it’s so hard to feel like the beautiful person you say i am
when it’s 3 am and i’m alone with myself
and this is what i need to do
crying in the dark can’t be so bad
when it means i’m coming clean so someday
i can come home to you
and the 4 am train offers up its tracks

it’s so hard to be alone

and i am brilliant and i am strong and i am
beautiful
but you don’t have to live with me

i want to crawl inside you,
kiss your ribs and cradle your heart,
make friends with your spine.
i want to see what you see in me
through your eyes.
you are the beautiful person

my reflection is tired and these eyes i see each day are only getting duller
i’ll repeat this sad song for the last time
and think of the night you tried to love me
and hope i can make a change and make a way for me to smile again

you make me want to write
you make me want to dance
you give me a place to go when i’m stuck inside my mind
and maybe it’s not for the best
but my love for you is here

this life i’m living doesn’t taste the same
it tastes like sleeping pills and a light that never goes out
and i can still see the curve of your fingers and the look in your eyes
and i’m sick but so are you and maybe we could heal together
but life is short and messy and too soon I can feel you are already gone
maybe we had our moment and that was that

when you walk away will you feel my thoughts?
i thought i saw myself the other day
but it was only an echo of the sound of your voice
it rang in my head and i glanced toward the mirror
i saw us there in light, gilded and framed and content
i’m sick

in the convoluted mess of my depression i am always reaching for you
i look for you in everyone
but i see myself in us and i would never want that for any love
so there will be no us and there will only be you, and me, alive in the same stream of existence, two small threads of the universe touching momentarily, slipping away too soon

but that does not exclude my selfishness, the insistence of my heart
the senselessness of love and lust
i want to kiss each of your knuckles
i want to taste your shoulder every morning and feel your hand about my thigh every night
i want your poetry in my ears and your mouth on my neck
i want our love, half of you and half of me, the sound of eager feet on wood floors
i want new sad songs, new happy songs, another reason to dance
you are my reason to dance
i want us writing side by side, i want to hear you singing under your breath always
i want to show you this without shame, turmoil, judgment
i want to wake up to your dimple and your voice full of sleep
instead of knowing for the rest of my life that you are the ocean i always wanted to swim in
that you are the tree i never climbed

crying alone in bed is a production of love that i never thought to act upon
and now i feel low and insignificant
in that place of rain and green i know you are so happy
and that makes me happy
that’s all love is
i am happy because you are happy
and for the rest of my life i will be happy knowing i loved you fiercely, quickly, and without thought, without voice
you are the great love of my life and you have no clue
your kindness and your fight against the clinging sadness that pulls upon you,
the proof that you are here in the world, breathing, getting out of bed in the morning
is enough to make me smile
and know that the days you struggle to find yourself to love are the days i love you most
and someday i will find the strength to get out of bed
and maybe then we can greet the mornings together