he says “we end nicely. with a hug and a kiss. we end before it gets bad so we can never hate each other.
and in five years i’m going to call you
and ask you to marry me. please
say yes.” and i’m laying in the bed of a boy
that broke my heart and i’m
crying and saying “in five years
i will be just like every other girl
you’ve loved. i will know better by then.”
and he doesnt reply so
eventually i say “i could have
loved you forever if you had
let me. you win. you win, you win,
you win.” and instead of
saying anything he pulls
me close for a second and it feels like normal,
like maybe everything is going to be okay, but every
inch between us is cold we
can both feel it on our skin. “this doesn’t feel like
winning. i will love you for the rest
of my life. this doesn’t feel like winning.”

there is a night
with the moon hung so low
it courses itself over my outstretched palms
and i lay in the middle of the street
with the gravel digging into my skin and
im repeating to a boy whos not listening to me
this doesn't make any sense and i try
my hardest to keep my fists clenched around
the surface of the moon but it falls through
my finger tips like sand he lies next to me
and tells me that maybe i am just hard to
love.

there is a morning
where i stumble down steps and into a bed
i pull blankets over my shoulders and i don't
cringe when you touch my stomach i used
to map out all of the bad parts on me like
a highway but all of my lines are blurred and
i feel less like roadwork and more like wandering
hands there is a version of you that i like most
it is right after we kiss and i pull away and
look right at you and i used to think that being
loved at all was the right thing to waste my time on
with car crash endings and angry words at least
it was love at least it was something now

there is the middle of the day
and all i am is that moment after i pull away
that split second where i feel so naive
for thinking i had any idea what love was before
i met you. that i could have ever let anyone convince me
the way they hurt me was a product of what my
heart could handle. that any love
besides this love was worth any of my time.
there is before and after,
night behind us and morning ahead of us and we
always just move forward.

it is a vision. an image. a clear view from the reflection of a surface of water.
you reach your hand out and it passes through, you pull
your hand back and your memories drip into the
pool and disperse. it makes sense. it is like clockwork. in and out.
it is a vision, image, reflection that has
no shape or form, but it falls off of your fingertips and formulates
rings around your mind.
we are standing in an empty room. i tell you that you
can do whatever you want with this space and all you
do is pull me close. it makes sense. it is like clockwork. it is
less like falling in love and more like opening your eyes,
letting your fists unclench when you didn't realize how
tightly you were holding onto what hurts. that's the
problem with letting go where you are used to holding on,
like muscle memory. like clockwork. it is less like
falling in love and more like i have been here this whole time
with my hands over my chest, always just a second-and-a-half
away, just missing you, on the other side of the pool just
waiting for your hands to grab hold of me. we are standing
in an empty room and i tell you that this is all i have and
i am waiting for you to reach through me. it is less like falling in
love and more like catching up. like, of course, there you are. finally.  
i've been looking all over for you.
and it makes sense.

it's
something out of a movie scene it's
something in its own language like
art or maybe something just a little
bit better, a bit more tangible than
words on paper or paint on canvas.
i want to keep you all to myself. i
would write a hundred letters and
mail them out to sea if it meant that
i could let your heartbeat hum me to
sleep every night. if it meant i could
tell you i love you without choking,
it if meant i could sing your name into
every bad place and let it coil around
my head and stick to me like glue.
one time, someone told me that even
when people leave, art remains and it
will never break your heart as hard as
mean boys with switchblades for mouths
and claws instead of hands. and i repeat
into the silence of your bedroom,
id do it all over again, id do it all
over again, every heart break and hurt
on my tongue, every evil hand on my
body and every single tragedy that sent
me packing and running outside barefoot
into the storm, id do it all over again
if it meant that the wind would send me to you at the end of each tornado. i used to
think that i loved art more than anything
in the whole world until i saw the
smile you kept for me after i kiss you
in the dark. i used
to write about the things i saw, museum
walls and blown glass that holds
heat and traps light under fingernails. i
used to love a world that didn't love
me back and i would write about
man-made beauty that sent artists
running for the hills and off of buildings
just for some inspiration.
now i
can't help but write sonnets about how
i am proud to love someone who is
more beautiful than any
god made, god ******
masterpiece i've ever seen.

i have these dreams, smelling
the three-AM summer night
through the screen of my window.

my hands are pressed against my
stomach. i am in bed and i keep my
eyes shut the entire time. i am
trying to hold everything inside.
my hands trail up and down my
arms, im begging
myself not to forget your lips,
i am holding every place you touched me
permanent. i am tattooing the way you
look at me to the spaces of my ******* ribcage.

in these dreams, you have always just
left. i can still smell you on my skin and
in my hair, on the clothes that need to
be washed, on the sheets.

my fingers are gripping the bedframe
and im begging it not to change. the Sun falls
in and the dust falls over and over the blankets
in a rhythm that makes it look like your
side of the bed has life in it again. my hands are
around my throat and on the back of my head,
looking for places that have a trace of you on
them, looking for pieces of you that you might have
forgotten to take with you.

in these dreams, i am hollowing out the
walls of my body, trying to find every memory
so i can feel it vein-deep and to the bone, you have
always just left. i am always just looking around for things
to replace the space you used to occupy.

when i wake up, and its still dark out, the dust stays where
it always has. the Sun won't even help me pretend that you're
still here. when i wake up, its like you have just
left all over again.

sometimes i know i need to
write about you because my
body will start to buzz like
there is electricity inside of
my veins and i will itch
to get rid of your eyes in
the back of my head, and even
if i don't exactly know what to
do with my hands they will
trace themselves over your
memories and they will whisper;
do you remember when you
were in love? do you remember
when you had it all? and i keep
writing to erase, i write and drink
and try not to remember how it
feels to lose you, every time i open
my eyes i lose you again. i write
to keep my hands busy so my chest
doesn't ache and no parts of me
whisper your name to the dark but
i could write for-ever and
i would still break pencils in half
and keep my hands clasped to
avoid any painful wandering;
*of course i remember.
how could i forget?

its one of those moments where i want
to crawl into your skin, underneath your
eyelids and trace my fingers on your neck
the moon has nothing to say to you anymore,
the ocean is defiant, She won't look you in the eyes.
the stars keep falling in and
out of place How did you let it get this far? and
your head is between your knees and you're chanting
I dont know, I dont know, I dont know, and
i want to wrap my arms around every part of
you that hurts, twist my limbs over the pieces
of you that ache for the sunlight, How did
you let it get this far? There is no force in the
Universe that respects me enough to respond. All
eyes of the world on my fingers burning marks
into your flesh, How did you let it get this far?
There are black holes, it
is all empty, planets are hanging on your answer and
its one of those moments where i want to expand
into the palms of your hands and tell you that you are your own God. and I would let
you tear me apart with your teeth.