So let me ask you then
how many nights I have spent lying on my kitchen floor like this
praying to a piece of paper that I find a way to make this all come out right?
And while I'm lying there have you tasted
the emptiness that settles on my lips as I count the stars on my fingertips
begging a soul I don't recognize any more to come and carry me?
Have you ever tried to hold something that heavy?
You don't make it far before you're dragging your feet
around a promise nobody had to make, but was clear

It was clear that you loved me more than I
always knew you did.

So let me ask you then
how I spend the time I don't have on fixations like that
hallucinating that I see your feet by my door or your name on my telephone?
And while I'm smudging my eyes from the minute reminder
that I waited longer than me and the god that holds me now knew I should have
I turn to the clock that haunts me.
Have you ever tried to feel how long that is?
You don't realize it until you're twenty-five staring the same blue-eyed problem in the face,
that grew from the memory you have of him as a kid you tossed through,
and you're wondering how you managed to scrape through with the amount of dignity
you gaze at in the reflection of the mirror.

I know that you love me more than I
always knew you did.

So let me ask you then
how come we aren't better than this?
How come it's 12:28 in the morning and I'm waiting on a call I'm never going to get?
How come we bank through changes with a common hand in hand,
but we can't make it through to see the sunrise?
How come we aren't better than a vulnerable night, a couple drinks, a wish
between the sheets of a bed with no destination that somehow
we'd wind up back in the fragmented places we've been?

How come we always want more, but we can't have it now?

How come you won't have me now?

When I know that you love me more than I
always knew you did.

A lot can happen in four years
I whispered while your fingers were in my hair.
The night was calling us together, time threw us in a moment
where neither of us had an answer to why you called
or why I came
to find myself in your single bed with feet that hang off the end
letting you pull my clothes off with those hands
that always know how to hold me
slipping your fingers right between the space of my ribs.
I paint words on your neck with my lips
that envelop how beautiful I know you are.
You don't think you'll come back?
I tried to walk around the world enough times
in that moment, in my mind
to tell you something you'd want to hear
but all I got were ***** soles and a steamy kiss
to cradle the shake in your spine-
Not even for me?
whiskey, whiskey, whiskey
I don't even know what will happen to me.
So I just hold you enough times until the truth settles,
until the realization has become a manifestation
of tossing and turning together in your bed
wrapping around the heart-shaped symbol of love in our heads.

A lot can happen in four years
I weaved around the promise in your brain.
You retraced the curves of my neck with your hands,
pulling me in so we wouldn't feel so lonely.
And even though we can't admit in the denial
that we were spreading around each other
in a pretty suspension of how we wish
things could eventually work out,
we understand how hard it will be to take
waiting for the other after all that time.
Not even for me?
whiskey, whiskey, whiskey
we just healed the break with a kiss
as we spent another night trying to forget we were real,
masking on our own graduating fears
A lot can happen in four years.

I stepped out of the bathtub, slipped on my towel,
and ran down the stairs so I could grab us some drinks
out of the fridge in the garage,
a lager and a light.
It was cold, my tip toes were leaving imprints in the snow
my wet hair was freezing at the ends.
I tried to keep covered up while carrying things in my hands,
I got to the door and there you were
holding the **** with your steamy lips and boxers
I kept turning it, but it wouldn't budge
that's when you held up the key to the glass
waving it in my face like a sweet, sweet victory.
I gasped a little laugh that was half mad, half enticed-
you little ****.
 
"How am I supposed to get in?"
I asked as quiet as I could in fear of waking the neighbors,
you just looked at me stupidly,
your mouth foaming something *****
"drop it"
you said with a hand gesture towards my body.
I bit my lip holding back my smile, shaking my head in
denied disapproval.
You started walking away from the door,
"Wait!"
I let it go,
dropped the towel down to my ankles
and let my hands glide effortlessly to my hips.
I cocked one out, pursed my lips as I looked at you
devilishly-
your eyes got wide.
 
"Can I come in now?"
I begged with a little lean forward.
You put your fingers up to your chin,
drinking up my beauty that was dripping
from the tip of my nose to end of my feet.
"One lap," you said holding up the number.
You pressed your hands up to the glass,
I lined mine up with yours
I could tell you wanted to kiss me.
"One lap?"
I questioned with a stupid smirk,
I'd do anything for you-
I just like putting up a fight.
You shook your head up and down,
"I'm not going alone,"
I said backing away, folding my arms across my chest
defiantly begging you to join me.
"Fine" you said with a wide smile.
You threw off your boxers and opened the door.
 
"It's freezing!"
You yelled as soon as you walked out.
I shushed you with my lips and whispered
"It's too late now."
We ran around my house in the snow,
naked
you chasing me.
I tried my best not to scream,
but my heart was begging me
to release some pressure from it
some relief
from all the love you were filling it with.
I burst through the door and you followed,
trying to wrap your arms around me
but I wouldn't let up.
I ran up the stairs,
peeking behind me
to see if you were there.
 
"You can't catch me"
I taunted from the bathroom,
turning on the shower as hot as it could go.
That's when you knocked into me from behind,
tight
"Got you"
you whispered and you were right,
you had me
a lager and a light.

I know that things didn't turn out perfect.
And I know that falling for me wasn't quite in your plans,
not like you counted on all these wounds representing your lovin
but I don't want you to miss out on something worth holding
between the moments of should I go back or look ahead.

Because if I didn't love you, you would know.

