It started when I asked her what she desired
She told me she wanted to understand why the world has not loved her back yet
So I wrote her a map of everything she is:

Her eyes sing like sparrows on a Sunday morning
Tongue so soft her words asked to be returned once spoken
There is a serenade in her hands each time she touches a pen and
A lullaby in her fingertips

Plush red lipsticks do not know who she is
Beauty has not met anyone like her
Long stalks of wild grass are playgrounds for her summertime sandals and
Singing songs that hadn’t been loved in 30 something years
Summer dresses with last year’s flip flops forming an eloquence around her

She speaks with a purpose and it is to make you listen
Only bards and poets know what to call her
Words do not speak to who she is

200 year old Willow trees bow to her like a queen who has ruled with grace
She strolls slowly and steadily to places which indefinitely await her
She is a statue already built and a book already written
Complete

Eyes follow her figure like a fire burns through a forest-
Steadfast, sudden and swift
unable to comprehend the complete creation of all that she is

Many hearts pulsate with a plethora of pronunciations and proclamations of love,
Her name runs through your veins like secrets that get buried in cemetaries
You will die before you can forget her

We are stronger than our greatest enemy
a fear that we lie alone in bed
We are late night burning candles
waiting for headlights to shine through the window at 2am
We are window gazers during rain storms and puddle splashers when it stops
We are strong like an oak tree and yet you keep pulling splinters out of me
Remnants from a life hidden so far down in my roots that you need an ax and a full bottle of Jack to see what I am made of
We are rain drops collecting in an old mason jar
tear drops falling on cold hands
Lovers caught in the vine of thorns that they call home
Two broken photo frames later with suitcases sitting by the door
there is no liquor that drowns this out
nothing strong enough to help you forget that you are the reason the door still lies open
We are now a discontinued item only existing in photo books you told everyone else you threw away
You are the last item on a shelf full of things that I should have returned
We are forgotten like rain that doesn't fall on an aluminum roof
like the pitter-patter of our footsteps coming home together
now we are no more than whispers to ourselves after midnight

I make hellos seem more like drawn out goodbyes and I wave to everyone who is standing still. I walk faster than my feet can carry me and I bathe in acetone to shed off the layers of therapy painted on over the years. I scream whispers of a broken home and wear broken watches to remember what time it was last time I felt alive. I keep sunglasses in my pocket but I can never put them on because the world is too dark for me. I hide feelings inside of mason jars and write "moonshine" on them so people think I know how to have a good time. The mirrors around my house are all cracked from the inside out. The books on the shelves are all tearing themselves away from the spine. Nothing wants to be what it is intended to and no one wants to be who they are when I am around. I stock tears on a shelf that was built by the hands that held me as a baby and by the same hands that have not held each other's in so long. I take long walks in circles and run trails that teeter on the edges of cliffs. I write soliloquies for all the things I should have said and I bite my lip when you come around. My heart skips two beats when you look at me and I wonder why it isn't just the one this time. What makes you different than all the rest of the world, what makes you bring a smile to a man who knows nothing short of despair? I wonder what you will do to me when you leave and I wonder what I will do to myself to try to keep you around. I wonder who else in the world could make my heart sing like this. I remember every other eventual end to a bond that I once called unbreakable. I know the pain of empty bottles and half smoked cigarettes; of broken mirrors and letters burning in the sink. I know the crunch of my knuckles on concrete and my unwillingness to try trusting someone again. I will only ask you to stay if you know what my pain is so that you would never leave me with it again.

My head is full
Thoughts feelings and emotions
Filled to the brim in a finite container
Called sanity
Overflow is death, too much is locked doors and padded rooms
I am a sinkhole that was just filled with cement
My mind taken to the very extreme edge of functionality
One step too close to falling and five steps too far for someone to catch me
I am contemplating everything yet producing nothing
Thinking about anything that can't be fixed
Fixated on exhaling because breathing in only taints me even more
Another breath means these thoughts are still here
One breath is too much for me
A wall of empty prescription bottles falling on top of me
I am no longer fixed
I am now in the appointments calendar at least once a week
Days since a peaceful nights sleep
Too many
Days since a day without fear
0
Scorching asphalt on my feet feels like the excessive thoughts pushing against my eyes
Pressure built up so high they built a new gauge just to figure me out
Stacks of scribbled notes about childhood recollections compared to endless notes about what things my eyes could see
Sounds ears could hear
Objects my hands could touch
Tastes my tongue could detect
That bring me crawling back to despair asking for mercy
The tank so full no one questions if it will burst
Cataclysmic conversations about dead trees in the winter being better off than I am right now
Its so cold inside of here
Bridges have gave away under less weight pressing down upon them
Walls have fallen faster than I can rebuild myself  
Mirrors ask to see me more often than I can plague myself to really look into them
I see a shell of a man writing feelings he can't express in poems he won't share
Fear bearing down on him faster than the Challenger was flying right before it blew
Implosion is a necessity and explosion is heavily avoided
I tear myself apart only for the pleasure of the thoughts that ask for worse
I sacrifice the little bit of sanity I have left in hopes of still having something left of myself at the end
I resemble a decaying and haunted house where people film amateur horror movies
No one enters unless they aren't prepared to leave
I can't leave unless I'm prepared to die
And death is just not an option
The world becomes my nightmare and sleep is the only thing I dream about
Somethings are beautiful when they are broken
I wish I knew how they did it

love is sometimes a replacement for loneliness
a lost cause coupled with apathy and the blindness brought on by losing more than you gained
you see, the heart is a vessel supplying life long torture
and the mind is the keeper of chains for your slave of a heart
your eyes are in a constant search for the perfect locksmith
your hands endlessly craving a passionate touch (desired: exactly what you want)
but you have no idea what any of this means
no idea what any of this feels like
you walk around every day looking for an idea of love

who needs a broken heart when you have no one to give it to
who needs a place to call home when you forget your address every friday night
who wants to be loved when it ends with your heart taking a crippling blow
who wants to be loved when love ends with either death or being alone

love is an ether that the innocent and unknowing are quick to believe in
love binds the masses to a predetermined expectation of who should be holding hands
love takes everything you have and leaves you with two possible answers
yes
or no
love walks down the road at dusk and love jogs in the morning
love creeps into your house after work and love leaves when it needs to
love doesn’t cater to the unwilling and love thrashes the innocent
love beats the lovers and love has no meaning
love is a person
love is a feeling
love is unknown
love is simply being

she takes photographs without a flash
she would rather use her imagination than force the light onto her subject
she believes that a picture of darkness can still move a person
the same as a picture can instill a feeling of darkness within you
the day she stood in the river,
the water was swift and relentless
even though it was not flood season
she was afraid of drowning

I think Death has known me for so long
that I have forgotten my own name

whatever I used to call myself
has not had to answer for a while

whoever I used to be
has not said hello in years