The feeling of being locked away
high on a shelf, with only the sounds of hopelessness through echoes.
I am lost.
When we are lost we fight to get home, but this home is no longer a home
its a prison.
One I only wish I had the strength to escape from.

I close my eyes and feel the sun come untucked from the clouds,
bleeding blood orange through my eyelids.

No one really knows you and I the way we know our footsteps,
coming home across wood floors late at night.

The way we used to sit on windowsills,
or crosslegged across from one another on your bed.

Our arms sank into the crevices of one another,
I wanted to feel the weight of you to crush me,
if only just to feel the peace of the street.

I don't like the way this feels most days.
Can you believe I don't like such complexity?
Why is my affection never simple?
Never just one-sided; instead,
It's a moon with phases, with changes
Too unpredictable to pencil down.
It used to be spring tides or none at all
But I've been getting tamer ones lately.
If it does crash, it does so politely, lightly
Carressing my shore with waves of affection.

Sometimes I forget to worry.
Sometimes I forget how heavy-handed I can be,
How easily I can hurt, despite
The dulling of my edges;
And I do this for some people
My affection wants to keep.
I admit it's not the wisest thing I do.
The shackles hurt a lot more
When you jump too far,
Thinking you can make it.

Still, I wonder if that might be better.
I do not like my anxiety, but
I don't like being absentminded in this either.
I do not like not knowing, not holding
The reins of my affection, my hurricane affliction
I do not like the way this feels most days.
I do not like the thought of hurting you.
I do not like it when this moon is new
but I must say, I do like the way you want this, too.

I wake up. Quiet. The sheets beside me are cold. The sun shines trough the dewy windows. I look down at my brown knees. The nail polish on my toes is falling off. I close my eyes for a second and open them again. I leave my bed and look myself in the mirror. My eyes are as blue as the ocean, and I’ve got freckles on my nose. My lips are dry, so I wet them with my tongue. I can feel the warmth from the sun on my thighs. It’s silent.
     My mother enters the room.
     “Who?” she asks.
     “I don’t know” I answer. She leaves.
     I look at myself in the mirror again. I look pretty, with my tan skin as a contrast to my blue eyes. An eyelash has fallen off and landed on my cheek, but I don’t remove it. I look away, at the sun. It shines again today. I miss the ocean.

A child is like a memory that promises to be
An intriguing little echo of our brief mortality

A fuzzy new reflection of what has been before
That captures all the essence of our lives, yet … so much more

For each will add a suffix to the mantle of descent
A familiar revelation of a personal ascent

‘Til soon they too encounter their own human frailty
And aspire to hold their mirror that reflects eternity

Loving you
My dear
How I loved you
Deeply and Vastly
And yet
Our love
Was the most exquisite
Form of
Self destruction
For now I lie here
Broken
Empty
And hurting
Wishing that I
Didn't fall in love
With you

If you haven’t existed I would have created you
Written you word after word
With blue eyes and red lips
Like the dream I had that day
When my heart started beating again
As the rain whispered you exist

If you haven’t existed I would have created you
Written you row after row
With curly hair and invisible wings
So we could fly together above the clouds
Embraced as now
Day after day waiting for the sunrise

If you haven’t existed I would have created you
Written you page after page
With smiling eyes and gentle soul
Painted you in the colors of the light
So I could find you when it’s dark
And you could kiss me when it’s hard

If you haven’t existed I would have created you
Written you poem after poem
Drawn you line after line
Until my mind went completely blank
For you have countless rainbows inside your soul
Without which the world would not exist

I could let myself down in an acrylic tub full of tears
and no one will notice its springing from my eyes.

I could let myself down on the cold ground of winter earth
and no one will notice I will be part of him from now on.

I could not speak a word or write one
and no one will notice the silent that eats parts of me
as I become none.

I could tell you stories of what I feel inside
I could tell you stories of what desire felt like
I could and could and could
but I won't and won't and
won't.