you come in like fog in the early morning
before i know it, i'm lost again
i try to rub the sleep from my eyes,
but i soon realize that the opacity isn't external.

the mystery includes the following:
your whereabouts
how you wear your hair
the fullness of your kitchen sink
and also of your heart
how often you chew the collar of your shirt
which channels you watch
what time you go to bed and
if i'm bound to run into you again

someday


--

she sits on a park bench
wishing to be back in bed,
wishing to be back home,
wishing to be strong enough
to let him go.

--

"a couple months is nothing
in the big scheme of things"

she reminds herself of this
every time she lies in bed,
both at night when she pulls
the covers more tightly around her
and in the morning when she wakes.

"a couple months is nothing
when we have forever ahead of us"

--

she broke three nails while tying her shoes.
her headphones broke during her run.
the shower wouldn't get warm enough.
she bumped her hip into the table,
the stack of mail fell to the floor.
her pantry was empty.

and on the calendar, hanging on the wall,
was a date marked: September 18

'Baby comes home from Texas'

underneath, small scratchings read:

'make sure to buy some wine'

It’s been three and a half months since we last spoke,
really spoke, not just guilty hellos
and scattered half-hearted pleas
And it’s not you, it’s never you
it’s me it’s me it’s me,
but you love
me
you love
me
you love
me

And my head has forgotten what it feels like,
but I know my heart is safe with you

Because you’ve never stopped chasing after me
and I’m tired of looking at my feet, telling myself
I’ll be okay without you, trying to navigate
through a thick forest at night,
pretending I don’t have matches at
my fingertips

You are the only thing
that has ever made me feel truly whole

I’m sorry I’ve kept my eyes shut so tight,
but I’m here now and I love you and I miss you

And I don’t want to keep living
like fragments of a person anymore

I’m Yours.

I can’t breathe among these aspen leaves
Wind washing over a war washed face
My embrace feels lifeless now
I long for the tropical beaches of an unexplored love
With palm trees of emotion so tall
That I could climb and give the sun a hug
but a shrug is all I give you to tell others about me
So they can see if we
Should be together forever like I always thought we should
And we should
But now I’m starting to think differently
I come home and all I hear are the deafening blasts of artillery
Fill a canteen of coffee and ration it out until the battle is over
I hardly ever win a fight
And I’m not worried about victory
I’m worried that I might not survive the war
What more do you have in store for me
And I can feel the sea breeze on that piece of paradise that I pursue
That peace that I pursue
You think I’m only giving up the war to stay with you
and I would’ve gone AWOL
But I was already missing in action
You were a witness to that
But didn’t think that it was the last time you’d see me
Until I didn’t come back
Defeat became too much
and I’m happy being lost
For the time being
I’m being awful, but this isn’t my mind seething
It’s someone else’s, belonging to the stranger that came back instead
And my eyes see that I don’t belong now and the past is dead.
It’s like I’ve come back to a foreign place where the war is needless
And even though it’s beautiful
All I want is to storm the beaches.
And bring storms that reach down
to rip the trees up
at the roots that sink down
in the earth that seized up
Please just let me be
while I spend my time reading up on weaponry
And safety precautions
Studying the rules of engagement 
So next time I feel like I’ve lost it
There won’t be so **** much collateral damage
So now I manage to escape the blasts
But there has never been a peace treaty
Only cease-fires that we spend resupplying
And re-arming. I see the way you’re looking at me
A little bit alarmed because you know that I’m trigger happy
And I think it might be weeks before the peace talks will resume
so I dive for cover any time you walk in the room
because the boom of mortar fire mortifies me
And makes me wonder if there is more to life
than my thunder fighting a war with lightning
and hiding my battle scars
Resting until I’m two quarters tired
half dying spark
fading ember
But then I embark on a journey into flashbacks of landmines
in no-man’s land where the lines are drawn
where the danger never shows it’s face
after the light of dawn
because day time in the open space is a ****-zone
our memories take it slow through the cold darkness
fighting a guerilla war against me
and it’s those same memories of our war that tempt me
back to the combat zone
where the sky is split in half by an unmanned drone,
where the land is scarred with bomb craters and tank treads
where the dead wash up on the river banks and the lakes edge
where you talk in hand-signs
and you push on cause there’s no choice
but to survive the bad times
And ****** I’ve had mine
but I’ll put up a last stand
ship off to the battle again
load up and roll out ready to exact my revenge
But there was never a stranger
I’m ready to embrace what I’ve become
I admit that I’m a product of everything that I’ve done.
I’m a war criminal.
I torched the rules of engagement,
Scorched entire cities and reduced them to pavement
And you should be afraid every day that I’m alive
Because now I’m out for blood and I don’t care anymore if I survive.
I thrive on the cold glory
Gunpowder smoke is my air
I’m the saboteur
In our fight between hope and despair
knowing this war rages on
and that you’ll never make me retreat
even though I’ll hate victory
more than I hated defeat.

