflict it,
My suffering should not be medicine,
My sadness should not be a cure,
Do not tell me I do too much,
I've scarred what you left bleeding.

I do not love what you do,
I cannot fall where you fall.
This is the fate of us,
To be together apart

To see you in all of your light,
Basking in this stolen warmth,
I wonder if I ever should have left,
If I'd have stayed planted,
Maybe I'd be with the sun now.

Collect your stardust,
Lay it beneath your feet,
Let me rise again,
Let me know love
Upon awakening,
Let me be loved,
Until I return to dust,
I will not be afraid,
To walk the Earth.

No one is good enough
Good enough died in 2019
I visit his grave sometimes
Before I visit you.

I can't ask you for the truth
In case you ask me for it too

Love is fickle,
I simply mean
That I only feel it,
When you're not being a piece of a ****.

I built this ending back in February,
Leaving work to make sure I didn't miss you,
Cancelling plans just to watch you live,
I can pretend I never loved you,
Yet I built more of myself on your well being,
Than I ever did on my own sanity,
When it is was never you that I wanted,
Just your love I had to prove I could earn.

Its showing in my face,
The reality of the last week,
If I could only unclench my jaw,
No one would ever know,
If no one saw me in the dark,
I could still pretend I sleep.

Skin reflecting light,
Pools of sunlight,
On your temples,
Art meets movement,
Your speech
Pours out of your hands,
I listen with my eyes,
I know you best,
When you talk to my body
With yours
I see myself best,
In those sea blue eyes,
Greener in the morning,
A storm at night.

Why do I say these things,
Only what you want to hear
Truth is more precious
Than feelings.
I know what happened that night,
So do you.

I am a fixer,
Every man I've ever loved,
I spent all my time,
Teaching them not to hurt me,
When they stopped,
I stopped loving them.

You won't forgive me for this,
The fact I dont mind says more
Than what I did in the first place.

I have said things I didn't mean,
The kind that you don't apologize for,
Until they know you didn't mean them,
Sometimes I pretend to feel things,
To protect someone else's feelings,
If I keep saying things I don't mean,
Maybe one day I'll mean them.

To obsess is in my nature,
To crave with my whole self,
Anything that takes away
From my whole self

I was recovering,
But today I collapsed inward,
Light building inside of me,
Until I could not contain it,
I was not made to hold this,
Only to shrink,
To consume,
Addiction a supernova,
Eventually a black hole,
Yet here,
In the middle of it,
I feel only the warmth.

At the end of the day,
I just need something,
Anything,
Inside of me,
To fill the voids,
If it comes in clear baggies,
Or leather jackets,
It matters not,
If it just stays for a while.

I am hungry in the way
That a ghost longs for their body

Honesty is not the same as truth
When we remember things so differently

When you said you loved me
I saw the end credits roll
Write me a new script
Free me from the sequels,
Bring resolutions and a new story
Looking at me with that smile
I know it's the opening scene

Are we more trusting,
If we're trustworthy?

You never forget how this feels,
Bones setting straight,
Jaw clenching in tune with arrhythmia,
I will always remember how to forget,
Forget sorrow and heartache,
Forget them and their taste,
$50 in my veins is nothing,
Compared to the price of regret.

There will be others,
Maybe that's just a part of love,
Choosing not to fall again,
But instead to stay.

I imagined a life without you,
It looks the world did,
Before I got glasses,
Still in color,
But insignificant.

The feeling of crashing
Beneath an ocean you carved
Waves you created
Choosing not to swim
When you know how
When fighting to breathe
Feels more like giving up
Than drowning does

How do you tell someone
You'd rather sink to the bottom
Than get in their boat

I wanted this so badly,
Until I didn't.

It won't be the same,
Happiness is something earned,
I don't have it to give,
I can't with you.

I am not a vessel for pain,
My body is not a graveyard,
To dig through,
To unearth,
To search for your losses,
If you come to me now,
Do not ask me for your past,
I have forgotten it,
Ask me for tomorrow,
Or do not come to me at all.

I haven't been kissed in the rain
No one will look after my garden
Sophia hasn't had her first day of school
I never finished that book
I have laundry to fold
I didn't tell my mom I love her today
Tomorrow might be better



Tomorrow will be better.