My poetry doesn't have to perfect.
It usually sounds incomplete,
Or sloppy
And exaggerated.
While mostly careless
Written completely miserably
It turns out substandard
My poetry usually feels like you.

However, on occasion my writing is immaculate;
Reaching heights of beauty;
No flower ever dreamed of being so elegant.
Vines twisting into words forming sentence forming rhythm,
Pristine sparkling letters dripping from each petal.
I am euphoric and growing each day
This writing is a mirror into the garden taking over your spot in my mind.

I was a strawberry chapstick
And you kept your lips dry
Rough like bark splitting into my skin
A sensation I never attempted to remedy with my balm.

I was a beach wave
Softly toppling across the sand
Rolling over and over until I became at the horizon again
And you were a sand castle
One which I kept pressing against
Never meaning to ruin a master piece but persistent enough to create a diamond of your dirt.

I was the falling leaves
All shades of amber and chestnut mixing together into the golden wonderland of the season
But you didn't like the way I killed your grass
You were a rake
All sharp teeth piercing into my stems
Pressing me together pile after pile lining your garden
Suffocating in plastic bags dying out and colors fading.

I wanted a love made of reds and yellows
Shining glows and warm fires
Everything seemed so simple
Until I learned that your love was made of blues and purples
A soft shimmer of coals burning out
We were thoroughly antithetical.

I’m drinking warm pumpkin harvest tea outside in the chill of an early October night,
Curled up under a star less sky.
A warm flannel
that previously belonged to a boy I once loved deeply,
but now become panicked at the sound of his very voice.
And
I’m wondering how I made it eighteen years
without breaking.
And
It may have just been because I was destined to feel what right now feels like.
To take in every bit of emotion my few senses can absorb
68 degrees curling around every inch of exposed skin
Rough concrete pressed against my body
The sweet scent of moon flowers lingering through my lungs
A lone street lamp flickering at the end of my neighborhood.
I can make it another eighteen years,
If only to be promised to experience this night in this very same way again.

I remember when saying your name
made me swell
Even when we went our seperate ways
letting every syllable of yours
rolll of my tongue
felt sweet
My lips would curve around
each letter letting them slip slowly
from my mouth.

But now,
my throat tightens
chokes against every letter
You have a short name
but it feels like i suffocate against it
Lips pressed tightly against
I dare the letters to sound like they used to
Now your name slices up my tongue
Cracks againsty teeth
Stumbles out silently
What once felt like home, now,
Feels so foreign to my fragile lips

Open windows
Rainy night
Your arms
Tangled legs
Slow breathing
Sleepy eyes
Thunderstorms in my mind even though
I'm only thinking of you.

Wandering hands
fingers tracing spines
sliding up
grazing bases of necks
shivers
gripping shoulder blades

Wandering hands
fingers combing through hair
sliding down
grazing bases of necks
twists
grasping hair

Wandering hands
have a way of getting lost
tracing rivers tracing spines
down the body, ravine racing breath
the mind; the only map
using the memory of freckles and goosebumps and skin and bone
wandering hands create adventure.

You took me to an art museum
I spent most of the time watching you
Instead of looking at the art on the walls

I wish I could at least remember
the name of your favorite painting
The way you looked at it,
Kept me captivated.