a poem a day while my heart is away*
this is not a poem about love, for once.
this is a poem about a dead best friend and how to move on.

step one: there is no such thing as moving on. every time you walk down the hall you turn to see if they're nearby. sometimes you find yourself waiting outside their classroom like you always did. you think of a funny joke and open a new text message, type it out, and remember right before you press send. at least two hundred times a day, their name tumbles through your mind and nearly dives off your tongue.

step two: it is okay to scream. crying won't happen initially; it's all throaty sobs and waterfalls of tears. you may or may not feel the urge to drive your fist through a wall, bawl into your knees, and stare at things blankly, all at the same time.

step three: you will feel numbness, and you will feel unbearable pain. they might come in short succession, and you will feel completely out of sorts.

step four: sometimes, it's more manageable. you can hear their favorite song, or see a shirt they would've liked and smile. other times, you may feel the need to throw up. you will hear the word suicide in class, or see a gun on tv, or watch a mother pick up a child with the same name, and it will hurt like nothing else.

step five: there is no such thing as moving on, but there is such thing as living. your best friend will forgive you for laughing, and smiling (and for being angry and sad and confused and jealous). you have two lives to live now in too short a time, so sob while you go.

a poem a day while my heart is away*
i should be doing work right now, you see,
i should be doing something worth the while
papers are piling up all around me
but i'm too lazy to organize/file.
i can't stop thinking of how you kissed me,
how you made my lips feel new once again,
how you held my hands and called me baby,
how you touched me by windows streaked with rain.
god was surely feeling generous
when he gave me a perfect savior with
a tongue that could never be venomous,
and candy lips like the stuff from a myth.
i feel adored, blessed, carefree, and divine
that your iridescent love is all mine

a poem a day while my heart is away*
& i just can't stop thinking about that kiss
it's so disney cliche, but i felt my heart stop and start again, all at once
i felt the hands of a god lift my blackened soul away
i felt redemption and torture at the same time
i felt regret and pride
-
i wish it was my first kiss
(and my last kiss)
and every kiss in between
i wish every other set of lips mine have touched would burn and drown like useless feathers
i wish i could exorcise the memory of them
you are the alpha and omega and i see balance in the way you kiss
-
you're cruel, really,
expecting me to go on with living without living with you
i trace sonnets in the sand
and limericks into the sheets you left half-empty
lights off when i'm with you, then you're light years away
kisses are redefined now thanks to your lips of spun gold
and i'm left here waiting

a poem a day while my heart is away*
here i feel the numbness, the dull ache on unkissed lips and ungripped hips
i didn't know what i was missing all those months apart but
but
but now i've tasted freedom and bliss and sin and martyrdom,
and living without you again seems horribly impossible.
we walked amongst dying trees and you held my cold, bony hands in your warm ones,
and i kissed your chapped lips and realized that if every day of my life was like that one, i don't think i'd ever be plagued by my usual sadness again
is it wrong to need you so?
is it wrong to love you so?
thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged
i've never loved being broken as much as i do when it's by your hands
and i miss you
and i miss you
and i don't know when i'll see you again
and i hate that

anxiety is my middle name
i've got a sore heart and a rusted soul
***** tastes just like water if you drink it fast enough
but tonight is for working, for preemptive fixes,
for hand cramps and write-delete-write-delete-delete-delete
there comes a time where ******* and moaning just doesn't cut it anymore
and you have to slap your cheeks (to pull it together) to stay awake
putting down your security blanket is harder than it seems
but beauty is pain and pain is bloodshot eyes and all-nighters
so the bags under my eyes really are pretty then, right?
true or false:
-staying up all night will wash away your daytime memories like whisky never could
i don't drink coffee
i'm drowning myself in tea too sweet just to make it through the next few hours
because i have so ******* much work to do
it's okay, though, if only because i'm used to being surrounded by a hell of my own design
i can see the bottom of my mug now and it's sneering at me, mocking me
it knows that i'm seconds away from getting up and filling it with more sugar, more hot water
and so i do, fulfilling a prophecy i wrote myself
but to republish a correction: i don't like doing this, despite contradicting evidence
i don't like falling and failing and flailing
i don't like watching myself run out of breath and steam and ideas
i don't like hating myself
but i'm a wreck, a tragedy, a sorry *******, and so i don't try to fix it, not really
i drink tea

We don't ask for much.

We want a simple life, a love uncomplicated.

We want nights in with ice cream and movies, lazy mornings with tangled sheets and entwined limbs.

We want study dates and tender kisses.

We want time.

We are held apart by endless miles, barriers more cruel than cell walls.

We want a chance to be near and be happy and be unburdened and be free.

We have dreams,
and empty beds,
and dinners for one,
and phone call romance,
and nine hundred miles of what ifs and if I were with yous.

We will have each other, in the flesh someday, but until then we settle for wants and wishes.