river side blues
of life's mysterious question
a mind renowned
for it found nothing

heavy in my chest
where you used to lay your head
shaking in my hands
where we used to play pretend
where forever was tangible,
it was your lips on my forehead
it was my laughter imprinted on your bed

now nothing feels right
without you here by my side

I love him
I tell myself
I know that
We will be together forever
I don’t believe that
We could be separated
My thoughts tell me that
He’s the love of my life
Sometimes my heart lies and says
I could live an eternity
Without him
Like my friends say
“We’re perfect for each other”
And you can’t tell me
He’s not the one.

Now read from bottom to top.

you wake up
his hair is spilled across the pillow,
the sun slants across his cheekbone
and his breath is slow and even.
he smells like an open field
and his body is wrapped around yours
so he keeps you warm.
you think,
there is no moment better than this,
that he is too perfect to exist.
but you wake up gasping,
skin soaked in sweat.
you lie there for a long time,
in your completely empty bed.

dear matthew,

you taught me to love
in the fading twilight of winter
when my heart was breaking beneath
the weight of my own twisted lies
and the ugly truth behind my own
pretty face
i loved you but i hated myself
and in my incessant self-loathing
i lusted for the minute hand of a clock
more than i lusted for you

my cheek shone like shards of glass
in heavy summer air
scintillating blades that had borne the
blow of god’s fingers
one time too many
i was angry at the world
and you
were a part of this world that i despised
so much

you stayed
on the nights when i retreated
to that dark corner within myself
when i sobbed that
i was taking up too much space
and cursed a god i used to believe in
when i recoiled at your kind words
because you lied like
the scale never would
and i learned that trust could only be found
in numbers

so i hated you for loving my body
with bone white skin stretched thin
over angular bones and
cavernous cheeks and
sunken eyes too wild to be healthy
i hated you for loving my body
even as it softened
when i longed for the sharp edges
i could no longer find
and you kissed me as if to say
arcs are even more beautiful

i cried at night because i could not
make you happy
your fingertips on my skin
were ten reminders of how much i’d grown
and though i tried
i could not shake the suffocating
grip of inadequacy that clenched the softness
of my waist
when you told me to get out of my box
i tried to
but the truth was that i could never love myself
for the sake of someone else

love
what is it, anyway?
the first time i called it love
i was not sure if i meant it
but when i lost myself in
the inexplicable colors of nighttime
kissed the sharpness of your jaw
and held your heartbeat in my palms
god knows i was telling the truth

matthew, i am not sorry for my own pain
because hurt is the humanity
in human experience
but i am sorry for yours
because i could not see it
when it was there
i am not sorry for that wednesday in march
when i threw your clothes in a grocery bag and
tried to forget
but i am sorry for every moment
before then

for being a coward
for my blinding perfectionism
for not kissing you in the street
when i knew that i wanted to
for making a big deal out of
the little things
and ignoring
the big things
i am sorry that i didn’t stand up for myself
i am sorry that i didn’t stand up for you
but most of all,
i am sorry that you had to know me
when you did
when i could not give you all of my love
because i was only just learning how
to give it to myself

-- amanda

Not a day goes by that I don’t think
about the way your hands felt
intertwined with mine, or the way
your hair gently danced on your
shoulders, or how your dimples
would form into canyons when I
made you laugh, or how your
freckles were their own tiny
constellations in the night sky,
or how the sound of your voice
could calm the harshest storms,
or when I kissed you it felt like I was
myself and I was comfortable
with you, with us... and I can’t
shake the feeling that maybe
somewhere I went wrong... I was
silly to hide you from the world
when you deserved to be every
billboard in the world. I was young,
and you were the first girl I ever
kissed, and that scared me.

t.h.

in my arms
lies someone new
but in my heart
i wish it was you.