I need to just look at the little things
like the pattern of the clouds
in the sky, the way they look like
skid marks on wet sand,
just licked by the salty lips
of the vast ocean--
and yet you redefined my
whole perspective,
especially on the little things--
The small curve of your smile
and the sweet twinkle in your eye
became my everyday suffice,
and every simple movement
you'd make would knock me
off balance,
tumbling into the abyss:
the emptiness that comes when
someone who was your whole world
decides not to provide you
with the little things
you so desperately need
to survive

Do not stand at my grave and weep..
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awake in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft star-shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry..
I am not there. I did not die.

staring at a blank sheet of paper
expecting the words to just appear
my emotions to raw to form
into the letters needed to express.

beating at my chest i pull and tear
begging and screaming into the night
trying to get a grasp on to any courage
I might have so to tell you
that everything i need
everything i want
is just you

Desperately clinging to pen and paper
needing to write it all down
this inconsolable loneliness i have without you
how the world was just black and white
then i met you and it was like seeing color
so vivid and bright, for the very first time

how just the slightest touch from you
ignites a fire under my skin
bringing life into the dead world i live in
and gives me a reason to go on

still so much to say but there isn't enough
words to describe what I feel for you
if you ever doubt anything i do or say
just have faith in my words here
for they are the truest i've ever spoken
no matter what, i'll always love you.

You said you had something to tell me,
that verbally it was just to hard.
And I loved that you'd confide in me,
and allow me entrance into the world of you,

six pages folded up tight,
and I wanted to tear the open to see what dark secret you'd share with me.


5 pages were blank the 6th written on...  
you wrote:                                                           ­                                                                 ­                                        I love you.


And in that moment all I allowed myself to think,
was that you wanted ME.
Of all people you were content and filled with joy,
secure in loving me.
I reread that note over and over,
memorizing each dip in the paper.

it was a summer night you held my hand,
you lead me to the tent you pitched in your back yard,
and i thought i could lay there, hidden in a tent with your arms wrapped around my waist,
but i wanted you to prove it,
maybe i just wanted to feel it,
you said, "ashley, breathe"
and your fingers found a way to cradle my head,
and to pull down the wall i peek through,
and your pink lips touched mine,
and i wonder sometimes if you would do it now,
how would i react or would i have set sail south for you were always being kissed by the sun,
and I don't talk about it,
no body knows the places we traveled to,



I'm certain you never knew what love is
and you certainly didn't know how to love me.
Later I would voice the doubts and the regret,
but secretly want another chance with you,
you were my first kiss, haven't another since,
first relationship,
though you'd be hard pressed to call it that.
I haven't ever even dated.

You stole my innocence the moment,
I awoke to you sitting up in the bed we shared,
with you smoking,
a cigarette,

But you said you loved,
as a tool to manipulate,
not because it was true,
and I loved you as you needed but you wanted more,

she isn't in my life right now.
I made that decision long ago but her ghosts still chills me,
and I remember tents in backyards,
and stuttered breath like Morse code across your skin.

      
my ragged breath,
exhale and inhale,
things to remember
you slide closer,
and I am a frost princess,
you hold me with just a stare.
I dared you and not one to back down,
you rose to the challenge of,
taking my lips and melding them with yours,
and I am unaccustomed to the value you place,
and the reverence and gentleness you posses,
in one motion of your fingers
that dance across the freckles of my hand,

I don't want to feel this but your hands,
take purchase of my hips,
and my lips haven't been kissed before,
and I am addicted to the power you give me,
in just your gaze,
and you tell me you love me.

back before the kiss
before we started to hangout again,
since we left the gray and maroon lockers,
of a school we refused to be broken in.
I remember when.

Expectations
What am I deserving of?
          Am I not a mere human
amusing the divine
          with my feeble attempts
to scavenge scraps
          of what I call control over
my life? I am an ant
          who wants to change the
ways of the
                                           w                   i                    n                    *d