I don't need your love.
I don't need you around.
I would survive just fine without you.
You aren't what causes my heart to beat,
You are not the air within my lungs.
Sleep comes easily on my own.
My responsibilities are not yours.
I don't need you tonight,
I won't need you tomorrow.
I don't need your love.
And I don't need you.

No, I do not.

Instead, I want your love.
I want you around,
You enrich my every day.
I want you to be there to hear my heart,
I want you to be there to laugh with me.
I want to feel you sleep beside me, your hair tangled in my face.
I want to share the world with you.
Instead, I want you tonight.
I will want you tomorrow.
I want your love.
And I want you.

I will be fine without you. But I'll be so much better with you.

It seems to me now that I've outgrown you. Perhaps even, I've outgrown my former self. I remember the last time I saw you, the way I could look into your eyes and I see my world. In you, I found everything that meant anything to me. Sometimes I miss that feeling because it was comfort the likes of which I’d never known. But usually, I look back with a hint of bemused sadness on how blind and immature we were. There is enough separation that I can laugh about it now. I can laugh at all my fantasies of love and life and how each was supposed to work.
            I laugh when I remember thinking, "This is it, I've done it. I’ve finally found a purpose and a future for my life. It has to be her." My God, I knew so little. What knowledge did I have of the real world? I was a freshman in college coming from a sheltered youth, hopped up on testosterone and dreams of love. I had dreamt of it, what it might feel like, taste like, hurt like. But they were idealized dreams without any supporting material besides sonnets and the inescapable loneliness that caused me to fall into the well of my mind.
            The part that hurt was that I found those dreams in you. Everything that I had ever imagined or wanted, every scenario I'd mashed into a stained poem, I had it with you. I know I said so, but perhaps you never realized that you truly and literally were a dream come true for me. You went from a stranger to my all and everything in the blink of an eye. I know that to be my mistake, I know that it was foolish, but how can a person such as I resist seizing a dream when it stands before them, especially a dream as tantalizing and intriguing as you were at the time? I no longer blame myself for the way it all happened. I understand why I did it, and I have no regrets to lose sleep over.

            When I fell in love with you, you were infinite. The deeper I probed into your mind and your heart the more I would find, going on forever until I believed you limitless. You were the epitome of all that I wanted, and more. Sometimes I miss that wonderment and admiration because I was never bored, you were a constant mystery that my idly wasted mind just loved to unravel. For the longest time I believed you to be this amazing person with hopes and dreams that would rival mine, even more is that I believed you acted on them as I do.
            Sometime after we ended, somewhere in the middle of the healing process, I realized just how blinding love could be. I saw you in a different light then, one in which I wasn't blinded by all of the frills and little details that had taken up far too much of my attention. For the first time, I witnessed your actions in the third person and was finally able to be objective in my observation. I saw you for who you were, all of your fears and insecurity, lack of understanding, and the terror you have of the world. I saw in you the flaws corresponding to my greatest strengths.

            Naturally, I saw your flaws far, far before I could see mine. But now, enough time has passed that I can see myself for who I was then. I see how foolish I was to believe that you were the answer to the questions I focused my life around. I was young enough to let myself slide into the wild, blinding passage of young love, but old enough to be serious. I wasn't strong enough to let you go when I should have, not wise enough to know why I should, and not quick enough to save us when I didn’t. I was a foolish kid with a head full of dreams and a heart intoxicated with your drug. I see that now.

            I think I have outgrown both you and my former self. I have come light-years from where I was then, with countless more to go. The thing is, you haven't progressed at the rate that I have. You seem to be stuck, struggling with the same fears and insecurities and inexperience that drug you down before. Why didn't you mature with me? I have wished for months now that you might come along, find something else inside yourself that you could pull out and intrigue me with, yet again. I must admit, I want to fall in love with you again, but not the version of you I knew before. I want the version that is refined, just as alive and vibrant as before, but with a little bit of experience to take the edge off of your blinding fear. But no, it seems this version of you still does not exist. You are still trying to figure out who you are and where you belong in this beautiful world that has been nothing but generous and kind to you. I watch you bounce from place to place, searching for something that makes you feel safe and as though you are making progress. Progress towards what, I still think you don't know.
            I honestly hope you find what you are looking for and manage to create that better version of you. I hope you learn about who you are and what you want with your life. Until then, the thought will be there, sequestered away into a tiny cell in the back of my mind. I look forward to meeting the new you someday.

Come find me when you are done.

We will stand the test of time!
For you, I'll wait in line.
Though enemies are all around,
Battered by the horrid sound,
I will wait, oh love of mine.

