on that cold and rainy night
amidst delayed flights and the six strings on your guitar,
you told me that you got a concussion from playing soccer
a little too rough in my hometown
and how you couldn't wait to get drunk with your grandmother
on Thanksgiving.
you enjoyed going through the security line at the airport
because you "loved looking at your **** in boxes."
how did you and I end up coming from and going to the same place
without finding each other in between?

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

On Sunday mornings they’d grab us by the shoulders
and stare into our eyes until
we repeated those universal truths —
what goes up much come down,
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit,
even Satan knows
that he’s out there.

“fear thou not,” he whispered as I put on my makeup so that I would look as pretty as I did the night that he first kissed me.

“fear thou not,” he whispered as I slipped on the red dress, to ensure that no one would be bothered with a costume change.

“fear thou not,” he said as I stumbled through the “I’ll see you later sweethearts” and the “we’re having pasta for dinners.”

“fear thou not,” he bellowed as I climbed to the top of our apartment complex. sunsets always were my favorite.

“fear thou not,” he bellowed as I breathed in for the very last time, taking in the smell of the flowers that were surrounding me. Portland was always pretty this time of year.

“fear thou not,” he whispered into the wind as I fell into the infinite nothingness. but I didn’t want his pity. his right hand can’t hold me anymore.

“fear thou not,” I whispered as she put on her makeup. she was just as beautiful without it, but she didn’t believe it.

“fear thou not,” I whispered as she slipped on the red dress. she decides that the red of the fabric will soak up the red of her blood and all will be well.

“fear thou not,” I said as her mother told her that she’d see her later. little did she know, this was the last time that she’d see her daughter’s bright fleeting eyes: wide open and sparkling against the summer sun.

“fear thou not, I bellowed as she climbed to the top of her apartment complex. as she admired the pretty Portland sunset, I thought, just for a moment, that she might change her mind.

“fear thou not,” I bellowed as she breathed in for the very last time. she must hear me. she has to hear me. why isn’t she listening?

“fear thou not,” I whispered into the wind as she fell into the infinite nothingness that would soon become her. I tried my best. heaven knows you can’t save them all. my right hand can’t hold her anymore.

I have been in love
with thoughts and ideas,
but I have never been in love
with a whole person.
longing and loving
are entirely different,
even though I feel like
they're the same.

the next state over,
halfway across the country,
or even all the way on the other side,
I still look to see if the car that just passed is yours.
you're my worst bad habit and no matter what I do,
I just can't seem to shake you.

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."

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

they say that you shouldn't
make homes out of human beings,
but material things don't complete me
the way you do.

I've spent the better part of the last month
trying to reconstruct our last night --
the last time that the five of us were together.
I want to box up the sound of our laughter
so loud that it was probably keeping my parents awake.

I want to tie it up with a bow
and keep it in my nightstand
for when the nights get longer and the songs get slower
and I can't remember how much taller you are than me anymore.

Three years ago, I called my brother while the four of you were together.
The phone was passed from ear to ear until it got to you.
Without missing a beat, you hung up on me...
and didn't answer when I called back.

I remember thinking that
I didn't know it was possible
for somebody to make you mad in a good way.

most of my house is contained on one floor;
my mother can't move like she used to.
she can never keep the moles and gophers
from eating her garden, but she tries anyway.
the look of accomplishment painted on her face
when she picks her own tomatoes is worth the struggle.
it makes my best friend feel at home.

my father buys new kitchen appliances
and turns to home improvement when i'm out of town.
I always joke that these things fill the void.
he has a wine cellar and a bar in our basement
that we use once a month because he likes to show his friends.
it's just another way to prove that he knows everything.

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

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

I hope that one day, you are fortunate enough
to have people in your life who will
drive you past your ex best friend's house
at midnight in their red pickup truck.
revving their engine loud
even though they know she can't hear it.

you always buy a $2 newspaper
from that homeless guy on magnolia,
even though you never read it.
you say, "some people need
a little more. money, hope, love."

anybody who says "pay attention to me,
I am the most important"
when you feel like the ocean
has swallowed you whole,
is not worth loving.
hear these words, learn them, live them.
because you are your greatest downfall
and you don't need anyone pushing you.

a very wise professor once told me
not to tell somebody that you love them
if you don't care how they're doing.
so don't set someone on fire
just to watch them burn.

no matter what happened,
you loved wildly with
your whole heart, and
that’s a commendable thing.

if I believed in luck, I would think
that I had the worst of it.
I seem to bring bad weather
wherever I go.

so it seems
you have carved your name
into my tree of life again
and I just want to grow out of it.
so high, I can't even see it anymore.
but you are my whole tree,
and i'm not even a branch on yours.

on monday mornings we used to grab each other’s arms
and trace lines from the wrist to the shoulder,
trying to guess when we got touched in the middle.
since our eyes were closed, nobody
had to see my fingers.
pick, rip.
there’s always a name for what plagues you
and mine tasted the same
as charlie brown’s unrequited love.
the only thing that tasted worse
was the word that we couldn’t say out loud.
but on sunday bright and early
they’d grab us by the shoulders
and stare into our eyes until
we repeated those universal truths
what goes up must come down,
don’t swim right after you eat,
even satan knows
that there’s something out there.

the storm in my mind has put out my fire.
I keep trying to light it myself,
but I cannot find the matches.

things are not at all like they used to be.
I know that I am selfish,
but I never wanted you to go through this
without me.

