someone once said to me on a rainy day in august
"a stranger could come say hi to you
& you would respond with "i love you""
i found this thought quite funny
because they're not entirely wrong

i find it so easy to fall in love with the way people are
their walks, their talks, their bullet-wounds, their scars
i find it so easy to be mesmerized by the twinkles in their eyes
by the curves of their backs and by the way they smile when they're shy
how they scrunch up their noses and the sound of their laugh
how some of them speak slow and how some of them speak fast
the range of their voices from pretty like a bird to deep & husky
how some of them smell like the flowers of spring and others, musky
i love how each one expresses themselves through art
whether fashion or painting or poetry or whatnot
it's not just the human body but also the human soul
which is ah, so incredibly out of this world
personalities and quirks
and all the gears which make their minds work
how some cry easy and how others do not
how some laugh often and how others, not a lot
how some think of the future, others the past
then those who live in the moment, hoping it'll last
our philosophies and beliefs and the things which make us who we are
how without hope and love, none of us will go very far
at the end of the day, each one of us is similar, yet so uniquely different at the same time
but without each other, we'll never be able to shine

so yes, i am guilty of falling in love
with every stranger i bump into
it's not because im disloyal, polygamous, childish or silly
its purely because i love humans for just being human- through and through

today I did not think about him
It is the first time in an entire year that I haven't
I don't realize this until tomorrow
but it is an accomplishment nonetheless

today I went to lunch, did laundry, drove to the gym
I didn't see his shadow in my rear view mirror
It is the first time during a commute where I don't feel the overwhelming urge to pull over
often the speed of the traffic mixed with the acceleration of my thoughts guides me to the side of the road
anxiety blowing loudly through the vents into my open mouth until I am too tired to focus-
today is the first time that didn't happen

last week I googled "therapists near me"
I settled on a woman with a nice smile and a specialty for trauma
This is the first time I find myself familiar with that word
almost comfortable like a distant family member I am just now recognizing
trauma is something with one definition but too many faces
for the past eight months I have been wearing his

on monday I spend an hour in the office of a stranger
she asks me why I'm here and I respond with I don't know but
my answer is as dishonest as my avoidance is expanding
she asks me how I am and I almost forget that I didn't come all this way to say fine
for a moment I almost forget that I am not.

I tell her about him without trying
I don't say his name
or the details I remember with more clarity each day that goes by
she says memories are really only what we remember each time we remember them
I think it's funny how I remember more every time I do
how sometimes laying in bed becomes catalyst to chest pain
I can still feel him kneeling on top of mine
pressing body into cracked ribs into spit on my neck
I can hear his humming of a song they play too often on the radio
there is no trigger warning for the reminders life has to offer
I find them everywhere without trying

she understands as much as I want her to
she says it's really about power
I say I know
she asks if I feel like I lost some kind of control
I say yes
I don't tell her that I have spent countless hours trying to find it
in bodies that aren't my own
digging nails into muscle and mattress trying to pull out some semblance of who I used to be
For too long I have covered up with a bandage
I am just now ripping it off for the first time
this pain is a sort of cleansing
I took three showers after he left but it is only today that I feel his remnants washed off my skin
I can't help but wonder if this is what Pinocchio felt the first time he was honest with his demons

today I did not think about him
yesterday I did not think about him
the day before I only thought about myself and pizza and myself again
there is very real possibility that my mind could figure out a way to bring back the unwanted
that tomorrow could be another way to remember
but today I didn't
I went to lunch, did laundry, drove to the gym
I made it home without incident
not perfect,
but it is an accomplishment
nonetheless

when i told my friend that my new boyfriend loved sports and going out; partying, being loud and obnoxious, she grimaced and said she didn't know why i even liked him. i got angry with her - why did she not trust my gut?

i once told her that opposites attract, so we should be fine. we should have been.

but then came the fighting over little things, then came the mutual devaluation of each other's interests, then came the nights spent on the couch instead of in bed,  his drinking. he would always take the books from my hands and throw them across the wall - *******, he called them. he'd always say i lived in my head, that i never gave him the attention he deserved, that he would take a ******* instead of me any time. and at some point, he had me loathing him more than i did myself.

yet, at the same time, i still loved him. it was like an addiction - i knew he was bad for me, but i clung onto him like he was air and i couldn't breathe. there were nights when i really couldn't.

sometimes it felt like he still loved me, too. when he came to the locked bathroom door and cried with me; apologizing over and over again. at those moments my love for him would crawl out of its cave - my heart - covered in blood, battered, bruised, but still standing. and it would hold him, whispering false truths in his ear. i would always forgive him, because opposites attract. it was just the way he was, he couldn't do anything about it.

even if he could, i frequently thought i didn't want him to. not because i was content with his violent outbrusts and alcoholism, or what he put me through on a daily basis - no. because i loved him, regardless of all the pain he caused me. and love means to accept someone for who they are.

but i came to realize that love is quite finite when all negative things seem infinite.

i hated the way we were so different. where i would sit in one place for hours on end, he'd walk around clumsily, breaking things, screaming, slamming doors.

he drove me mad. and, don't get me wrong, i am not a saint. i'm sure i did the same to him. maybe it's my fault that he turned out the way he did - perhaps if he had chosen to live with someone else, his smiles would still be kind rather than cruel. perhaps if i had changed for him - if i was more like him, we would have been okay. but my silence was deafening. i was convinced he didn't deserve to hear my voice. and he didn't, for days. sometimes he asked if i was pretending to be a ghost of what we used to be. i started questioning my previous way of thinking. do opposites really attract?

and i came to a conclusion. they really do. opposites attract, but they are not always good for each other. i had to learn that the hard way.

and just like a ghost, i faded. i left.

Laughing with you is better than kissing anyone else.

his ice blue hues
have become so much darker,
they've grown older,
more tired,
a f r a i d.

his hands shake as he buries them in my hair,
desperately trying to hold his breath back,
as do i.
it's like an explosion of emotion
we're both trying to drown in.
and i think,
hell, nothing's changed

but it has.
so much has changed.
he is wiser,
more fragile,
he kisses me like he wants to tell a story.

the story of how she broke his heart
and he needs it fixed as soon as possible.

the story of how he misses me,
but is still trying to find her in there somewhere.

the story of how i can't ever compare to her,
but am enough for a while.

just like last time.
just like every time.

it's painfully hard to grow used to the simplicity of life,
to get rid of that stupid, stupid feeling in your gut
that there's more to it than this.
it breaks people,
it crushes them,
it destroys all their beliefs.

it is my worst enemy.
and it has the upper hand.

I watch you breathe
as you sleep.
I'm afraid of what
you could mean
to me.

I study the stripes
on your shirt.
I think of all the
ways we'll flirt
and all the ways
we'll cry and I'll choke
with your hands
around my throat,
and Malboro Black
cigarette smoke
pouring down my
esophagus--
I wish I wasn't
so fond of us.

Love is for tin birds
in a flame cage.

Lost memories
taste like death
yet
spontaneous revelations
like
breath on glass
are the sum
of every second
in your lifetime