everywhere I venture,
I don't stay long.
living out of suitcases
and singing indie songs.

just when I thought I loved the city lights,
I started wishing away everything
in the cool night sky, so you could
shine the brightest.

I am not the portrait
of a love struck thirteen year old
that I painted myself out to be.
last night, I fell asleep hoping that
if there ever comes a day that
you touch my back for a second time,
I will act completely normal.
I will not blush and smile like an idiot
or dance around my bedroom
to lame pop music that I know
you wouldn’t approve of.
they always said that I was mature for
my age. but now? I’m not so sure.

“I will give you rest,” I said. sometimes, you get impatient and you just want to hold some people longer than others.

“I will give you rest,” I said. she will be tanner there, the sun illuminating all of her perfections.

“I will give you rest,” I said. dreaming is just a preview of what is to come. my home is no place for nightmares. that’s what my brother is for.

“I will give you rest,” I said. I know that she is scared, but the other side is greater than anything she could ever imagine.

“I will give you rest,” I said. she is too precious for a world like this; too fragile. she is forever mine, and I have to take her.

“I will give you rest,” I said. it is time.

she gives in to the silence because it will be her home longer than the twelve year’s she’s spent chasing the sun.

father blank be thy name.
thy will follow the script,
thy must be kind.
on earth as it is in heaven.
give us this Christmas our yearly word
and forgive us our hypocriticalness
as we judge others before we repent ourselves.
tell us not of our faults,
rather teach us the ways to earn our tickets
as allegiance is not forced, it is learned.
for thine is the bread and the wine and the whiskey too
for ever and ever
amen.

when I was younger, I wish that somebody told me
that happiness is free. it's watching the lightning storm
on the balcony by the beach with your family.
it’s dancing barefoot to Steely Dan
in the kitchen with your little sister,
even though neither of you know the words.
it’s laughing harder than you ever have before
in the back of the red pickup truck.
it’s you best friend telling you that she wouldn’t have
survived the summer without you.
these small moments add up
to a greater sum than you won in the lottery.

you haven't changed your
profile picture since I left.
I don't know it that's because
you stayed the same,
or if you've changed so much
that you can't recognize yourself anymore.

they say that
"the world will break your heart
ten ways to Sunday,"
but it's only Monday night,
and I already don't want to
get out of bed tomorrow.

I fell in love again at 6 AM,
staring at your fluttering eyelids
with your even breathing pattern
as my soundtrack. when you woke up,
you smiled at me, and I swear your bedroom
was the place that every species
in the galaxy most wanted to be.

I'm extremely hard to love
unless you're being forced to,
but I swear that I'll try my best
to make it worth your while.

while she was flirting with you,
you looked straight into my eyes
and I swear the world stopped.
did you feel the same?

the first time you called me crying,
there was a wasp in your living room.
I ran over as fast as I could. I killed
the wasp, picked you up off the
bathroom floor, and took you to the mall.
this is the sort of excitement you bring
into everyday life. the next time you
called me crying, he was gone. I could
run as fast as I could, but no matter
how much I wanted to, I couldn’t just
pick you up off the bathroom floor and
take you to the mall. not this time.

night drives, sitting in the backseat
of your car by the lake,
and I can't even look at you.
we both know that nothing will
be the same in the morning.
I guess that's the price you
have to pay for falling in love
too little and too late,
in the middle of the summer.

you can pretend that you don’t know me,
but your behavior won’t reverse what
the month of April was like.
truthfully, I don’t care if what she told you
made things different, as long as
you stop treating me like ****.

I can't tell if I'm being practical
or if I'm just selling myself short.

I’m being haunted
by the boy in the third row,
but I don’t see any ghosts.

you put the stars in the sky
with the sparkle in your eyes.

I’m not sure what the future has in store.
all I know is that I don’t want
anything to do with you anymore.

his birthday is tomorrow
and I wish that I could give him a present
that would make him light up
like I do when I imagine him saying my name.

one day, you'll drive by their house
and you won't check
to see if their car is in the driveway.
it might be cloudy now,
but the sun always comes back.

you don't have to give me your extra fries,
but you can give me your extra time.
you don't have to hold me
in a higher regard than everyone else,
but you can hold me at night
when i'm crying and I can't fall asleep.

do we have to be friends?
I just want to hold your hand.

when did it become custom
to tell people that we love them
just to be kind
and to tell people that we miss them
when we have no intention of
seeing them again?

my best friend would say
that I’m crazy for wanting you back.
most of the time, I try to convince myself
that it’s just the nostalgia talking,
but four o clock in the morning
is when the secrets come out.

if I hadn't been wearing glasses,
would you have noticed my eyes
and wanted to look into them
for the rest of your life?

in ten years, I’m not going
to remember the sound of your voice
or the exact color of your eyes,
but I’m going to remember
how you made me feel
and how you kept me up at night
because I couldn’t stop
thinking about you.
2 AM is a lonely time
without you here by my side.

it's ironic that I want you
to be the one to take me home,
when you're my home
in the first place.

someone suggested that we pick a word to repeat.
hers was "breathe."

