nothing feels any different and nothing has changed
but i feel husked out and full of echoes.
nothing inside me makes any sense
and i can’t bring myself to talk about it
because i don’t understand it,
i can’t make the words make sense in my head and
even if i could i don’t think i’d want to say anything out loud.

i want to crumble collar bones in my hands while i shake from the inside out
and tell my story to a fresh pair of ears, i want to talk but i want to be prompted,
i want someone to know what questions to ask or at least fake it.
i want someone to love me, to just plain old-fashioned love me
and i want to love them in return.

i want to be able to at least entertain the notion that one day i can be somebody’s and.
me and, she came over and, we went out last weekend and,
i just want to be somebody’s and.
i want to be somebody’s distraction.

i see you.

once:
in the way the light filters through the blinds.

twice:
at sunrise, soft and gray and tired, fingertipped conversations.
at sunset, languid and creaking, bones and skin and heavy eyelids.

three times:
in cemeteries, reading between the lines of nervous laughter and laced fingers.
in passenger seats, spinning tires while we spun out the sun with conversation.
on empty pages, aching for a way to get rid of a year’s worth of words.

i don't think i love you right,
and maybe i don't even love you at all.
because there's something in you so sick
and all-consuming that there's no room for anything else.
you are an all-seasons grinch,
ready with a bitter wit and a heart three sizes too small.
and that's supposed to be funny and timely
because in three hours it will be christmas
(and all i want for christmas is never having had you)
but it falls so flatly from my fingertips onto these keys.
and i don't even know what season it was when
you kissed me but i remember it didn't matter
and if i could do it again, i'd kiss you back.
but i don't love you and you sure as hell
don't love me and i can live with that
and i will always wonder why?
i've made a terrible mistake with you,
and i will always wonder what it was.

fall has never felt more like falling
than my head on your shoulder
and your hand on my hip

but there isn't a **** thing poetic
about things you can't have and
things you don't want but
i just remember so much

and it comes in flashes, like
laughing too hard at jim carrey
being regulars wherever we went
getting caught in the cold and
just plain getting caught

you told me if i walk slower,
i won't get as wet from the rain.
so i tried it, and it didn't work.
and where's the poetry in that?

the only thing i'm good at is
keeping you around, but
always too far away.
if i can't make us sound pretty,
i suppose that means i'm over it
and if i'm sick of trying to, well
i suppose that means we're okay

and if i keep trying...
i suppose that means i love you.

i don't know which birds sing in the mornings.
i like sunrises, but only if i haven't been to bed yet.
i like to emerge from my sheets and pillows when the sun is high
and the shadows are gone.
before then, the sun is too young and exuberant
and i have such an old and heartbreakingly tired soul.
the sun was barely over the old church outside your bedroom,
painting the bare walls of your room with the colors of the last supper.
you woke me up, soft and sweet,
like i know you can be, when you put to rest your premature bitterness and apathy.
i don't know how long you lay beside me, the ***** of your feet pressed against my shins,
your pinky finger tracing the freckles on my arm in the same pattern, countless times.
but it was the softest way i've ever woken up, and it reminds me of summer.
it reminds me that bruised does not mean broken,
and even shattered pieces can be reassembled.
it reminds me that there is love everywhere,
and we once had it in the most morning-sun way.

and i'm so sorry, but not really.
because i know this is just a waste
of otherwise blank and empty space
but my god, i just want to make you know
how hard it is to organize the feelings
in my head and the thoughts in my heart
when my greatest wish, to make the world stop,
is forgotten and replaced before it can even be;
because i can't keep thoughts in my head, ever
because if i do they fester, and if they fester,
here they come, up and out and i can't stop them
and then i can't take them back
and then you'll know
and i won't.

and if i close my eyes tonight,
just to see your face,
it certainly won't be the first.
and it certainly won't be the last.

and if i slow my breathing,
if i calm my pounding heart,
i promise i will listen to you,
to all your *******, start to stop.

and you'll tell me everything,
everything i know and don't.
but i've heard it all before;
tonight is no different from the last.

i swear to god i love you more in death,
i love you more as this fictional corpse,
than i could have ever loved you alive.

and i swear to god you're beautiful.
and i swear to god you're all mine.
but you had a face your mother didn't even love.
i'd have loved you enough for the both of us.