Never being particularly athleticly inclined, I began training myself to be ambidextrous. I decided this way I could write you love letters with my left hand too. And I'm sorry if that seems tragically unromantic but I want to love you with both hands equally. So I'm sorry if the letters are smudged or if it doesn't seem like much but I hope you never hold another girls hand who learned how to write with both for you. And if some day you do, is it true? Do you love her like you say you do? And if one day you find yourself twisted up in some strange girls sheets don't be alarmed when she suddenly shrieks at the poorly printed words along your spine. I wrote you poetry in my sleep instead of keeping time, darling.

i hope sometimes
you remember me
and that i plague
your mind like
a sailboat being
rocked by the sea
i wonder if you
remember that
i love sunsets
and november
and how we
would line the
river with stones
in december
i wonder if you
know that flowers
continue to grow
from underneath
my bones
my love,
i'm still alive for you

At first I didn't believe you were gone
Up until that point death was
about as fictional as once upon
a time
And no one ever actually said the word
Dead
Like it was too hot
not spicy hot

but burning

singeing your lips as you spoke
and if you let it sit there too long
you'd start to think about the smoke
that clouded the impossible
You can't be dead
I was just with you last night
armed with a bottle in my right
hand while my left clutched a bottle of pills
and I watched your lips spill the words
You have so much to live for

And people just look at me
expecting to spout some ******* metaphor
about how death is less like the sunshine
and more like the storm that engulfs you long before you no longer have a pulse

Your mother asked me if you seemed suicidal
And as she screamed when she last saw you
I couldn't bring myself to go about our recital
Where I would shake my head and say
None of this was your fault
But as I looked in the eyes of a mother
who was no longer a mother
I couldn't bring myself to lie

And so I let the silence fill the air like
a thousand butterflies
pressing every square inch of atmosphere
making us all acutely aware about how unfair
it was that we were breathing
And you weren't

I tried not to think about
how much it must have hurt
when your car collapsed in on you
as you made no attempts to skirt
around the blue semi truck
that had no time to try and stop
I bet he couldn't even manage the word
**** before he died
You killed him, too

And I wondered if that was
something that ever occurred to you
                     that you were leaving more
corpses in your wake in your last successful
attempt to take your own life
That your mother hasn't stopped sobbing
and your father hasn't quit asking if there
could have been any stopping you
But I know the truth is
you didn't want us to

I said your name today, out loud
Which is something I haven't been able to
bring myself to do since I found
myself screaming it among the crowd
of people along the highway
They said you died instantly
That nothing prolonged
your suffering and I wondered how
they could have known that

Because they didn't know

that you had been dying all along

One day
You will meet someone who
makes you appreciate the sound
of rain dripping down
your window pane in June
And the way the street lights
make the wet glass look like
the stars in the sky of a
dark summers night

One day
You will meet someone who
will prove to you
that the second best sound
in the world is their laugh
Because first is their heartbeat
And they'll show you that
it's completely possible to
fall apart at the seams
when the rain subsides
and the water on their face
is not from the storm
but their tear stained eyes

One day
You'll meet someone who
will sit with you
by the fireplace sipping
your favorite coffee
Desperately trying not to let
you see his twisted face
Because he hates coffee's taste
But doesn't even care
because he adores the way
your body shifts when he
runs his fingers through your hair
as you rest your
head on his chest

It's true
I know, because one day
I met you

Growing up we were allied with tired
people wearing empty eyes
reserved for those whose breaths
were outnumbered by sighs
And in cased in a body who
knows all too well that beauty
is corresponded with size
Constantly battled by a heart
who would take no part in
giving up when you had yet to even try

I asked you to write poetry
along the curve of my spine
so that when the words finally broke me
I would know how it felt to be paralyzed

I tried

We grew up with these standards set
that seemed near impossible to be met
and when you cried
I said don't
           don't tell me that this world isn't fair
and that this life got the best of you
because the truth of the matter is that
that isn't true
at all
I know
because I got the best of you, too

