love is patient
love is kind.
it does not envy
it does not boast
love is virtuous and accepting
and whole
it is not angry
nor malicious
nor ill tempered or weak
loving someone
however you hear these words
is not written in textbook
it takes forces far greater than those printed on paper
it takes forces far greater than love alone
human progression is not overshadowed
or exempt of love
it is not absent
nor negligent to its person
love is recovery
love is healing
love is not a cure to the ones who experience it
ask them,
they will tell you.
their love has bursts of anger
moments of temptation
it has ill temperament
it has anger
it is boastful and envious
it has weakness
love is expansion
it is movement and growth
it is acceptance of envy
acceptance of weakness
loving someone is a full time job
it is not pure in nature
it is not the romantic era poets
it is full of lust
and anger
it is selfish
it is not a cure
it is an extension, not a necessity
it is not exclusive or inclusive to growth
it is something no book can teach you;
you must learn through experience
that love takes far more complicated emotions
than just love

yesterday i could see myself falling apart
its harder than i thought to miss you
and my chest is tight
and i always feel like everyone is looking at me
i never know what they want with me
and i travel all over and meet so many new people
i beg myself to fall in love someone tangible
sometime i can do more than just miss
someone who can be real
but it doesn't work anymore.
i wish it was still easy
and i could fall in love with everyone i met
like i used to when i was younger
and less afraid of what the world can give to me
less afraid of what i can handle
i am older now and i am so terrified
because i am in love
and i hate it
all anyone has done in my life is fall apart
and i don't know what id do if you fell apart
i need you and that is the scariest part of my world
i cannot replace you with a temporary solution
or a quick fix
you are it
you are it
i wrote this to ask you to stay
please don't fall apart on me
i am not strong enough to do this alone anymore

i never really understood what
"it comes and goes in waves" meant
but now i can see
no matter how stationed i am to the floor
imagining my feet are tree roots extending into the earth
i have always felt myself
falter with the tides heavy motions
stumbling along in a dance i dont know the steps to
falling face first behind the crowd of people who have got it figured out
jealousy hitting the palms of my hands before the asphalt
missing you is a constant heartrate
but these memories, feeling you so vividly it shakes me down
it comes and goes in waves

i never understood what
"time heals all wounds" meant
because my skin is painted with bruises that share no connotation with love
even when they fade i can recount the ache theyve left
like a worn out map
of every time i have pretended not to hear the exhaustion drip from your words
i used to hear your voice in my favorite melodies
and share my songs with you like lullabies
but now music is just noise to erase your voice
i dont think that time will ever take you away from me
i dont think i'd want it to

i wish on every flash of light and every makeshift airplane shooting star that i could leave the piece of me that can't stop thinking of you on one of these one-time roadtrips with no destination
no cliche seems to cover how quickly the word love disintegrates or how mixing up being happy with being scared is coincidentally more common than anyone would have expected.
i will forget this trainwreck you put me in
this half angry poetry you made me write
because even if it holds no meaning,
time heals all wounds, it comes in goes in waves

it sounds like something you say to someone you can't stop thinking about and maybe when i told you i hated you i was a hypocrite and maybe i have always been a hypocrite but i did i do i hate how you planted seeds in my lungs and watched me choke on the roots i hate how you filled me with beautiful things just to see the smoke when you lit it up into flames i hate how you were a liar and you told me you loved me and you didn't mean it i hate how you created me from something destructive and ****** and you watched me want you and you watched me love you and you watched me suffocate and im a hypocrite because i hate you and i feel like an idiot for doing anything for you i hate how you made me be the person i never wanted to be i hate that our odds never improved i hate that you didn't love me i hate that you lied to me i hate that i let you i do not miss you ive told you there is nothing here for you under a cheap tapestry there is nothing here for you do not mind the girl behind the curtain writing poetry about the boy that broke her heart there is nothing here for you i can repeat it while i move boxes of our memories out of my chest out of my heart i can repeat it when its late and i want to tell you i miss you (i do not miss you) i can repeat it until it sets the forests in me on fire and i think i am on fire because i never got to be angry i sat in tears and never got to be angry i wasn't able to hate you and now i hate you i do not miss you there is nothing here for you and im a hypocrite because i am a liar because i love you because i miss you because if you told me you missed me too i would resume position and give you everything but anger is easier than acceptance and i can't play with fire anymore i do not miss you i do not miss you i do not miss you

i do not deserve what you did to me
what youve done to me
i have no poetry to write
i have no words to waste
i hope you remember that
there is absolutely nothing here for you anymore
i hope you never forget how that sounds
when you wake up
i hope you remember that
i could've given you every star if you asked
there is absolutely nothing here for you

i have no tragic epic to force out of my palms for you
i gave you a blank page and
you chose not to be a part of my narrative
i will spend the rest of my life trying not to blame myself
for my bad editing skills
and red pen i miss you marks
maybe these letters would feel more natural
if my writing was neater,
my words were easier to read
or they sounded nicer falling off of my tongue

i write and recall and revise
and try to come up with a story about
how i could’ve made you stay
if i gave you a pencil
and some paper
would you put me out of my sonnet-style misery,
take the blame out of my cramping hands
and tell me there was nothing we could’ve done?
let me stop searching for words that are
synonymous to the way you looked at me when
i told you 
i loved you for the first time
take these cliches off of my fingertips
let the writer in me learn to
grieve its muse
instead of immortalizing the pain of loss 
and tell me
we never even had a chance

i know there have been moments where you pulled yourself down the stairs just to collapse onto the kitchen floor
i know there have been moments where you repeated,
"i will most certainly not make it out of this alive"
and you wake up the next morning and make it an inch further
my dear dramatic girl
there is no fault in loving with all of your heart
you will grow up and know what each word he presses to your chest means
you will have an Oxfords Dictionary for every time he tells you he was just out late
but if you keep putting pieces of you into everyone who runs their finger over your lips
or tells you "forever" as if it hasn't already lost its meaning
you will lose yourself
do not let the world desensitize you to its contents
theres nothing more tragic than watching a romantic become a cynic
you are full of a quality you cannot let every boy that stops loving you when it's convenient take from you
you are truthful and forgiving
you are trusting
and whats left of your heart is safety-pinned onto your sleeve
your heart belongs to you alone and i know its been a while since you heard this, but
you are full without people miles away telling you that they think you'd look pretty without your clothes on
dust it off,
lie on the kitchen floor and remember what it felt like when you said
"i will most certainly not make it out of this alive"
for when you wake up one morning and forget how it sounds
to be despondent in love
do not let the world take you and spread you over people who push you to fill pieces of them they have lost in others
you are prevailing every time you whisper
"i love you, too"