I had to walk out of physics today,
make my way to the back of the room
shoot for the door
with my hands on my hips.
Just started pacing.
I just stated pacing and pacing and pacing.

I followed the thin grey lines between the linoleum tiles
with my toes
counting every second I was out of class
and weighing that against how many more it would take
on a chance against hell
to get me back in there again.

I wasn't smart.
I never had been.
I just filled in bubbles correctly and I wrote
all the right things on a convincing, cliché
college paper.
I don't even know why I took physic,
but it sounded like a good idea when I was eighteen
and scared
and had some woman with a long braid screaming at me,
"advising" me that it was the "right direction."

I didn't even know who I was then so how could she.

I could mouth off a good response or two and I
probably embody every great literary character
in commercial fiction that is
the guy in the grey skinny jeans reading Shakespeare
in the corner of the dining hall.
Well, I'm not.
I'm not some stereotype for your next
creative writing assignment.
I just happen to think my *** looks good in skinny jeans,
I actually hate Shakespeare,
and the corner of the dining hall has the best air conditioning.
It's that simple.
There's your answer.

But my fingertips were shaking and my mind was racing
and there I was
just pacing and pacing and pacing
because this
is *******.
This class is *******.
This college is *******.
And the whole world
might as well be *******
right along with it.

I never went back into class that day.
Which ***** actually because I lost a good backpack and calculator,
but in the long run it worked out alright
because here I am
writing this
and getting paid for it,
not that I'm greedy or anything
(I get paid a whole lot if you care to know)
but I'm writing more than just about
that day I couldn't breathe in physics class.

I'm writing to tell you
that there's quite a great deal of superficial things in this world
and if you find yourself a part of it
I'm demanding you leave.
Leave your good notebook, your steady job, your filthy marriage.
Leave it because it's actually true no matter how stupid it sounds
that life is too short
and things that are real
need to be attacked and clutched onto
if you want them to last.

I guess I can thank that institution actually
for teaching me everything I never wanted to know,
and for getting me to where I am
with multiple publications, a book signing or to, a beautiful wife,
three kids, a screenplay, oh
and a big
F U
to those that said I would never do it.

(Dr. Hefer, that means you).

I never really fall for people who have dark hair
but somehow you rock it.
There's something in the back of your brown eyes
that makes sense even knowing you for 6 seconds only,
but feeling like I could know you for a lifetime
and it would easy.

You brushed your thumb against your cheekbone,
as if you were wiping away an invisible tear
and I could tell your touch was angel gentle,
would melt my bones if my skin was under your own,
which I imagined in my dreams at night to be there.
I wanted your shadow to brush up against mine,
danced in the light's framework together
as if two half pairs found their whole,
while our bodies kept a distance only touched
by fingertips in their secret reaching.

The hardest thing to make a woman feel is beautiful
when she believes she isn't.
I've destroyed a good chunk of my own happiness,
because I chose the wrong things or I believed the wrong voices,
but sitting here on your couch with your tan hands in my blonde hair,
coiling the ends around your knuckles and tugging
just to pull me in closer-
I never felt something like that.

I was steady and so were you and we shared
in- I think it's called trust? - together.
I never lie and neither do you.
But not because we're just good people,
and not because you're god like
(actually we're both far from it we've proven)
but because we don't have to.

I've never laughed the way you make me do.
I can't breathe sometimes and it's not like
the way literature describes or the way a guitarist writes
in the perfect, sentimental, slow song.
I literally cannot breathe because you
are stunning.

I've been driven down a lot of bad roads
by people I let make me feel inferior and allowed
to push me around because I didn't put faith into my own
self-sufficient standing.
But here I am and I haven't faltered nor shaken nor cried.
I'm still.

I don't usually fall for people who are good for me,
but somehow you changed that.

Only 3 people in my life have seen me cry,
unless you count that one guy on that tailgate that one night that one time
but I don't because I was drunk and it wouldn't matter in the morning.
You are one of those three and for you I cried the heaviest.
In your arms, fog catching, trying to suspend myself
in the gravity that kept me clung to your chest with fingers in your hair
kissing your ears between tears saying how much I love you
and that I'll miss you and that
every night I Google map the distance
just praying and praying that
the blue line between your point and mine
becomes shorter and shorter in time.

But it never does.

You told me you really will miss me,
that I'm one of the only one's
who actually cares about you
which isn't true but if you want
to put me there I will be because you are
that security and you are
everything that is brilliant in my life
and to know that you will no longer be
that close to where I am is like pulling at my heart
and getting nothing back
but a 10 minute phone call and I
wish you were here.

But you never are.

So I cried.
I mean,
I cried and cried until it came down to
you holding me so I would stop shaking and telling me
that I was strong and that I'll be fine
and that
it wasn't a goodbye just a
see you then.

But I've tried to hold "then"
in my hands and I've tried to write it
on my calendar at home but I can't find it,
and I'm afraid that will turn into not finding you
when it's 2am but it's your midnight and there's no
commonplace where you and I can just relive
this moment where I cried and cried and told you that I loved you
and you smiled with your eyes.

But the comfort that holds me is you know I can do this,
you know that I'm worthy,
and you know that I'm strong.
So I tell myself that when I don't feel it and I recognize
that if you can believe in me so much than I must be able
to do this without you and to move on
without you
constantly being here.
It gets me through until I can say when,
until the next time I see you
until see you then.

