I wake up to your phantom touch
Imaginary kisses upon my neck
Perfume tangled in my sheets
Love letters laid across my bed

I know you’re just a text away
Minutes until you tell me something sweet
Never really been one for online love
But this feels a little different, a little deep

One day it won’t be so hard
Late night drives and midnight movies
Kissing until my head feels funny
I know this is something I want to keep

I was afraid for so long before I knew you
The terror of being left behind crawling up my insides
Bunching up behind my eyelids and burrowing beneath my skin
Threatening to burst out in pursuit of everyone I’ve lost

I didn’t want to be afraid soon after I knew you
Recounted all the names of love lost a thousand times
Spent all of my childhood wishes asking for it to be me instead of her, me instead of them
It had to mean something, other than this world being unforgiving

I didn’t have to be afraid long after I knew you
A home found within a fragile heart
Ancient wounds healed from a journey scarred in pain
You carried me away from death knowing there was a cost

You weren’t afraid then
When you risked it all and lied
Did you ever wonder if you’d do it all again
I don’t know if I could stomach it, knowing your intentions

Did you want to be afraid
When I shut you out and ran
Did you notice how I’d written down every single thing you took from me
Countless evenings filled with nightmares over who I failed to save

Were you afraid
When you realized it was the end
It didn’t seem like you were, it seemed like you were ready
No more final stands, no more goodbyes, no more flawed humanity

I’m afraid now that you’re not here
I should’ve done more to fix it while you were
The whispers of how I could’ve helped nestled in my bones, my hands shaking from the impact
I have to finish it, I have to see the end, the ****** cycle earning me forgiveness from a world that’s taken you

I told myself that one day it won’t hurt anymore
And I think that I was right
I’m learning how to work for it
I’m learning that it’s worth it to try

I promised myself that one day I’d let it go
And I don’t think I’m there yet
But I’m getting closer every second, every minute, every hour
I’m getting used to moving on from things that left me hardened

I know myself, and I know all the work that I’ve put in
I wish I could tell fifteen year old me she’s moving onto better things
I’m not as angry as I used to be, not as anxious or as sad
I understand the light inside of me isn’t something bad

one day I’m going to fall in love with a girl, and she’s going to make all the heartbreaks in the past look insignificant, except for the fact that they all led me to her, and she’s going to love all the parts of myself that I can’t stand, all the things that my mind has told me makes me unworthy of a love such as her’s, and I’m going to do the same for her, I’m going to love everything about her that the world has told her isn’t good enough, isn’t what she should be, and it won’t matter what our families have to say about it because we’ll have each other, and for once in my life I’m going to know that the person I’m with deserves me wholeheartedly, and she’ll be so good that I definitely won’t deserve her but that won’t matter either, because she’ll be my person and I’ll be her’s, because the universe will make sure that we’ll gravitate towards each other like we’re meant to, like we’re supposed to, and we’ll get married and have children and grow old together but our love for each other will never fade, even after we’re both gone, because I’ll never stop writing about her, about how her beauty lights up every room she’s ever entered, how her heart has healed everyone she’s opened up to, how she’s made me a better person through it all, and people years from now will read what I’ve written and they’ll just know, they’ll just know.

Everybody says I’m a force of nature
They say I speak too much, notice too much, feel too much
I can’t contain everything I’m thinking
Letting it spill out onto the people closest to me

I’ve tried so hard to push it down since I was a child
Can’t let them know how much this hurts me
Can’t let them know how badly I want to be free
I can’t show them how much my heart bleeds

My emotions are almost like an open wound
Leaking out of my hands and into the minds of those who I love the most
Not many can see the world through my eyes
I feel like I’m drowning in my own sensitivity

I miss how carefree we used to be when we were younger
When all we knew was each other and everything was so much easier
Two girls standing at the edge of the world, hearts unbroken
Unaware of how quickly things can change

Each lost in our way but it didn’t matter
You don’t have to have everything figured out when you have each other
And things will mend on their own if you let them
That’s what I told myself anyway, when things were hard

But things change and people grow as time goes by
We each began to bloom, always unique, always beautiful, always different
I had to learn to let you go and you had to do the same for me
And I can’t blame you for it, sometimes that’s just how things end up

I don’t want you to know I have days where I’m always on the verge of crying
Where everything reminds me of you, every song I listen to and every thought I have
Every word I write and every word I hear
You deserve to grow without me covering up the sun

I’ve given up on trying to invent things I hate about you
It’s silly to try and pretend that this loss is a win
The truth is I’ll always have love in my heart for you, no matter what the distance is between us
No matter how much either of us forget, that’s something I can always promise

When our lives became entangled I was so naive
I still believed in the universe and the people inside it
Wanting to trust in the inherent good of human life
I tore down my walls for you so easily

For years afterwards I stayed wishing that our paths had never crossed
That the stars would never have aligned
But now I’ve learned to treasure all the lies you’ve ever told me
Because they led to me realizing the larger truths

And all the pain and misery I’ve suffered at your hands
Yeah it can’t touch me anymore
And the way you used to play me is nothing but a bitter memory
A reminder of all the fear I fought through just to survive

I’ve grown through all the hurt
Pushed through the hard earth and bloomed
You wouldn’t know me if you saw me now
I’m too sweet for your reality