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.

Blood stains have dried,
Battlefield gone silent.
A war has waged,
The peaceful turned violent.

Weapons used and abused,
They litter the ground,
The bodies removed,
Leaving only empty sounds.

A winner. A winner?
Who can win such games?
The blood pain poured out,
Tribute to misguided aims.

The winner lies in who lives,
Who manages to survive.
He that learns to love the war,
Lies on the winning side.

This war was not ordinary,
No quibbling little parts.
This was war of the worst,
That of two bitter hearts.

The battlefield, now in ruin,
Was not always so.
Once it was a field of beauty,
Where life and love did grow.

Slowly, slowly, over time,
The field began to die.
The caring became careless,
Battle beginning with a lie.

Skirmishes and little tussles,
First seemed so ordinary.
But each ended without resolve,
Leaving both sides wary.

Then finally a skirmish broke,
Into what both had feared.
It seemed then the war begun,
The ending quickly neared.

Full fledged attacks, raining down,
Left wounds open and bleeding.
Pain and hatred flowed together,
To watch the love receding.

Tirelessly both sides battled,
Seeming doomed to contend.
Until the day the black notes played,
And one side saw an end.

He saw that she now loved the pain,
Got high on each ****** drop.
He knew that to continue was loss,
That it all must come to stop.

He won the war by losing,
By losing the last of his heart.
He crawled away, clutching scars,
Knowing he must depart.

A winner, winner? Yes indeed,
It is he who can survive.
She lost herself to the blood lust,
And he scarcely saved his life.

I was he who crawled away,
I lost my heart by choosing.
Though scars still remain,
I won the war by losing.

Every twinkle of every star,
Another point upon the canvas.
A speck, a dot, oh my perception!
It cannot understand the vastness.

A light, so strong, raw energy,
Reaching me across it all.
Ten trillion miles and countless years,
All culminating in this call.

A thirst for greatness, every dot,
My aspirations feeling heavy.
The twinkles there are my call,
A reminder to set me free.

What lies the love bestowed upon,
By each single burning star?
What inspiration can I derive,
When I am here, so far?

I feel their strength, though remote,
Hidden through seeming innocence.
For here they seem nothing more,
Than each tiny, finite resistance.

But alas their size, nay, my perception,
Grants not mirth but awe.
For I know them as they truly are,
Power, glory, impunity; nature in the raw.

They inspire and define me,
For they reveal our insignificance.
But then again, that one perspective,
Grants my will and steely confidence.

And so I gaze, daring but to dream.
I know them all as they are.
Where I one day will be:
Floating, flying, free and far.

I'll always remember what happened tonight, laying with you in the moonlight. With stars in your eyes and the wind in your hair, such a beautiful sight.

Your fingers felt so perfect and small, when lost in the size of my calloused paw. I loved the way your toes would wander, picking up slack when we would stall.

You marked this day in my history, when I heard you whisper words that were me. It was so hard not to whisper back, so hard to set myself free.

I could feel your heat just beneath the skin, melting my will so ever thin. It wasn't long before I let go, I wanted it to begin.

The slide of slick summer sweat, your taste as good as it could get. It wasn't what I had planned, but hold no regret.

Just the lovely lust of two kindred, no faith, no pride, no heart injured. No exceptions, excuses, or concessions made, no religion plundered.

This was just you and I, ignoring all but stars in the sky. This was just you and yours, corrupting me and my.

Tonight you broke my every rule, tonight the first I've enjoyed school. You certainly are one of a kind, for you I'll play the fool.

You are
What you do,
What you say.
How you spend,
Each empty day.

You are
Your perfections,
Your mistakes.
Always learning,
What it takes.

You are
Your decisions,
Your choices.
The opportunities,
And all your little voices.

You are
Both terrible,
And kind.
Not more of one,
But balanced in mind.

You are
A sinner,
A saint.
Simply a human,
Though it be faint.

You are
Not perfect,
Not flawed.
Just struggling,
And awed.

You are
Your wants
Your needs
But most of all,
You are your deeds.

The audacity is staggering,
Enraged ego makes me laugh.
Why do you think it is yours,
When common fantasy I craft?

I write for me, myself, and I,
And often, for another.
But I too write for audience,
To give them chills and shudders.

I pull emotion from my heart,
And feeling from my past.
Sometimes I will write in truth,
But stories are told in final draft.

I love to mess with the mind,
Confuse and frustrate readers.
I don't want you to know the meaning,
And I don't want you to know me either.

Leave the ego and assumption behind,
I rhyme for for art and applause.
It hones my skills for further use,
Sharpening poetic claws.

Even this is not what you think,
If you know me you'll understand.
This is a cryptic verse,
From the beginning planned.

So read on with a grain of salt,
Be wary as you go.
Many of my works are true,
But which you'll never know.