The air trembles
over the rough tingling skin
of my simple lips
The world around
cold
gray
thick and wet like the dewy morning grass
Eyes caught up in one in another
Raw knuckles brushing
against loose shirts
The pads of your fingers
Swirled and soft
The cotton stretches overhead
And whispers float away
on our small smiles
in September days
We curl around each other
Bodies mapping out the movements
Subconsciously preparing for the moment of contact
Jeans await anxiously to meet
Your voice doesn't fall out of your mouth
It streams, steady, sturdy, without question
My shoulders open and welcome
Teeth gazing invitingly
This thrumming doesn't stay contained
It moves throughout my limbs, my core.
You light me
You lift me
Even if it's only a little.
Even if it's only this.
I could play in this negative space happily
Until the time comes to move on.

I want you to know
That this is a lie
That this is a stain
Set deep into my skin
I want you to know
That these are scratches down
my back
deep in my skin
I went from fragile
to tough
to broken
and I let it all fall apart
And now it shatters
Breaking every time I hit the bottom.
Every glass emptied
and every night ended
In busted tears and bottles
Sleep found on floors and pavement
No hope for arms and comfort
I'm the wreck I never envied
And every girl I always hated
Every sin I despised
And lacking every virtue I admired
I slipped deep into nihilism
And I don't know how to crawl back out.

Between the saint
and the sinner
I've lost my footing
I feel the clothes tugging off me
And the pants coming undone
And the sweat seeping into the sheets
And I wish I  could feel the eyes judging me
because I think
it would
be hot
I wish I could feel the guilt
When I'm being pushed into
When I'm lost
I wish I could be found outside myself
I wish I had another hand to grasp
Another neck to bite
More skin to tug at.
The sneaking rush is what I want
The naughty giggles
I want to be right
For all the wrong reasons
The corruption
The seduction
I want the regret
I want to avert my eyes and blush
At the mention
of a ....
I want flesh
To make me anxious
To make me feel like
I am going to hell.

I am tired.
I am tired of
hating you
envying you
despising you
But I am mostly tired
of remembering you.
I am tired
of breaking my heart
every time I look in the past.
I am tired of remembering how
sweet
the taste of first love is.
I am tired
of not being able to like anyone else
Beyond the physical
And I am tired
of not feeling for anyone else
And I am tired of realizing this all over again.
I am tired of looking at your happy faces.
I am tired of remembering how happy I should have been all the time
And of how happy I was some of the time.
I am tired of people telling me
All this bogus stuff.
About how you aren't the same person
Not the one I loved.
And I am tired of putting up this front.
And I am tired of hoping maybe I'll find happiness again too.
I want to want someone with innocence again.
I want to share things with them in a shy way
And I want to hold hands and watch the shadows of it.
I want to have a gentle first kiss.
I want someone to pull me back towards them after I kiss them on the cheek,
So that they can kiss me fully on the mouth.
I want someone to love me again as purely as you did.
I want someone to care for me.
And I want to be able to give that back finally.
But I'm broken.
But I'm foolish.
But I am young.
But now is the time for me finally.
Because I want those things but I want so much more too.
I want every experience I can get
Because I desperately don't want to be the one
Who is "43 and still waiting for my life to start."
So yes, I want all these things
And yes, sometimes I hate you
And yes, sometimes I cry because I don't have you.
And yes, I am not sure I will ever be able to love again.
And yes, I am sure that you will always be stronger than me now.
And yes, I know you'll  be in love without me for the rest of your life.
And yes, this isn't how I expected to end this poem.
But I think it might just be better than the ending I was feeling.

This is the journal I found you in
This is the notebook that witnessed
a girl falling in love
     with a cliche.

This is not the journal I lost you in.
              
I lost you on the internet
            in my car
in the rain
I lost you through through text and phone

           I lost you in life.
With no journal to witness my struggle
Because I replaced the lined pages with your
ears
and
lips
I opened your chest and made my home there.
When I was evicted
I had no place.
No place to lay my weary head.
No place to rest my thoughts
No pillows for my tears to fall on
No eyes for my smiles to capture.
No hands to hold. Only the empty.

This is the life I found you in.
But it is not the life I got to keep you in.

You move
      I move
You ******
       I moan
You touch
         I burn
You murmur
          I gasp
Your hands grasp
                        and pull
I heave and slither
        You bite
                 and I crush
You squeeze
And I giggle.