you aren’t gone yet
even after a month of radio silence
even after a month of hurt
even after the worst month that these eyes have ever seen
and these hands have ever held
when you see me, you still tell me to keep my head up
so keep my head up i will.
i will raise my head higher than the clouds
because who i am to say that i can’t?
who am i to tell you that i’m not strong?
you already know how fragile i am
you know that i can shatter like glass
slowly the cracks form
but quickly i shatter and fall to the floor like a waterfall of broken shards.
you aren’t gone yet,
but the immeasurable distance between us makes it impossible to see you
even when you’re right in front of me.
you once told me that i’m the kind of person that makes life worth living.
but what you don’t know is that i don’t know how to live without you anymore.
so tell me how i can keep my head up
when i fall to my knees every i think about you for too long
one mention of you name sends a chill down my spine and tears to my eyes.
one resurfacing memory is enough to send me into a panic attack
so how the hell can i keep my head up?
you aren’t gone yet,
but the shelter you gave me is.
i am out in the open
unarmed
defenseless.
my shield is down
so i guess all i can do is keep my head up

oh my lighthouse
i’m in troubled water now
and i need your light in my life
the deep sea’s current is currently pulling me away from you
so please
shine your light on me
and find me back to shore

dear stranger
why?
why did you have to go away?
it’s too soon
i thought i had more time
and now all i have is memories to keep me warm in the cold rain
you protected me
and know without your shield i am on my knees
i am overcome with grief
and i need you now more than ever
there are still memories to be made
good times to be had
and yet they don’t feel the same
without you
and maybe once the sun comes out
i’ll see you again
i’ll hold onto you
and i’ll never let go
but until then i will be haunted by you
i can feel the weight of your absence every time i know exactly what you would say
every time i write, sing, act, strum my ukulele, or even speak
i feel your ghost
your loss lays heavy on me like your arm around my shoulders
i guess all i can say is
i miss you like hell burns

i loved you once upon a time

but you said you would be there for me

but where are you know?

by the time the rain came
you had left.
and you left me flooded and waterlogged

going

going

gone.

looking in the mirror
i see myself
not as everything i am
but as everything that i have been
i see a little girl with wonder in her eyes
and fear in her heart
i see a preteen with a little too much love to give the world
that it spills from every crack in her innocence
and i see the steady beating of a heart of silver
forged from days spent in overdrive
and nights where love never lies to rest.
into dusk and beyond
the girl in the mirror blinks absently back at me
through a filter of struggle and hard work like sun rays on the ocean floor
where family is the deep ocean trench that i was raised in
not the warm waters of the coral reef that i know today
where diverse human nature flows in a way that i can tell one person from the next by reading their words on a piece of paper
where i bathe myself in the sun rays that form a halo around my head
and i am unable to escape the feeling of flying
everything i touch turns to pearl
love spills from
not the cracks in my innocence
but from the old wounds where i’ve allowed myself to heal, but not harden
some days
the waves wash over me, and i let them
others
the tide is in my hands
either way
the girl in the mirror
blinks absently back at me
because she didn’t know how to breathe underwater
but she will soon learn
i am counting on her

i dread the day
where i will have to whisper a wrong-feeling goodbye into your arms
we aren't meant for this fate
though we knew it would end this way
from the beginning
it never felt right
no
we were meant to orbit each other forever
we will dance in the stars
forever
in loving memory
of the times we danced and sang together
on earth

i stand and watch you leave
the doorway fraMes your unsteady form as You walk out of my life
the whole scene reminds me of a haPhazardly taken polaroid pIcturE
in my white-knuCkled fingers
as i hold onto your mEmory as tight aS i can
for deAR lifE
because this moment here
is the breaking apart
i have Spent months grieving your loss
before it even arrived
and yet
this is harder than i Could even imagine
because watching you go is easier than seeing you gone
because the gentle ambiguity of your not-goodbye
is nothing like how you lived your dAys with me
fast-paced, breakneck speeds
every breath thaT flowed from your open heart sTormed right through the walls around mine
and without those i am suffocating
i am shattEring like a broken mirror
and you were the light i once reflected
every one of my fractures spreads and cRacks like a spider-weaved web
and i am the fly
i am too weak to say goodbye
so i let your “see you later”
shatter mE
because the you i may see later
will not be the same you that i know right now.
so i shatter and splinter and crack
as you slip out of my hands
and all my pieces are shattereD across every memory i have with you.