My spirit is failing fast,
I fear this is my last.
But you inspire to hold strong,
To keep fighting further on,
Watching each minute slowly pass.

My legs begin to fail,
Face and hands have paled.
You have not yet returned,
It is soon to be my turn!
Please come back, forget the sale!

I cannot possibly do more,
No longer worth fighting for.
My love, I long for thee,
I beg you to forgive me,
As I sprint my way towards the door.

I could not stand the time,
I've failed you, love of mine.
I thought myself to be a hero,
But failed to defeat my final foe,
The Walmart checkout line.

Sometimes, rarely often,
I lie awake, awake at night.
I wonder, wander, ponder,
The theme of you and I.

Though my soul blooms sick,
With ever lasting, lasting doubt,
I try to find, fend, comprehend,
Just how I'll go without.

You and I, such doomed hope,
This play of such, such cruelty.
Fate molded, melded, welded,
I to you and you to me.

Through scenes of flawed perfection,
We dance, dance and sigh.
Still flitting, flaunting, wanting,
Our freedom and the sky.

I feel better knowing you're not alone,
It brings me some sort of restless peace.
I don't know why it feels this way,
But it is a beautiful rest for me.

I feel better knowing the way it is,
I love the solitude it will find.
Not quite sure if it will last,
But it brings quiet to my mind.

I feel better seeing the threads all fray,
Such pleasure found in their breaking.
They come apart, each in turn,
But I love the sounds they are making.

I feel better knowing the lines appear,
That they don't exude the sadness and lies.
They bring me peace as I crawl along,
As though the clouds leave my starry skies.

I feel better watching the ice all melt,
As it drips away from the core.
Each drop carries away my burden,
Until I have a burden no more.

I feel better knowing some form of truth,
It keeps me from wondering so long.
The time once spent in contemplation,
Is now spent strumming another song.

I feel better knowing that peace is found,
Because it keeps me from keeping the peace.
I don't know why it was always me,
Who was left sifting through the sheets.

I feel better knowing how it feels,
To be so near and whole.
I don't quite know nor understand,
But I don't need to, I've been told.

I feel better knowing that smiles break,
That I for once, don't have to smile.
The release I feel, with every grin,
Freedom not felt for long while.

I feel better knowing it is no longer my care,
That someone else will shoulder the blame.
My shoulders stretch while my back mends,
Broken and sore from all this strain.

I feel better knowing I can be forgotten,
Even if for but a moment.
It finally means that I too can forget,
Without the guilt I always spent.

I feel better knowing that only a shadow,
Remains of all that I endured.
That I don't need to take it,
That I can finally fly once more.

I feel better knowing that happiness,
Is only sometimes just an illusion.
It brings the world again to my hand,
Eliminating all the weighty confusion.

I feel better knowing the pain is only mine,
That I can finally fight my demons through.
I await the day I watch them fall,
I know them weak, and my sword is true.

I feel better knowing I'm not alone,
That there is someone, something else out there.
I don't know why it feels this way,
But it keeps my from all my despair.

She was the sound in each drop of rain,
She was the reflection in my window pane.
She was the craze when I went insane,
She was the hurt beneath all my pain.
She was the cloud under which I'd lain,
She was the drug that flowed in each vein.
She was the the energy I couldn't contain,
She was the life that flooded my brain.
She was the loneliness in every wine stain,
She was the bullet from which I refrained.
She was the heartache I could not explain,
She was the blood that circled the drain.
She was the secret that I kept in vain.
She was the one thing that I couldn't train,
She was the poisonous, deadliest bane.

--But she was the reason I listened to the rain.

But she was the reason.

But she was.

**She was.

She sells herself to the highest bidder,
This is the auction for her body.
Flaunting curves of heavenly perfection,
Both her business and her hobby.

She likes to tease the boys,
But loves to torture the men.
Something mysterious, dark, sublime,
It never fails to draw them in.

--

She reads both tabloids and the classics,
This the debate for her mind.
Lost within the gossip but,
Desiring substance of greater kind.

She dreams of high society,
Found in her ancient texts,
But gets off to photos of celebrities,
And the rumors of who ***** next.

--

She sifts through knights and thieves,
This is the courtship of her heart.
She loves to play with the suitors,
Tearing them each apart.

They come in droves to ask her hand,
She toys with all kinds alike.
Bending knee or savage romance,
Unable to decide which she likes.

--

She lies awake unable to sleep,
This is the battle for her soul.
Which is it that she will be?
Her actions take their toll.

She dreams of fields bathed in white,
Innocence pure and plain.
But she loves the dark and dangerous,
Longing to surrender herself again.