You told me
"It will be the same"

You told me
"No, nothing will change"

You told me
"That was yesterday"

You told me
"I will always stay"

You said to me
"I love you, dear"

You told me
You were always near

You promised me
You'd hold me close

An eternity
Of hot cocoa's

Of all the things
You said to me

The promises
You spoke and breathed

Of all the lies
That you told me

This one was the worst

You promised me
"We're always friends"

You told me this
Would never end

You said to me
"Just stay with me"

But it was you
Who did the leaving

you feel like bursting through hospital doors.
repeating names, rushed hands all over my body looking for signs of distress.
you feel like dialated pupils,
like throwing tequila back and standing gutter-in-the-street still until you feel every drop of poison fall down your throat and into your stomach.

you feel like waking up the neighbors,
like throwing wedding shower vases,
like turning on neighborhood streetlights and calling for backup.
you feel like the anguish that sticks onto places you cant reach in the shower;
how im not sure i will ever get your smell off of me.
you feel like chaos, like burden, like a level of wretchedness that takes two hands to control.
you feel like showing up unannounced,
heart racing so hard i feel it bounce along to a chorus of ringing in my ears.

and maybe that's why i can't get rid of you.
because you have replaced impulsivity with spontaneity,
you have taken the fear out of failure and you have made the way danger sounds so easy off of your lips
you feel like the "speak now" instead of the "forever hold your peace."
you feel like the selfish "wait," the last desperate pleading case;
you feel like the passion infecting my lungs in breaths of smoke and dancing dandelion seeds in my ridbcage like a magic show.

like an age-old story, some different form of you all strong women must endure,

you feel like the irresistible situational irony they whisper about when they say "it is not love if it is not torture."

may my smile
be forever loving
as I play in life

new roles and adjust
words as a tight dress

may wind clothe me
forever changing
just that loving smile

let that one survive

I have become so still
Like the water of a pond
And will stay this way until
Come the rains, oh so fond

I have become so silent
Like the grass of a plain
This way to remain, until
The winds come again

I have become so patient
In waiting for noise, I know
Sound; as it came and went
It will come and go

Old age turns the page . . .
the leaf thrives from underneath
Days are made out
of hollow light . . .
night now remnants
of silence in grief

The air I breathe
once was your life
Yet our blood never mingled
Upon every page turns
the green leaf in air
The binding spine . . .
the trunk's despair