and all of my demons?
they look just
like
you.

i care about you more than i should. there's no rational reason for me to; it's been long enough, with few enough words between us and small enough talk. we've dissolved into strangers, but to me you'll never be estranged; i think about you everyday, even when you should be the farthest thing from my mind. when i'm putting on my uniform for a school you never attended. when i'm driving down a road that you couldn't even name with a map. when i'm dissecting a cat, for christ's sake, committing an act so clinical it could be performed by a robot. i shouldn't feel anything, especially not for you. but i do. i still do.

it doesn't consume me the way it once did, thinking about you. you don't consume me the way you once did. i don't ache at the thought of you.

but still. there you are. you've made yourself comfortable in the back of my mind and something tells me you've no plans to leave.

and something tells me i'm okay with that.

I want to be able to tell you something
Not sure what I want to say
All I know is that I want to say
Something to you
Something that won’t leave you
Something that leaves an impression
Something from the deepest part of me
Something that makes up for
All the other times I couldn’t
Something to make you stay

The way I loved you was exhausting.
Throwing every fiber of my being in to loving you,
Only to hit a brick wall.
Your closed heart had me searching for doors,
Or maybe a window,
****, I would have been fine with a crawl space,
I could crawl through to get to you.
I was like a book to you,
One that you could never bring yourself to read
Past page three.
And you,
An entire novel I wanted,
First edition,
Signed Copy.

I have been yours for 730 days, 17,520 hours, 1,051,200 minutes and you have never been mine; not even for a second.

This poem
I think to myself
as my shaking hand takes to the page,
Will be about the day my father left,
my first day of college,
or even the way my hands shake when I write.*
I write six words,
scratch out seven more,
and continue until I notice
i'm left with
a sloppy "i
           still  
    need
        you."

She said people were seasons,
and when I first met her, I couldn't agree more.  
After getting to know her, I wished that I didn't.
Her ex-lovers were Winter, and her eyes were a shade of Spring.
I could see the vulnerability of a car crash
swimming in each fountain trapped behind her emeralds.
She was beautiful in the way that could cause suicides,
and fix spider-webbed windshields after each collision of,
“Are you okay,” and, “I’m fine; I promise.”

Every story was Winter, and she was always left alone in the snow.
Mauve lips mouthed words that silently whispered,
"When is this too much? When are you going to leave?"

People are patterns,
and all she knew was the tessellation of temporary love and permanent loss.
Her hands trembled as she looked down.
She was in transit; moving after each hope of home fell apart.
And I wanted to kiss her like the world was falling apart.