I love him. I've loved him since the time he tied my left skate in March 2013. And it's a love that aches and hurts and explodes. But it's also a love that sings and twirls and laughs for no reason. It's a love that has you crying in the bathroom on a Saturday night but its also a love that has you dancing in the shower on a Monday morning. It's a love that's left me with cramped fingers, dry ink pens and full notebooks. It's a love makes me feel like a thunderstorm. It's a love that makes me feel like a sunset. He's not a home, he's a person. A wonderful one. And sometimes people say things like, "why would you forgive him," or, "why don't you just let go." And I smile. I used to get mad but out of all the types of love this is, it's also a love that's flexible. It's not a love that waits or chases but a loves that's there. It's a love that shares shoulders and stories. If I've learned anything about loving you it has been that if I cannot love you as a lover, I will love you as friend. I will love you messy handwriting, always asleep first, bad haircuts and all. Our love is flexible. Our love is patient. Our love is what happens when you rub your eyes. It's a love that bruises and bleeds and scabs and heals. It's a love that asks, "how was your day?" And would wait patiently forever for your reply. How was your day?

It's not that I don't love you. It's the time I read my mom's old journals and every other paragraph included my fathers name. It's that he cheated on every girlfriend he had with my mom. It's that my mom didn't care she was a second choice or a one night stand. It's that my mother never talked to anyone about him after he got married to one of the many girlfriends. It's that she took twenty sleeping pills on the night of what would've been their anniversary. It's that he doesn't even know she's dead.

It's not that I don't love you. It's the couple I overheard in the bread aisle arguing over wheat or white. It's that I heard the woman say a lot of "she" and "****" and I saw her crumble to the ground. It's that he just shook his head and said he was sorry over and over again.

It's not that I don't love you. It's that my best friend is in love with a boy on the other side of the country. It's the morning she took a shower and cried over him. It's that he wasn't even awake to do anything about it. It's that he's always three hours behind and thousands too many miles away. It's that I mean both physically and mentally sometimes.

It's not that I don't love you. It's my geometry teacher, who brought up her husband when she taught me tangents. It's that she also brought up her husband when she taught me the circle unit
too. It's that she gets quiet and smiles after she talks about him. It's that he's been passed away for seven years now and she still has so much to say. It's that she still wears her wedding ring. It's that when she taught me special right triangles, I wondered what her laugh might sound like if he were still here.

What I'm trying to say is; It's not that I don't love you. It's that I do.

I wanted to be a poet, so I folded myself into an envelope addressed to the moon and asked the man what he thought about your sweaty palms after our first kiss. He was quiet for a minute or so before he asked me, "do you love him?" I gulped. As if my gulp was enough for him, he went silent. He didn't ask questions, names or numbers. He didn't give advice that made me wish I hadn't spoken at all. We just stood there for a very long time and he finally broke what was such a loud silence with a sentence you may never understand. He said, "you're not a Poet, you're a Lover."

A Poem For Each Of The Boys I’ve Ever Loved

Ⅰ.
sometimes your scent travels in the wind,
suffocating me like a nasty perfume,
leaving me to wonder if i’ll ever forget your smell.

Ⅱ.
you wore the sweatshirt you let me borrow a few days ago
i mean, i don’t even think you remember i had it at all.
it was just another sweatshirt in your drawer.

Ⅲ.
your handwritten notes sit in neat pile next to my bed.
it has occurred to me that maybe thats the cause of my nightmares.
but really i think you’re the reason for everything and anything.

Ⅳ.
you have the prettiest eyes in the whole entire world.
im satisfied knowing i was once the reason they lit up so bright.
I’ll never let someone take the sparkle in my eyes away again.

Ⅴ.
we used to listen to music together and we’d laugh a lot.
you’d snicker at they way i lip sang to myself.
and id laugh because you really didn’t care i was a ******.

ⅤⅠ.

most of my days are spent wishing you were still here
you never really know how much you love someone
until they don’t love you anymore and thats a sick thought.


(ps, each of these poems are about you and only you and always you. i miss you. love always, the pathetic girl with a big heart and green eyes.)

The ghost of a boy I once knew sits quietly on my shoulder.
He’s making me self conscious of what I write about him.
I know he can see.
I know he’s watching.
As my eyes flutter to the new him across the room,
I realize how odd it is that he reminds so few of the memories I do.
It’s almost as though I made him up in my mind.

(I probably did)

Though he’s small enough to sit on my shoulder,
I know old him does not mind one bit.
Whispering words of encouragement in my ear.
He always had more faith in me than I ever had in myself.
I know he only made me stronger.
I know he only made me better.
But I cannot help but miss the way he held my hand.
I cannot help but miss the way he made me feel.
I was the best version of myself around him.
I can honestly say he made me very happy.
I wish I had made him happy, too.

(I just hope he’s happy, really)

I hope that you buy that frilly dress you see at the store. I hope you wave to the boy that you think is attractive. I hope you laugh at any and every joke that you think is funny. Don’t be afraid to have a voice. Don’t be afraid to smile at yourself in the mirror. Just because you love yourself doesn’t make you “smug” no matter how many times they tell you otherwise. Wear red lipstick no many times people tell you that you look like a clown. If it makes you feel good, so be it. Read a book instead of your timeline. Take a walk instead of pacing your room waiting for him to message you. If he messages you, it will be there when you get back. Stop procrastinating, an hour of homework a day is better than a month of non-stop homework at the end of the school year. Listen to your favorite band no matter how “gay” your friends say it is. Make good friends. If the people in your life don’t make you happy, don’t allow them inside of it. If the people in your life are sad, try your best to make them happy. Keep in mind that no one can save you but yourself but someday you’re going to need a shoulder to rest on for balance. Ask for help. You are a speck upon this earth, but you can make a change. This world is big and not everyone is going to treat you nicely. That’s okay. Everything will be okay.

it's 10:18pm and my heart aches a little for your touch. it aches a lot for your touch, actually. it shrivels up in a ball and goes in the corner of my hollow chest and buries itself in sadness. it misses you, maybe even more than I do. after you left, you see, my heart and I have yet to be on good terms. we fight. we fight a lot. we fight about stupid things like starting up a conversation with you. stupid things like crying and letting it out and toughening it out. stupid things like that. now, this is not a midnight jumble of words but it could easily be that if it were midnight. now, I do hope you're happy and your heart and yourself are on good terms. I certainly do hope so.