I think I might choose cad-dy-whomped.
it reminds me of the sound a train makes
when it's rushing down the tracks.

it'll give my mind something to sing it to sleep.

even if I went back and changed things,
it still wouldn’t have made a difference.
but ****, your last name
would have looked good on me.
I think that’s what hurts the most.

he is never going to love me,
and I am never going to ask him to.

I look for you everywhere,
even though I already
know where to find you.

I told him that he was the whole ocean,
and I was just a passing wave.
"there's a bigger one coming,
and I'm too small for you to notice I'm gone."

he replied, "if you're a wave, you're a tidal wave.
you've taken over everything.
you've ruined me in the best possible way.
you've ruined me for anybody else."

there are many things
that I wish I could change about myself,
but you are not one of them.

i didn't care for days, weeks, months.
but all of the sudden, it's 1:47
and i'm rocking back and forth
whispering to myself:
"don't miss the smell of the house,
don't miss the fat cat,
don't miss the pile of blankets and pillows
in the living room.
don't. DON'T."

my:  favorite color has always been gray, even though my
mother:  never believed me. she
says:  that this isn’t normal for a nine year old. colors like
these:  hint at your mental state. the
things:  I thought about at night made me go into a panic.
“are:  you going to die in your sleep tonight? should you write a last will and testament just in case?” I felt
like:  my heart was trying to jump up out of my throat. my cheeks would turn
red:  and I would put my head between my legs to steady my breathing. I would try to take my mind off of the finality of it all by thinking of anything else — the
diamonds:  that nobody would ever give me, how good medium
rare:  steak tastes as it melts in your mouth
and:  how
precious:  it is that my little brother is still my biggest fan.
and:  how does one have a moral compass if god isn’t at the center moving the arrow? — by believing that you’ll have a
beautiful:  and fulfilling life if you treat other people beautifully.

one day he will find someone who stands a little straighter
and doesn't leave hair in the shower drain.
someone who lights up his world like a shooting star in a sky of standstills.
and he won't even think of the girl he passed in the hallways once or twice,
silently begging him to love her.

he's taking you like you're medicine
and people aren't made that way.

we might not be pretty,
but at least we got soul.

how can I trust
someone who knows
that they should
have stayed but didn't?
I will not wait for you.

it's hard to sit still when all I want to do
is run away to Portland, Maine with you.

i live in a world of many other men.
you were just the first one that
i locked eyes with in a crowded room.
we both know you won't be the last.

"set yourself free from your anxiety.
I have faith in you, you'll be okay."
everybody says it, but it only really
seems to matter when it's coming
from somebody who just gets it.
"just breathe, you'll be alright."

I know that you cried
when you dropped her off at the airport.
i’m not sure if it was because
you knew it was the end
or thought it was the beginning.
either way, she didn’t deserve you
if she wasn’t going to look back.
for the record, I would have cried too.

there might be other worlds in which
this behavior would be acceptable,
but this is not one of them.
there are people who would let you
string them along like old Christmas lights
on a freshly cut tree, but I am not one of them.
not anymore.

at the time, you made my world
a little bit brighter, and for that,
I'm forever thankful.
things are different now,
but perhaps we're both better for it.

the biggest turn on
is the head and the heart.

I didn't mean to hurt you.
I was just trying to make myself whole again.
truthfully, I don't think I've been whole since I met you.
I'm sorry, I didn't think I'd hurt you.
But if I don't look out for myself, who will?

I wish that I could protect you
from everything horrible in this world,
but I am just a person.
I can't tell where the pain is coming from
until it starts hurting.

you could have really loved me.
hell, you probably should have loved me.
but sometimes, the world is the
most cruel to those who least deserve it.

when I have a daughter, she will grow up
knowing that she shouldn’t give her world
to someone who wouldn’t take care of it.
never will my child give her time to someone
who doesn’t cherish the minutes.