You are everything
and if our love were a record
there would be scratches and
drawn out silences
and the only audible sound
would be our hearts,
screaming
and clawing
for each other

You are everything
and if our love were the sea
I would surely drown,
although I learned how to swim
you have sent me spinning
through the waves,
I am not sure which way is up
I am not sure if I want to find out

You are everything
and if our love were a storm
it would destroy everything
in it's path
and it would be reckless
and daunting
and real

You are everything
and if our love were a poem
it would have no rhyme
no Shakespearian diction
it would start
and end
with you.

I know it is not my place
Yet I read your work and cannot help but wonder
Can you see yourself the way I do
Not just a mess. A horrible person
With honey in their words
Acid on their tongue
Dreams of neverwhere dripping like leaky faucet lips
I cannot help but want to fix with a wrench

You are tonight's breeze
The only thing worth inhaling

Smells like the smoke coming from the 24-hour 711 next to the fright train
like the walk home from the part time job past the house he used to live in
like the cookies we made but never ate
like guilt slipping from cover
like I almost let it show
Sounds like daddy's cancer
like driving on the freeway with no music
like not speaking
like I don't know how to
like every ride home from the hospital
like the fireworks we lit a few months back in our front yard
like the mistakes I called choices
Feels like the first boy I let have me vulnerable
like the meeting of hand to face
like shaking shoulders into apology
like the forgiveness crawling from his lips
like my tongue unfurling with remorse coming too easy
like my voice echoing I'm sorry
like it is something I will always be
Tastes like swallowing a pill backwards
like Fireball mixed with the thick of cough syrup
like holding back a ****** nose
like vicodin dust between broken teeth
like waiting for another winter
Looks like leaving the front door open for the air to come in
like the snow building a cast around our insecurities
like it's never been this cold before
like this Chicago is a stranger we never loved
like the ****** he tried just once
like how once can be enough to **** us
like all the questions we never got answered
like when will the branches stop cracking?
what makes a flame keep growing?
and why are these memories still
breathing?

there are too many people writing about the moon tonight,
too many hearts lonely from the thought of her greatness,
wondering how it is possible
to love something that makes you feel so small,
that in comparison,
renders you insignificant.

this is how it was to love you.
this is how it is to still do.
to look up at a sky that is too big to notice you
to imagine a selfish lover as the vastness in which
too much attention is granted
this is how it was,
this is how it has always been,
this is how it is,
loving you.

there are too many people staying up late tonight
to watch the atmosphere unfold its secrets
open-eyed anticipating some kind of beauty unfrequented,
I will not be one of them.

waiting is a chore I no longer perform
willingly
the only galaxies I admire
are those I create.

there are too many people writing about the moon tonight,
and I have become one of them.