let me tell you about poetry

let me tell you about how the sunlight hits his eyes and his pupils dilate just enough for me to see my reflection lost in the pool of a mind full of everything but chlorine

let me tell you about the way his words electrify his touch so at one point i'm convinced i'm being struck by lightning, ready and waiting for the storm to come shortly after

let me tell you about how he likes his coffee black and about how he never seemed to learn the word bad, about how he in the most exposing hours of the night strips down to the bare minimum - his soul, about how he loses his thoughts and reverts back to old questions, about how he keeps practicing the art of deception over and over again just to prove to himself he's still got it

let me tell you about how he wears himself on his sleeve and about how i know that in the gaps between when we feel our heart beats in our throats and through our veins, we will never work out, about how he sees shades of blue but i see shades of pale, about how he's an open book but i was taught books are better kept closed, about how he's becoming my muse but the minute i start writing about them that signifies it's surely the end

let me tell you about mourning before it's begun and about the dark nights spent staying up examining self worth in a queen-sized bed with cigarette butts lining the window sills, about the beautiful agony created and the torturous goodbyes

let me tell you about standing on the edge of a cliff with only two options in front of you and having to ask yourself if it's worth the fall, about how you're so scared of being pushed no matter the promises, but how you know that no matter the spears beneath, his face is all you'd see every single moment your body was falling towards the earth, one step closer to oxygen and closer to death

It's easy to say I love you when you are face to face.
It's easy to say I love you when you are inside someone.
It's easy to say I love you when they are caring for you.
It's easy to say I love you when the butterflies are in your
stomach and every waking moment is consumed with one another.

But it's not easy to say I love you when they want nothing to do with you.
It's not easy to say I love you when you know they don't love you.
It's not easy to say I love you when it's been a consistent battle to
remain friends.
It's not easy to say I love you when you always choose guys who
make you feel less than you are.
It's not easy to say I love you when I have been waiting four years for
you to feel anything for me.
And it certainly is not easy to say I love you when there is an ocean
separating the two of us.

I don't love you because I need you, I need you because I love you.
Love is not a feeling, or an emotional connection, or an opportunity not to be alone.
Love is dedication, a choice to knit your heart and soul to another because
nobody else can compare to the joy, peace, affection, and trustworthiness that you have.

So I love you. I love you. I love you.
You may never read this, but it's the deepest part of my love for you.

but the amount of people out there
that once put their whole being
on their sleeve for
someone
and in the turn of a second
they become a stranger
a stranger yet
not at all
because they now have knowledge of
your soul
of your heart
of your body
what a beautifully awful thing
to know that you are being carried
in someones repertoire
of beings.

E.M.

Do not trust boys
who kiss you in your drive way.
If they can't make it to the front door
there must be something wrong.

I have had many first kisses in my driveway
and every boy that has given me one
has turned out sour.
Do not trust boys who kiss you in your drive way.

If they are too lazy to walk the extra ten feet to your front door
then they are most likely too lazy to walk
the extra mile in a relationship.
Effort is key my friend.

I cannot bare to stand in my driveway.
Memories come flooding in
from this boy and that.
Do not trust boys that kiss you in your driveway.
Trust me on that.

10 Things I Wish I Could've Told You...
but never did.

1: I used to fantasize about us listening to that song that always reminded me of you and we'd be laughing and singing and we wouldn't have a care in world except where we were gonna buy our french fries. I'd feel as free as the snowflakes that never fell while we coast down the boulevard.

2: I snuck out of class one time to text you. I thought I was super cool for doing something bad... but then I had to do the entire science experiment with my phone in my jacket sleeve. I came pretty close to lighting it on fire with a bunsen burner, actually.

3: I remember how you could make anything hilarious. Whether it was laughing about overrated jokes from the internet or ironic things we probably shouldn't even be laughing about, you'd turn the situation upside down because that's the way you liked to see the world. You taught me that just looking from another perspective could make the ocean and sky switch places.

4: I lost sleep of worrying about you - I would awake in a cold sweat worried that my biggest nightmare would come true.

5: I would always push accusations of this happening to the back of my mind, but little did I know that when I thought I was protecting you I was really protecting myself.

6: I miss your laugh

7: I miss your smile

8: I miss the way you cared about everyone. Your heart was so big that all the 7 billion people on this earth could have a piece of it, a chance to taste the love and sweetness that resided in there, and when all the sugar saturated in the bottom you always knew how to shake it back up again, but man did they take every last piece. They took it all so that you were left with an emptiness that you had to fill with something else. And you filled it up, but it wasn't with love.

9: I can't live in a world without you

10: You were the first and only person I turned to for a very long time, and you were the only person who I could really trust. You gave me a piece of your heart too, except that I cherished mine. And to this day, I wear your heart on my sleeve.