How many times have I been here like this
and how many times have I said "how many times"
before.
But I just gathered some of your clothes I had
lying on my floor for a while now,
and put them in your garage because it was left open
and you said you wouldn't be home for another hour and forty-five minutes
which is too long for me to wait up for before
I decide to just keep them and wait another day.
But we're always going to be here.

I'm always just going to be putting things in your garage
because you don't want to see me,
and not that you don't want to see me
but because you're afraid if you do you'll fall for me
and that will only make it harder for you when you leave.
And I'd like to believe that but you always make it
so ******* difficult to get a word in sometimes.
Not because you talk too much but because you never speak
honestly
about how you feel or what you want
so I just put things in your garage,
you just store things away until you have to
feel them at some point.
Like you have to feel me
at certain points.

And I allow myself to follow in your footsteps
and to just do what you ask me to do because I love you
and because I don't want you
to go away and because
I just want to be with you so badly
that I put my own baggage into your garage and my own feelings
into store
because if that means I could feel you,
if ignorance of better decisions and what really should happen
is what it takes for me to be next to you
I'll do it.

So I get it.
I get why you put things into your garage
for safe keeping
because it's what it takes
to not fall apart when you think about one day
it suddenly not being there
when you think about one day
me
suddenly just not being there.

I do it too.
I do it because I know you're not always going to be there,
so I check my emotions at the door before I enter
and I leave things in wrong places until I have to.
Until I have to deal with things like miles, maps, and distance.
Until I have to give up on trying to make something work
you don't want if it means it will be hard and bruised like it could be
if we didn't try hard enough and it failed.

Your shirt is in the garage.
It's next to the fridge and underneath it you'll find how I feel
right next to how you feel.
That's where I'll be.

You fell in love with me I guess for who I was then
or so I'd like to think.
Because I breathed innocence and thought everything was holy enough
to be sacred and thought no black secrets
could be hidden under so many precious things.
You liked that I wasn't trying to grow up so fast,
that I was naive and simple.
It gave you clarity when you were dizzy
about who you were and who you wanted to be.
That's why you liked me.
Because I made you into the person you wanted to be.

But now I'm different.
I know that pretty things don't always sparkle and I understand
that just because you put guards up doesn't mean someone won't try to knock them down
and that doesn't mean you won't get hurt in the end.
I don't like Peter Pan even though we watched it 13 times because I've realized
how ****** the animation is and I don't appreciate
fairytales anymore.
I like to put my trust in other things than pixie dust.
But I didn't used to and you liked that about me,
it made you feel like you were living the childhood you never had or something
stupid and poetic that I would have said like that
when you were kissing my nose and holding my  hand
on your couch before 11 and stalling
on driving me home.

I don't like sitting in the passenger seat anymore because it reminds me
of how you'd look over at me like I was one of those
special girls in the stories or the epic loves that gods have that
can never be touched.
I used to think people could never be sick if they were happy enough,
but that's just not how things are.
Because here you are
lying in a hospital bed with pet scans and x rays that lit up like Christmas trees
and the doctors tests have told you terminal things
but you're expecting me to think it's okay.

It's not okay.
Here I am with mascara dried eyes and a cafeteria snack pack
and you're just smiling
stupidly at me because this is scary
and I've always been that fearless thing for you.
You're going to die and you're expecting me to just fill you up
with some fantasy,
seriously ignore reality,
and fly you away to a neverland that's only pretend.
You really expect me to just make believe so you can feel better?

Well I'm not that person anymore.
I don't weigh my life out in laughter and I don't bend backwards just to feel good
anymore.
I can't just sit here and tell you about what I had for breakfast
because that doesn't even amount to the fact
that maybe you won't even be here for that tomorrow.
I can't fill you with color just because you ask me that.
You're draining and you're losing and I've got nothing.
I've got nothing because I don't believe in all those childish things
you fell in love with me for
anymore.

I can't make you better just because I loved you once
and just because I'm here and it matters.
You're just in denial and yeah I'm not the same.
It's called change.

It doesn't matter what color you'd bleed if you'd cut yourself.
It doesn't matter what you did last Friday or what you've already got planned
for the weekend after that,
how much rage you're going to make with the best
of so called buddies,
or even how many times you came "this close" to almost dying.

But I fell for that **** because it was scary and because
it was everything I taught myself to never want in anything
that meant it could fill me
but I used you to feel full and not so empty and tempted
to engage myself in something that would worry my mother if she knew all the secrets.

It doesn't matter what you've done before and how good that makes you now
at what you tricked me into doing.
It doesn't matter how fast you talk or how many people
you can choose to falsely idolize because of a stereotype or a media buildup.

No one was ever crowned king because of self proclamation.
You have to earn a rule like that.

It doesn't matter, to you, who you hurt as long as you gain something when you get there.
And that was me, sadly, who you got in between some bad timing
and a little self loathing.
I just wanted to feel good and you let me do that in the most wrong,
disgusting, abusive way.
And it doesn't matter what people say to you in the morning,
how many high five's you get or how long it'll be remembered.

All that matters
is that when you're drunk at the creek on another "turnt up" night
of losing yourself in illusions your insecurities lead you to believe
you're thinking of me.
You're thinking of how good something so real like me could be
if you only gave up your blinded trust for one second so you could see
what you're turning into and what I guess I thought
you always could be.