Tears just stream  
             down
      My face
No one can see
    No one can
            Hear
The sound of my heart
       Cracking
Into thousands of little bits
           And pieces
I hug myself tight
       Dreaming of another
   Who could love me
             Right
Trying to decipher
      What's worse....

Never being loved
         Or
Being loved by the wrong guy?

       *I guess I'll just
  Give it some more time....

For the times you understood, but said nothing at all
For the days you saw my sadness, and pretended otherwise
For the hugs you didn’t give
For the calls you didn’t answer
For the funeral, stay home.

You.
Where can I possibly begin?
My perception of you
Between an innocent first day
And a battle-scarred, war-torn last,
Has indescribably transformed.
Just as a chameleon does
Under the same circumstances of fear and doubt.

You.
You were there, ready for work.
Smelling of popcorn and lip-gloss.
Ignorant of what was ready to walk through that door
And ruin your life.

You.
You were there for months.
Friendly and shy all at once.
Laughing at my jokes
While guarding your heart with a strict severity.
And that profound underlying insecurity.
Awaiting the fall.

You.
You were there on that Autumn evening.
In the passenger seat of mom's Ford Explorer.
Your hair blowing in the frigid breeze.
It was there-
It was that evening.
Under the stars and lights of the Ferris wheel.
That my lips met yours.
I was awkward, I was scared;
I was elated.
You were mine.

You.
You donned that blue dress for Homecoming.
My hand could have wrapped around your waist
Again and again and again.
This was eternity.
This was love, as I spoke to you that night.
My hand grazing against yours,
My body pushed upon yours,
My heart on his knees for yours.

You.
You lit up 2011.
It was a year of illumination.
The year of rhythm, harmony, and bliss.
Every meal
Every date
Every touch of your skin.
Lit up my life like I never could have imagined.

You.
You were so smart.
Westfield, Roger Williams, Bridgewater.
The former was your favorite.
And you were gone.
But we still remained.
The idea of separation seemed impossible.

You.
You struggled so desperately.
To fit in, to grow up, to grow strong.
But you leaned on me like a fencepost.
Because I was there.
And I loved you so profoundly
That the thought of your unhappiness
Made my very being collapse.

You.
You continued to isolate yourself.
You continued to drown yourself.
Again and again.
And I was there.
And suddenly,
my friends weren't.
Nor was my family,
nor were my hobbies,
nor was my identity.
And suddenly,
I was an empty container.
Serving to please you.
Every call.
Every game.
Every night spent alone.
Every tear.
Every wish for my life back.
For you.

You.
You demanded my presence.
Or, by your standards,
I did not regard you as anything more than a body.
By your standards,
I did not love you.
By your standards,
I did not care.

You.
You were there for my first day on campus.
Ready to criticize.
Ready to consume me.
Ready to tell me why I was not what you wanted anymore.
But
"I was in there"
God knows that I hoped I was.

You.
You dragged me through this year.
Time I could have spent connecting.
And laughing.
And making memories of the sun and moon.
But this was it.

You.
You begged me not to leave.
Because what would you be?
Without me attached to your sleeve?

You.
You always had a reason.
Why it always "made sense"
And so what did logic dictate?
My wings refused to lift me.
And I stayed.
Like a hopeless fool,
I stayed.
And we were on for year four.

You.
You took a room for two
And made it your own.
You took a passion,
a hobby,
a life,
And made it your own.
You ensured the final draining of my soul.

You.
You knew I was getting worse.
You knew I was no longer there.
You knew nothing lied behind the blank stare.
Nothing could prepare you
For a trainwreck of a partner.

You.
You turned my emotions into a background noise.
When I cried, the couch became my best friend.
When I could not feel, you made me do.
When I could not do, you made me do.
When I could not go on, you made me do.
Because you had felt so unfulfilled
For so ******* long
Because of the corpse lying next to you at night.

You.
You didn't know.
Just as ignorant as I was.
This was love.
This wasn't love.
This was what it was supposed to be.
So we thought.
And so one day,

I.
I knew.
I left.
Teary eyed, achy, and broken.
The last ounce of life drained out of me,
Feeling like an aging man.
Feeling like the **** under my shoe.
Feeling
Such an amazing relief.

I.
I now can say you are gone.
And I have moved on.
And my life is forever changed.
No matter how many souls I encounter,
No matter how many ghosts may haunt me,
No matter how much love I may receive,
You will be there.
Because I can never know if I was right.
Because I can never know why
I made the choices I did.
And I'm so sorry, my dear.
I'm so terribly sorry
That I could not separate
The love I wished to give
From the love I couldn't possibly feel.

I wanted love,
but now it'd died.
Being open to ideas
where people would hide.
"Who needs anyone
when you've got yourself?"
Said the foolish man,
only in cry for help.

I wish I knew the difference between
holding hands and holding on,
before I was hanging over the cliff
of stability and emotion.

The spaces between your fingers
were my safety; they fit so perfectly;
but your fingers fell away like rocks
tumbling quickly into the roaring waters
of someone else’s passion.

My grip so tight on something unstable;
I once compared the feeling of being in your arms
to the wonders of the Earth around me,
but now you’re like gravity,
pulling me down into crashing waves.


My heart breaking apart like eroded rocks
on the surface of the beach;
admiration burning hot like the sun
and breezing over as it sets.

I’m shivering in the arms of the wind,
and holding on to the hands of crumbling rocks;
I wish I knew the difference between holding on and holding hands.

(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.

every boy that has ever ran his fingers on my skin
crawled up from under my bed and invaded the darkness;
he pulled the blanket up over my shaking body,
and brushed his fingers through my tangled hair.

a creature of the night providing me comfort;
he laid his head on the empty side of my pillow
whispering into my hollow head,
signals which would flow through my dry veins
and start the pumping of a disintegrating heart.

his demons kept him awake at night
just as the monsters of my past have me;
his eyes were like a flashlight in the dark room,
this creature was my savior.

but morning comes and he is gone,
my troubles glisten in the sun -everyone runs.
you can't fix by morning what haunts you;
I only date monsters -they keep me company at night;
when my flaws come spilling out but not in bright light.

(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.