When we were seven years old
you looked at me grinning and stated
Kissing is weird
And I just laughed because
even back then I hated
the way I sounded after hearing your voice

And in fourth grade
when you were given the choice
to sit next to me,
or that cute new girl named Emily
You chose me
Because, somehow,
the girl who had placed fourth in the spelling bee
and concluded her favorite book was the dictionary
had racked up more brownie
points than the beauty queen

In middle school
we learned that popularity
was based solely on cafeteria seating
and all that seemed to matter was
who you were eating with
at lunch that day

But no one ever bothered to say
hey, I'll save a seat for you

So in grew the miss fits and nobodies
and here we first knew that our value
wasn't worth a saved seat
So we did our best to blend in alone
along the walls and tried our hardest
not to fall when the world slowly came
crumbling in on us
Because in the end all we had
was ourselves among the dust
of the place that we used to be a part of

Used to be

It all used to be so routine
Coffee and cigarettes and
somewhere between
glasses of wine we would find
ourselves curled up on the couch
with our hands intertwined
like two lovers who didn't care
to converse with the presence of time
Because we didn't

Thunderstorms were our thing
And every spring when the rains
would come it never just rained,
                       it poured
I'd pretend  that I was scared so I could explore
the veins on your arms as you held me
and I did my best to absorb
you like the ground soaking in all the rain,
saving it for later days
when the sun was too bright
and the flowers thought there
was no way they could ever survive
But they did

Because even on the hottest of days
the rains would arrive
and revive their stems
restoring the strength they needed
to grow again
I only hoped that someday
I would trace your veins back to my heart

Because loving you was an art
that had no ending towers
and the only place to start
was with a paintbrush in your hand
Ready to paint the flowers
that bloomed when the thunderstorms
shook that vacant tomb
I used to call my heart

But somewhere between
a head start and a late beginning
with life, I found loving you
was  by far the best part

I'm sorry
That I'm sorry
Is all I can manage to say
Because I feel guilty
that I am jealous of
your favorite books
and sleeping blankets
Jealous because I want
to be the only thing
that envelopes you when
your mind is elsewhere

And I'm sorry
that I'm selfish
Because I wish
I was your bathroom mirror
I wish that you looked at me
and expected to see
yourself looking back

But I'm more sorry
that I'm greedy
Because zero clothes between
us still doesn't seem to suffice
in the category of proximity
And if I could find a way
to be closer to you than skin on skin
I am not ashamed to say
that I would

I'm sorry
that this is less of an apology
and more of a proclamation
That I have no viable explanation
as to why I mumble
nonsense in my sleep
saying things like I wish
I was your heartbeat
Because I know that probably
doesn't make much sense to you
at all

So I'm sorry
for being sorry
about things that seem so small

"You're wasting gas,"
you whispered into my neck after
idling in your driveway amongst
the midnight air as our breath
began to fog the glass
"I don't care," I wanted to say,
no, scream because all I knew then
was that it was far past my curfew
and my father would most likely
rip my *** when I got home
but I didn't care
one because I was with you and two
because I found more of a home in your heart sheltered beneath your ribcage and neighbors
with your arteries than I did in his house
Yet I couldn't manage to make my mouth move
Words fell like fireflies dying
on the tip of my tongue as you drew
your fingertips along the surface of
my skin and part of me felt like if this
went on any longer I might explode
Like I was a stick of TNT and every time
you touched me a spark was lit and eventually
my heart would pump itself into amnesia
Leaving you and me and all of our beings
intertwined in it's wake like some twisted
train wreck that led railroad tracks to your lips
And you moved your hands to my hips and all
I could think was that I didn't know it was possible
to fall in love with someone's fingertips and
memorize the way their breathing shifts
when they sleep
And you made me feel like a ship that had been meaning to sink but could never quite
get caught in the right storm
But right now I was sailing through an ocean of torn clothes and warm skin and I couldn't stop myself from thinking that you were an ocean I wouldn't mind drowning in.