I think a lot about that car accident you were in.
Reckless country boy, the feel of broken glass in your mouth
and the smell of fresh grass. You saved your cigarette
and something saved you.

I think a lot of your mother's love, orderly and cool.
I think of you, alone, wrapped in tangled sheets and tears.

yesterday when you told me your pup was the best thing that ever happened to you-- I believed you.

My favorite place is the passenger seat of your truck.
I hate the boys who hurt you. And I hate you when you're your own self-destruction.

I love the sound of our laughter, sweet smoke in our lungs, and the blood in our veins. I love our mingling spirits and shared cigarettes.

(I named my unborn child after you. You're the force of nature I've always dreamed of meeting.)

The mistakes we make have made us bold. They make us look onward and upward, to the stars and the moon and our future. They keep us young and free. They call to me in the early mornings, in each first snow of winter, in every evening spent at libbey's.

I think of what scares me, and I think of you, and
none of this is as bad as it seems. I promise.

She'd look like me, but she'd have your sleepy bright eyes.
He'd have your hair, that crooked smile, your pointy chin.
She'd find joy in the simple things.

Half of you and half of me.

And now to remove this miracle, to carve it out of myself.
The integrity of potential is lost in the real world and
I can't help myself anymore.

(I heard somewhere that in seven years, all the cells of all the parts of me that you have touched will be shed from me.)

How lovely, to think one day I'll finally be cleansed of you.

(You're the last person I imagined who would change me like this.)

I still like to think we found something in each other. I still like to think that you felt what I did. I still like to think you haven't forgotten me.

I remember when I could still smell you on my sheets.
I remember at night feeling as though I wasn't quite alone.
I see you in every rainstorm and even now I hear your voice in the dark. There's a digging at my ribs and a clawing at my heart.
I want to know what
you see in her.
Do you smile the same when you're above her?
Do you wash her hair with the same gentleness?

that night was a whirlwind. I shared your bed and your secrets and as dawn rose I realized you knew more about me than even my closest friends. in just one night, my world had been shaken when you took me to bed. You held me and we talked through the darkness and I felt happy and secure. you kissed me goodbye that morning over cigarettes and coffee and made me promise to text you. I never saw you again. for months I carried with me the most banal of facts, the things you enjoyed and admired and the things that took your breath away. I carried with me a hope that we would see each other soon. you'd buy me new earrings and take me out for thai, just like you promised. I'd hear you call me darlin once again. tonight I realized that I'd forgotten your name. and for all that I tried, I could not recall. and because of this I know, that just like the leaves are dropping, so will the details of those memories. some day i will be washed clean of that night. I'll forget the precise sound of your voice and even the color of your eyes. The only thing that will remain will be an imprint of the precious intersection of our lives. I hope it will be soft and kind. I hope I think of you and smile. (if anything, what I've learned is to believe the boys like you who say they'll break my heart. you didn't break mine. you gave me everything I wanted for just a night. It's a painless aching, but still it sweeps through my body in the dead of night. I'll learn to believe that even the chillest boy will harm my heart. I will count on self-preservation and knowledge that emotions are temporary and dripping with change)

I tell myself to block your number; I know that's
all it would take. I tell myself to avoid the night, insidious darkness making its home inside my spine. Heart pounding, hands shaking, waiting for that call that only comes past midnight when you're stumbling and looking for someone warm to hold. You and I both know that I am weak for your arms. Each weekend finds me expectant, hopeful, trying desperately to push those emotions away. I tell myself to let you go. They've been saying it for months; you're no good. But your mouth, those lips, what your hands can do to me. You're just another way to destroy myself. Slowly, achingly-- we both know how this is going to end.

i am never careful enough kissing you i am always wrapped up in it never wholly present always nervous for the first kiss then swept away with all the kisses and then fearful again while you sleep wanting to be bold and reach for you but never brave enough to, i am always nervous until the last kiss and we always kiss again and again and once more to remember our lips and then i am starving for you until our lips recognize each other again

I remember how proud you were i remember how sweet we, us, could be
And how sweet the first touch was. I never once bended toward you–but i was ever ready. And always you would break and reach for me, and it was the sea against the shore it was a thrum it was the steady of our hearts, an acknowledgment of thumbs brushing knuckles or the soft press of our legs side by side and nothing not a thing can cleanse me of your small soft laugh and how each time you spoke i was surprised by your voice you are so YOU and it’s the way you reach for me even and especially in your sleep and your hair in the mornings and that smile you know the one the one you give me when you’re above me and i see so much in you and i love you sure but you will never be mine and i wish i could walk away from the mess of our realities because i feel as though when we touch we feel and speak and touch and it’s this feeble connection i crave with your beauty and our lust but the fact is our souls see each other through all the mess of ourselves and i can find you you’re there i know it i feel it but time and circumstance does its dance and im not sure when i’ll see you, really see you, again and i’m leaving but i want to stay and you and you and you