Not to sound blunt or anything but
You felt like a car crash

Looking at you was like
Watching tragedy unfold,
Like watching the car tailspin or
Hydroplane and wrap itself
Around a telephone pole
Or bridge
Or person.

It's like you knew this wasn't going to end well
For either of us
I was just trying to get somewhere and
You were just trying to get in the way

Like a barrier between everything,
You were a traffic jam on the way home from church,
A Sunday morning plagued with grief and guilt and all the glamor.

It must have been nice
To talk to all those emergency medics
Whose side of the story did you tell?

The truth or the other truth?
How dare you choose dare.
This isn't a game fit for liars or lovers.
This isn't a game at all.

Something about sterile sheets in a hospital room
And someone waiting outside the door.
Something about screaming
"let me in and let me see."
Something about crying and
"you're not just a body to me."

Why was that all I ever was to you?
Bones and bad lighting and
Holding a hand that doesn't want to be held.
The doctor comes in and tells me
It's time to let go.

I know.
It's an overdue goodbye.
You and I were always meant to end.

Something tells me the hand I was holding
Wasn't yours.
Something tells me I attended my own funeral
And you didn't bother showing up.

Didn't even leave flowers.
Didn't even cry.
Not even a “Hey, I'm sorry life didn't work out for you this time.”

You left me there on the side of the road
And on the side of life,
Exposed and about to expire.
Something tells me we crashed long ago
But you were always the one
Who could walk away from the wreckage.

You could always walk away from everything.
Including me.

you were a perfect ten on the richter scale
there were no warnings about
the destruction you'd cause
no one was ever ready for you,
especially me.

loving you was like
kissing along the san andreas fault line
and praying i don't strike a nerve
loving you was like pretending
the splitting earth was only opening itself up to me
and not trying to bury me.

notice how the world shutters when it thinks of you
notice how there's cracks in everything you touched
notice how there's still parts of me buried beneath the rubble

somebody told me i needed to assess the damage
and all i could think about
was all those shattered picture frames.

the aftershock hits hardest in the places
that remind me of you

i still believe there's something beautiful about nature,
just not human nature -
just not your nature.

my physics teacher says
every force on earth has
an equal and opposite reaction

so forgive me for thinking
that if i gave love
i would get the same amount
in return

i know, i'm sorry
i said i'd never write about you again but
here is my apology.

1. we were just kids back then, i remember pulling your nightmares out of my blankets and whispering on the phone that i believed in you.

2. everything was so new and delicate and we just wanted to hold and break all of it. i can't blame you for wanting to know and destroy love.

3. the truth is that i miss you, but not in the way i should.

4. we may never have been in love, but i truly did feel like we were. i wish i had met you later on in life.

5. i'm sorry the little girl inside of me wanted to be enough for you, i'm sorry the person i am now couldn't be.

6. i know you didn't mean it when you told me it was my fault, but it still stings nonetheless.

7. it wasn't all your fault, i played a part too. i remember saying that i will love you forever.

8. i think i still will. but i know that i need to stay away.

9. i'm sorry we ended like this. i don't regret you. i regret letting you hurt me.

10. i pray that someone loves you better than i could. i pray that you learn. i pray that i do too.

11. i am sorry for everything, even when i shouldn't be.

12. goodbye and goodluck.

let’s talk about momentum and lack thereof,
about how i never understood the concept of impact
until you kissed me

i am convinced that touching you
is the closest one could get
to touching god
and i’ve never prayed harder
than the night you told me
you loved me all that time

and i am asking you
to hold onto this
as tight as we held each other
back in august,
surrounded by bayside air and moonlight

feel all the way back
to the first month,
your head on my chest,
the ups and downs of my breathing
i remember you said
“your heartbeat sounds like music”

think fireworks,
think fourth of july -
we’re slow dancing in someone’s living room
there’s no music
but our hearts are beating
and that is enough

don’t let this go -
this momentum and impact,
this barefoot swaying in the summer breeze,
this grand orchestra.
this moment.
don’t let this go.

the simplicity of the silence,
the holy matrimony of the moon and emptiness,
the unforgiving nature of all the broken pieces -
the noiseless abandonment.
do you feel it?

my mother tells me to stop believing so much in the things i cannot see,
so i ask why she believes in my father
and she is silent.
she stopped believing long ago but hasn’t found the strength to claim the brokenness inside her.
the sadness hangs in the air.
do you feel it?

my teacher asks me about fiction and fact and i say
no one is safe either way,
fairytales don’t always have happy endings.
the disappointment lingers in the room for a long while.
can you feel it?

the way things whither away with the passage of time,
the gradual but constant erosion of once important things
like memory and bank accounts and love.
the theory of decay.
do you feel it?
of course not.

the silence forgets that it knows how to speak
so it doesn’t.
my father forgets that he knows how to love
so he doesn’t.
the author forgets how to rewrite the narrative
and so she doesn’t.

the theory of decay.
do you feel it?
because I do.

you tree limb bent out from the others,
you collapsing of the chest as everyone laughs,
you mid-july broken ceiling fan

you beautiful, stand out empty picture frame -
where a family should be.

that earthquake mother,
that tectonic plate father,
you poor, caught-in-the-debris, scar on the head survivor

you valley of flowers,
those volcanic eruption grandparents,
you forgotten beauty

you ash risen lover,
you missing puzzle piece,
you faded photograph

you home,
you paradise,
you safe haven

you backseat confession,
you laying on the tile floor sleep,
you moonlit slow dance

you tender, divine lover,
you unbroken hope