are hands and knees that hit the floor
and crawl back towards what i’d sworn off before
weak, or brave
is it braver to run in the opposite direction
or to stay even when it stings
because when we’re in your car
i know what the crickets outside
are thinking, is it true
am i throwing white sheets over old reminders
written in dust, small whispers leading up
to an attic where all the hurt and confusion is stored
in cardboard boxes labelled DO NOT OPEN

right now i’m sitting on the stairs
with my back against the door
and i’m looking at your face, your face, your face
searching for something maybe i didn’t see before
and the words you wrote at two in the dark
made me miss you when i promised i didn’t,
and i want to stay, but when i try
to convince myself that you’re right,
that pushing you away is the easy way out,
that what we feel is a reason to keep each
other around,
i still find it hard to believe myself
when i tell myself
that i am being strong

03:00
When I think about never speaking to him again, I picture a girl walking in a crowd that’s all moving in the same direction, and then suddenly she drops everything she’s holding and turns around and starts running as fast as she can, smiling and pushing past everyone till finally she reaches an open space and her face looks like sunshine as her hair blows behind her in the wind and she’s free she’s free, oh God, she’s free.

03:15
But then I think about walking into a doctor’s office ten years from now and sitting on a cold metal table, staring at my legs dangling off the edge, waiting. And then I look up as the door opens slowly, not expecting to see his tattooed arms hidden in a lab coat, but there he is and, oh God, his eyes haven’t changed, and I can’t breathe, and he just stands there, looking at me like an unfinished sentence. Then I’d have to let him put a stethoscope to my chest and listen to my heart and I wonder what it’d sound like, if it would sound like messy half beats of missing him. If he’d be able to tell. If he’d care.

03:30
Or maybe the next time I see him, if I ever see him again, we’ll both be whole versions of ourselves, content and in good places, our lives all sorted out and how we always hoped they’d be. And maybe we’d be able to talk about the weather and our kids and the lives we created apart. And maybe I’d be able to look at him with only feelings of pleasant acquaintance and relative indifference, not seeing the boy I fell for when I should’ve been focused on catching myself.

03:45
And I know I should find comfort in thinking about how one day I may look at him and feel nothing,

04:00
but it’s four in the morning and I don’t want to let go.

you didn’t like the way i answered the phone,
and you thought it was gross that i liked mushrooms on my pizza,
and you told me i was weird-looking when i was a kid,
and once i sent you a tattoo and you said you didn’t like it, you didn’t know they were my words that were written on her body
you told me what “too much damage” meant on halloween after all the trick-or-treaters had fallen asleep
and when i kept silent for three days after,
and winced at every kissing scene on television, because they flooded the insides of my eyelids with images that made me feel very small,
you said i was being unfair
because i was the one who decided we were just friends,
and i told you we weren’t, you knew we weren’t
we couldn’t be after what we used to be

i told you i still had feelings that hadn’t gone away yet,
you said they hadn’t gone away for you either

i pictured you holding my hand

but then you said,
“that’s why it’s easier to run from them
and hide in other girls beds.”

you always told me every thought
that popped into your head, and i used to find it endearing,
i kept telling myself that you deserved my ear,
but i really hope you have nothing more to say
because, i promise, i’m done listening

so clear off your bedside table, and cut the
blue string that’s wrapped around your wrist if you’ve yet to do so,
and stop asking me if i miss you,
because this is me saying
i don’t.

i wanted you to love me on purpose.

ask me how many boys have told me they loved me,
then ask me how many of them meant it.

i'm not sure if i can remember how to write, but i want to relearn, just for you.  i want to have the freshest and happiest time of my life documented in some way, i want to write about you.  i need to learn how to write something cheerful instead of all the depressed and heartbroken crap i used to slap onto the page.  i want to capture your scent in words, your laugh in paragraphs.  i want you to be pressed not only between my pages, but between my sheets, between my arms, my legs, even.  i want your warmth to come through in my tone and your shy eyes, which have faded from a deep brown to a lighter hazel, to brighten up my words.  i want to be daring for you, to go do crazy stuff and laugh the whole way through.  i want you to see me as you never have before: silly, drunk, strong, motivated, outgoing, intimidating, naked.  i want you to turn your head back for a double-take every time i walk by with my chin held high.  you should be giddy each time i hold your hand or smile with my dimples showing.  when i hug you, you should pick me up off my feet and sway me back and forth like you did the other night.  i want you to be left in awe and lightheaded every time i kiss you.

what i'm trying to say is, i've been waiting for this since i was thirteen years old.  i've dreamed about you for the past eight years.  i want to watch you learn every inch of me, both psychologically and physically.  

when it comes down to it, i just want you.  and right now, i'm pretty impatient.  so come back home, and be quick about it.