You ripped me open like a present on Christmas Day.

Cold hands in a warm bed on a dark night.

The Eskimos and butterflies taught me how to kiss you.

You smell like cinnamon and shampoo and too many tears.

Jumping rope and sticky grins and blacktop promises in chalk.

I would trade my sanity for another kiss with you.

Sharing music with you was like reading you my diary.

Soiled sheets tell stories I could never bear to share.

Sometimes I wonder if you really smoke to **** yourself.

You taste like sin and safety at the same time.

I remember holding your hand, never wanting to let go.

Kiss me like I am oxygen and you're on Mars.

The lines on your hands are rivers, whispering your past.

Good music and elephants and heartbreak remind me of you.

I miss you so badly that when I take a breath all I can breathe in is your last goodbye and the way you kissed me once upon a time and your favorite e-cigarette flavor ("because I don't want to be blowing smoke in your face all the time" you said when you bought them and the lady behind the counter laughed and tapped into the register with too-long nails and asked you to tell her if they worked well and you rubbed your thumb in tiny circles as you gripped my hand as though you would never hold it again.) When I blink all I see is your favorite color and when I lay awake at night haunted by the promises you made and the ones you never made, I hear that one song by The Black Keys playing again and again. I know that wherever you are, you're doing better things and thinking better thoughts than I am, but I can't help but grip to the idea that maybe when you lay in bed at night you remember my heavy breathing on the couch where we made love and the music that made me cry and how cold I was the night you left.

you're my favorite book
pages worn and tear-stained
special moments dog-eared
quotes traced in bright yellow highlighter
notes scribbled in margins
spine torn and aging
cover bent and creased
stains and wrinkles spread throughout
you're my favorite book
I've read you at least one hundred times
I recommend you to my friends over coffee
but only to those who'd appreciate you
only a certain type of mind can appreciate you
understand all your themes and moods
understand the author's ideas and plans
and laugh at all the right moments
you're my favorite book
I carry you in my messenger bag everywhere I go
and I love the way you smell like nostalgia
and that page 46 still has a hot chocolate stain from that one camping trip
where I read you by lantern light under a heavy sleeping bag
and I love the way you feel in my hands
you're my favorite book
but that doesn't mean I don't read others sometimes I'll read another to find it's awful
other times quite fantastic
with battles that make you sweat
and deaths that make you cry
but none of them are you
you're my favorite book
and I suppose you always will be

it's been twenty four hours
since I last held your hand
kissed your lips
traced that one scar with my finger
it's been twenty four hours
since I was shivering in your doorway
my breath making ghosts in the frozen air
dancing away like the smoke rings you blow to impress me
even though I always say you should smoke less
its been twenty four hours
since you pressed our foreheads together
and your laugh danced off the walls
as I long to dance with you
and your crooked-tooth smile made me crave your mouth on mine
its been twenty four hours
since you kissed me like an Eskimo
and admired my slippers
despite the soles being more worn than the pages of my favorite book
it's been twenty four hours
since I promised to say a prayer for you every night
and you swore again and again that we would make it
and you told me you'd see me in may
even though may is hundreds of memories and firsts and new friends away
it's been twenty four hours
since we said goodbye.

Cold hands
Shaking lips
Burning eyes
Stinging cheeks
I'm haunted by
Your memory
And I have lost
My sanity
And in everything
I think I see
You

I wanted it all too badly
I wanted it so bad I could have given my life for it, drained my blood for it, torn out my hair for it
You ****** me up
And I still crave you
Dream about you
All I want is to write one good poem about you
But I have so many feelings and so many things to say and way too many thoughts and my throat burns and my eyes sting and the wind is colder than my hands that time you held them for the first time and why did you leave when you swore you wouldn't why did you leave
Whydidyoufuckingleave
You ****** me up
And the ringing in my ears still sings your name like an old tune and the smell of you lingers on my clothes like a reminder in the pit of my stomach and the bottom of my heart of how deep I let myself get. How deep I fell. And I remember humming my secrets into your ear, and I remember how you were there.
And I thought "remember this moment, because he won't be here forever." But you seemed so real with your lips on my neck and your teeth on my ear and your strong arms on my back. You seemed so real. ****, you seemed so real.
But now it's 3 am and I lay alone on sheets haunted by your memory and the train is too loud outside my window and remember that time I told you we should hop on a train and never return?
And you never did tell me your favorite band because you didn't want to ruin it with my memory, and I'm happy for your sake. Because that's what I am now. A memory.
You ****** me up.
And I hope wherever you are you know that the smell of whiskey still reminds me of you and so does the feeling of confusion. And I'm sorry for all the times I tried too hard to fit us together, when we belonged on different ends of the puzzle.
We ****** each other up.

I just want you to know that before you came along I was fine-no, more than fine, good even. I was good. I had a future and I wasn't even looking for a boy but you just came into my life and you were so strong and you wrapped your tongue in mine and I was ******.
And I think of wine all the time, sweet as your sugar coated lips and burning in my throat and deep in the pit of my stomach and making me dizzy and crazy and making the **** lights spin again. And I remember when we made love the first time, and you brought the wine and there was sweat all over and pain and the crinkles on your forehead mapped out the way to my sanity, but I couldn't find it. Crinkled clothing and crinkled eyes and crinkled lives.
Time went by too fast for us, my love. We sped through life going 109 and when the red truck in front of us slammed on it's breaks we were destined to crash. Skidding over ice, skidding through fire. For weeks I thought of fire all the time. Burning so beautiful, shield from the cold, but too dangerous to get close to, too hot. And I've been third degreed. Ashes.
I just want you to know that even now the sound of your name makes my heart beat faster than the rain did on the roof of your car the night you made me cry the first time. But by now I've cried more than a thousand tears for you, and the ache in my heart is a constant pain that doesn't leave and I wish I was a blunt so you could breathe me in and still want me even more.
But most of all, I miss falling asleep in your arms.