First it was simply tape He feebly tried to attach himself to my mind in attempts to make his words stick But they never lasted long And I would kiss him in the dark And he would leave before the first hint of light made my eyes squint My mother whispered about him as he came and went My summer ghost who lived where I would let him And I don't think it counts as love when you're not even awake for most of it After that drunken confession I was uprooted Free to be the wind Winding through the holes in people's bones in an attempt to feel warm But even the hottest of fires sometimes aren't aware of the heat they give off He came next With three nails and a hammer But his father never taught him that to love a girl you must know her And in the end it was inevitable that he would spend most our nights wondering how it could have gone better And I know I ****** him up He built that ladder for me with everything he had And in the end I never came down Because I was an ocean and he was stranded I'm deeper than him Deeper than his shallow pools of lustsick thinking Now it's you Does God know you stole from him the very substance that he used to piece me together? Because so far you're the only thing that's stuck And rooms aren't forests anymore And they aren't seas or deserts They're just rooms that I can walk across to sit down next to you And I wish I wasn't so **** stubborn Because when I turn my head away in the night I know deep down you wonder if it's something you did wrong I'm not afraid to love I'm afraid to be loved You're like a child Stealing candy from a store At least that's what I told myself to make me feel better about the fact you always know when something is wrong In reality you're just made of what I'm made of And I'm not quite sure what that is yet But I know with you I'll figure it out And I know with you that all my past thoughts of love were based on how I thought I was supposed to feel I thought I was supposed to dread the other half of me That it was normal to cry in the fading dusk as I walked in circles wondering if I could ever bring myself to touch him Now it's as if I can't get close enough And every boiling morning my hands run down your back like I'm searching for a way in Desperately clawing at doors without handles That February morning was warm As if the sun knew that I'd want it to last a lifetime And you helped me down from that pedestal Slowly But surely And you let me fall asleep on your lap even when I had no idea what commitment even was With your forefinger you smudged my boundaries of friendship and love Because like oil and water I thought all my life it was best to keep them separate I'm Medea And to concoct the perfect poison of all of my wishes would be suicide It makes me laugh now Because I drink it every night as I watch you play Sweeter than any alcohol but I can assure you the burn is far worse Smoother than any cigarette but I can assure you the lightheadedness that follows is more intense than that night I sat in the forest with people I barely knew the names of as I laughed to jokes I didn't understand I love you And I want to say that I love you Because I know you love me Even if those words have never left your lips And we tease each other relentlessly I love him You love her Always dancing around what we are like hot coals I find it funny how I can write a novel simply about the way you look up when you're trying to remember something but I can't bring myself to say those three words I think it's because I'm so used to saying them that they don't do how I feel justice anymore Which is why people ask me why it was so easy to cut him from me And I shrug as I hide my wire cutters behind my back I buried my tools that night on the hill The night I told you everything Like I was writing it down Except this time the paper was breathing next to me I think everyone should have something as sharp as their wit to cut people from them Because even though there's something so beautiful about an oak looming over you with tendrils and roots up to your knees There's something more hopeful about a freshly planted seed Because you can't see it But you know it will be wonderful And I've realized I don't need to have something beautiful to shade me It's easy to waste the day away sat under a canopy of leaves But to grow something is harder And that's what we're doing And I know it will be better than anything I've ever done before