gas stations and vintage t shirts
and never saying “die,” I think
you stole the sun’s shine with
the sparkle in your eyes.

driving home isn't nearly as exciting
if there's no one waiting for you
on the other side of the door.

you deserve someone who will
wake up earlier than you do
to make your morning coffee.
well, I was never a morning person,
and you wouldn’t have to ask her twice.

your eyes are my favorite kind of blue.
baby, I just want to get to know you.

if you make me feel better
about striking out in whiffle ball
or playfully cutting in front of me
in the cafeteria,
I will not accept responsibility
for falling in love with you.

you made me feel
extraordinary things;
things I didn't even know
were possible until
you held my hand.
it's a very strange feeling,
not knowing you were
breathing until
you're gasping for air.

love is carrot launching off the third floor balcony
replacing underwear with oranges
sitting in a circle ten wide playing Mafia
dancing to Steely Dan in the kitchen
pool rafts and cousins and DCOMs
father’s day watching golf on TV with oldies music dance parties
everything but the kitchen sink trail mixes
popsicle parties and two different colors of eye shadow
photoshoots with best friends and “Elephant” on vinyl
secret sharing with sisters on bunk beds
your best friend writing you a poem called “Sail On Silver Girl”
dancing to “Round Here” in the living room when dad came home
matching t shirts and coming home
barefoot drinking black coffee with the windows open
October air and the smell of apples with a hint of cinnamon
singing “rivers and roads” by the fire on the beach with the fireworks
your dad’s friends handing you beers because their own daughters wont drink them
holding hands with somebody you’ve never met before at church
tri-state Netflix movie nights
your grandpa noticing that your eye makeup is different
hearing “poor man’s son” live and acapella
the movie Fired Up and how it never gets old
love is the sound of laughter and never saying uncle .

I wish that I was someone who mattered.
maybe it’s because I don’t look up when I walk
or because I can’t think of anything witty or
insightful until it’s long past due,
but if I died tomorrow, I might get into heaven
because I was “a joy to have in class,”
but not for anything substantial.
I didn’t change the world.  
I didn’t even change one person.

most days, I walk around with my head on completely straight;
remembering all of the mundane things that I have to do before bed:
study for your history test, do your laundry, call your mother.
but then I see a boy who looks a little too much
like you did when you were seventeen
or a car that looks like the one that you drove
home from soccer practice junior year.
and all of the sudden, I don't have any clean socks
and my mother is worried because she hasn't
heard from me in a few days.
I think that's the worst part of being in love only sometimes.

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.

my mother used to say that I
brought bad weather wherever I went.
"now, i'm not saying that it's your fault,
but every time you crave a change of pace,
the weather won't have it.
once you get comfortable somewhere,
the gods want you to stay."
it's funny, because you said the same thing
after I left. I guess my mother was right.

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

I spent my last night in Tennessee at your house.
We ate dinner in your front yard
so that the cars could watch us
as they drove by.

You said,
you're rarely as burned out
as you think you are.

Last night I counted the states between here and Montana,
thinking back to that night
I wished away everything in the April sky
so that you could shine the brightest.

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.

it's funny how you think you're moving
in the right direction,
but then one day, you're driving down I-195.
windows down, blasting the song that goes
"oh dear, you look so lost."
not sure if you're running towards something,
or running away.

maybe our paths were
bound to cross eventually.
she calls it fate, but I don’t
believe in that anymore.

in the center of Jersey, I think of his breath.
how his chest expands and contracts
and stops moving all together when he thinks of her bones.

all the girls with the monogrammed backpacks
and their cookie cutter smiles
were plucked from galaxies,
while I was dug up from the ground.

he’s taking her like she’s medicine,
and people aren’t made that way.
there she sits, idle.
coughing up her own ****** lungs
like there’s some sort of return policy,
I can tell. after all, that girl was once me.

she puts on a little more makeup before class,
even though she knows that he won’t notice
anyway. she’s sure to put on that shade
of lipstick that her thirteen year old cousin
Sarah says is a work of art, even though it’s not
going to make him want to kiss her any more than
he did the day before.  she’s not too sure if she’s
doing it for him or if she’s doing it for her.

sometimes,
you don't even know
you're in hell
until you catch a glimpse
of heaven.

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.

stars don't let me shine
as much as you do.

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."

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.

I don’t know if I believe
in love at first sight,
but I definitely felt something
when I first saw you.

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 cousin started hoarding all of my things.
she has my old iphone cases even though she's six.
she almost took a necklace from me, but I stood my ground
for the first time in a long time and I told her that
that stupid piece of jewlery had sentimental value.
she helped me search my dresser drawers for a new chain.
she can't quite see over the kitchen counter, but **** is she smart.
she's the kind of girl who can tell if you're bullshitting her,
but she still believes in fairytales.
she will hug you on the couch when she knows that you need it
and watch your favorite childhood movies with you,
even though she makes you fast forward through the scary parts
and I am so lucky to love her.

when I was five, I met my best friend
in the back of a kindergarten classroom.
we have matching clothes even though
she was morally against that until I came along
and she will cater to your musical needs
even when she's the one who's driving.
we want to **** each other when we go on road trips,
but ****, is she smart.
I don't know if she still believes in fairytales,
but I think that she might be my soulmate.
she will buy you lipstick that she thinks will look good on you
and makes sure that you get home okay,
even though you've only been separated
for ten minutes anyway
and I am so lucky to love her.