I haven't gone to my apartment yet.
I've been sitting in my car listening
to all the decisions bounce off the guardrails I've constructed
on the edges of my brain
where it haphazardly connects to my heart.

You held me the other night.
Lips pressed to my neck,
pulling the sheets overtop us like a shadow
that only you could create with trying to hide
the parts of me I didn't like.

I don't want to steal a chance from you,
because love shouldn't be selfish
and I know that giving up any ties you had to my side
would let you be free enough to let me go.


"You can be mad in the morning,"
you used to tell me
"but don't leave me now. "

Because if I didn't love you, you would know.

I've been pressing on the lines the leather makes
in my driver's seat
trying to count the stitches until the numbers add up
crooked like your spine feels
after some backwards bending over my mistakes.
I know I'll never know forgiveness.

That's why I have to break the bond you have on me,
because you deserve the opportunity to love somebody good,
for the right reasons
instead of just a macramé of excuses and cover ups
for all the times I didn't.
I just didn't.
For all the times I never let you go
when I could have.

*Because if I didn't love you, you would know.

We don't look at each other anymore.
The hurting is its own kind of sad
that I've framed with the words you never told me.
And you'd think because I gave you
so much of my own self-requited happiness and help,
that because I did pull you up from the trash can facade
you threw yourself in
covering your skin in your own garbage and alcohol rain
that you'd see me.
You'd think because I loved you that things would be different.

No, I didn't ******* in the back bedroom
like that sophomore did the weekend before.
But I did clean up the beer you spilt that you couldn't afford
on the night you shouldn't have been drinking.
I did let you hold me when you looked around the crowded room
of people you didn't know
realizing you were alone.

No, I didn't laugh when you smashed your hand
through that window on a dare.
But I did wash the blood from your cuts with a gentle cloth
when you weren't looking so it wouldn't hurt.
I did call your brother to tell him you were alright
when you were supposed to be home an hour ago and he couldn't find you.
I took a lot of your pain away.
In different ways than the beer bottles in you back pockets
or the empty body you left lying on the bed.
I did talk you through a long night when you didn't know what to do-
I did that for you.
I did help you pack away the parts of you you didn't like-
I'll always do that for you.

And you'd think that'd make you look my way.
Because all the things I did do
should outweigh the things I didn't.
You'd think because I loved you that things would be different.

But you don't even look at me anymore,
it's like I'm some broken angel on your shoulder you can't see.
I just always thought I was more important
than the things I couldn't be.

I want you to know you're better than the hospital bed you're lying in,
than the life you've been leading or the cuts on your hands.
"Just went a little too hard, I guess."
You guess.
Well, as long as I know you're going to be okay
then I won't feel so bad when I say
*******,
******* for scaring me with the telephone ring I wasn't expecting
from my best friend who got the ambulance call at four in the morning-
"Something's not right" she told me.
So I ran over here because I became somebody through loving you
even though I promised myself I wouldn't let you
bother me anymore with beating yourself up.
I came in my sweatpants with the mismatched socks and my white ghost
following me to the elevator trying to bring my void to the surface
so it could remind me how empty I feel without recognizing
how much I'm always going to care about you.
And to see you in that light yellow room with the nurse outside the glass,
breathing through the oxygen tubes with your dad and step mom
whispering to your sister in the corner
"How could we let this happen?" or hanging their heads with "didn't we see the signs?"
It made me so angry seeing them wipe their sweaty palms on their
shouldn't be guilty faces,
because it isn't their fault.
But should I feel selfish for wanting to punch you when you were down?
For wanting to yell at you when you were clinging on to an opening?
"I'm fine, don't you see that?"
No.
I'm not wrong for telling you the things you don't want to hear.
Because you are better
than this.
You are better than the things you can't see right now.
You are better than the road your choices are leading you on.
"I'm 19, it doesn't matter."
And so I'll yell at you until you get it.
I'll face you until the reality sets in.
I'll be here to fade through the pamphlets you're getting
on how to cure something you thought you'd never have.
I'll sponsor the recovery you don't want,
and I'll make sure you heal from everything that's damaged you
until you understand
that you
are better
than this.

Don't tell me I have your attention when I don't.
Captivated you in a church dress with the hole in the stockings,
eating salted tomatoes between two slices of bread
feet touching mine under the table
on a Sunday after my Confirmation ceremony.

Don't tell me how naughty a catholic school girl can be
with your hand on my thigh and a thumb on my cheek.
Kissing me hard and heavy, leaving a bite on my lip with a grunt
smiling while you whip your hair back from your tan skin and brown eyes.

Don't tell me you love the way I look when you don't know me yet.
Cigarette drag me out
breathing smoke behind my ears as you lay your hand
out the window beside your bed,
while my mama's sleeping and doesn't know where I am
and my white blouse is on the chair
hanging next to my purity.

Don't tell me how unholy I've been when you don't know faith.
How it's not worth praying for something I don't have any more,
lost in my own disillusions that you created out of words you swear you left unsaid,
with a tear pressed against the part of me that felt like it was falling in love.

Don't tell me that it's all my fault.

Don't call me your lady
when all I ever wanted was for you
to settle down with me like a safety,
anchor your trust in my belly
made to keep my body warm, but your icy cold.

Don't rip or tear or strike out your own mistakes on my body.

Don't tell me how ****** up innocence is
when all I was before you came was a Mary Jane
shoe with some of the leather worn on the sole from walking
too far to find someone to caress my hair.

Don't leave me open and dry
when all this ever was, was an advantage you took too easily
on an infatuated girl who was too young
and didn't know the difference.