I’d never felt my heart held so loosely

sometimes I feel like we’re writing the same words on a different page

I loved you,
But you never gave me a place to put it.

hope keeps me here, but her presence is heavy.

I know the cost

If only you let me love you
in the ways I dreamt I could

If only you could feel how delicate my fingers dance across your skin, how careful I am to trace the lines you set

I want more, and my head aches from the lack of escape
Each echo leaving its mark
In the walls of the only home
i’ve ever known

I want to let you in,
Why won’t you come in?
oh how I wish
How I wish you would knock

The in-between of it all,
You made a home there.
Every year just waiting for fall
Because it's the only time you don't feel so

disconnected

The summer is just too hot,
You'll say.
The winter's too cold.
I hear your words but what resonates is the way you don't look me in the eyes when they leave your lips.

And I get it,
And I'm not upset
And I know what it is you're afraid of,
And it's rational.
It's always

Rational

But grey isn't a place,
It's just the mixture of two
And I want to scream that fall won't last forever

But screaming feels like winter,
And you didn't bring your coat.
And kissing tastes like summer,
Which you've explained to me is exciting at first, but always
loses
it's spark

So I lay down,
Mimicking the leaves
That let go of their branches

And it gets me thinking about whether the branches let go too

You sigh
and I feel your body brush against mine,
Closing your eyes as I turn to them

I think of a way to tell you
that oak trees are just as beautiful with or without their leaves,

But as I take a breath
i find that sleep has found you first

So I look up at the ceiling,
the white walls reminding me of snow,
and I lay there wondering
if you'll ever let me
find you
first

and here i am again
at the intersection
of pedestrian language
& old wives tales
swallowing gum
like 7 year memories
opening umbrellas inside
cause i can't seem get away
from all of this rain
i ******* with my left hand
cause i was told
back in highschool that
"it feels like someone else is doing it"
it gets me wondering
about the difference between
losing you and finding out
that some one else found you
or my sleep
or lack thereof
its starting to tear me apart
i keep having this dream
where you are in
an unfamiliar body of water
trying to wash my poetry
off of your hands
or the one where
something happens in my chest
every time you sit
on someone else's bed
i'm tired of feeling like something you've misplaced
but don't have the heart
to look for anymore
tired of you saying my name
like you're trying to bury it
i'm tired of wondering
if you can tell the difference
between the absence
of my voice & silence
the other day
i almost started sobbing
at work when a woman
asked me about
our equipment
i was explaining how
things come apart
and almost mentioned your name
it made me think
of how you used to say
things like "what would you do
if i showed up on your doorstep
one day?" now, i haunt
the windows in my house
i don't leave for weeks at a time
i sit on the porch like the dog
you didn't shoot behind the shed
the one that refuses to die
until you come home again
i told somebody once, that
you didn't even know
what my voicemail sounded like
i wonder if they thought
it was because you
are so important that i never
let it ring that many times
before picking up
or if you dont know
what it sounds like
because you've never called
you can't be the ****** weapon
and the search party
i'm tired of all the seats
to the ferris wheel in my chest
being empty
tired of your voice
being the one i look for
in abandoned places
that one sound i beg
to bounce back
down vacant hallways
i just seem to stand there
in all of that quiet
like someone looking for a mistake
on an eviction notice
so i guess the hardest part
isn't letting go
it's forgetting
you ever had a grip
in the first place
and since you've been gone
i wonder if when
you pushed yourself away from me
you used your left hand
so it felt like someone else did it