I can't believe it's almost
two years to the day
and still to this day
I can't stomach to look
at your face
because looking at your face
means looking at your mouth
and your mouth gives me anxiety
in the worst kind of way

I wonder if they know
your gifriend or your sister
I would say your parents but
we all know that they don't
because they are my parents too
and I've made absolutely sure
to keep this secret safe between
the sheets of my bed and
pieces of paper that always
find their way to the bottom
of my trashcan

your mouth
you smelled like alcohol even though
we both know there was no way
you could have possibly been drunk
you snuck me down into a basement
I will never be able to crawl out of
without turning the lives of everyone
upstairs in our house upside down

so why am I still keeping your secret
don't I deserve that
don't I deserve upside down and
broken glasses and furious parents
don't I deserve answers and closure and
the simple satisfaction in the fact that
everyone would know what you did

but it's almost two years to the day
and as they're lighting the candles
on my birthday cake
the only wish I have left
is that no one
will ever
find out

It's 1 am
and I am giving you the green light
to kiss me for the first time
in a world where we've always been careful
to avoid the acknowledgement
of this particular intersection
tonight
it exists
and the both of us know it
with your hand in my hair and
my fingers around your neck
refusing to let go of each other
as if we're just now beginning
to make up for lost time
maybe that's why we're so insatiable
too much is never enough
and time is something we can't
ever
get enough of

It's 2 a.m
and I want to sing you to sleep
with songs of the flutter in my chest
and the blush on my cheeks when
you walk into a room
I want to hold the parts you
dislike about yourself in the palm
of my hands
and hold them like first time lovers
careful
and passionate
concerned not at all with the time
but instead the sweat
dripping down her spine
and his face when her eyes are wide
with something far stronger
than pleasure

It's 3 a.m.
and I want to love you so hard
that you wake up loving yourself too
there are not enough mirrors in the world
to accurately reflect yourself back to you
to make you see yourself
the way I have always seen you
there are not enough words in any language
to tell you all the things my heart feels
but my mouth doesn't know how to say
and I love you in ways other people
will never be able to
understand
because they can't feel my heart race
as you reach for my hand
or as your lips land on mine
or when time completely stops
as you mouth the words I love you

in a world where we have always been careful
to avoid the acknowledgement of this particular intersection
tonight
and forever
it exists

I spent the larger part of my life
waiting for the other shoe to drop
with everything
maybe that's why I'm still stuck
in this rut of waiting to find out
what your catch is

maybe it's something as insignificant
as the fact that you take your eggs
over easy instead of sunny side up
or your coffee so black we won't be able
to share a mug on the mornings we
don't feel like braving outside the bubble
of our future bedroom

or maybe it's something as fatal
as not believing in things like
second chances
or true love
or miracles

because is it not miracle enough
that in this sick cosmic joke the universe
has been playing on both of us for years
we are here now and we found
each other

              is it not miracle enough
that we are here together today
here today tangled up
in my bed sheets and each other
sharing secrets and kisses and writing
love letters in the sign language of
your fingers dancing along my spine or
your teeth grazing my bottom lip

              is it not miracle enough
that you love me like I've never
even been broken before
like four weeks ago I wasn't a disaster
unraveling in the palm of your hand
looking to you for solace
for answers we both knew you
couldn't give me
even if you
wanted to

                is it not miracle enough
that we've made it this far
and no atom bombs have gone off
when we're alone with each other at
3 in the morning
doing anything
but sleeping

that the skies don't open up into black
holes when you leave me
              that you leave me
      and that you come back

               is it not miracle enough
that I love you
after swearing on every god anyone ever
believed in that I would never love again
that I love again
because of you


it is.

You never answered my question*         2:51 AM

2:51 AM                           What is your question?

Are you happy?                                       2:53 AM

2:54 AM                                                          I am,

Good                                                     ­     2:55 AM

Usually it's okay until I come across an old picture
there aren't many of them now
mostly because in the midst of my great
breakdown I decided the best thing to do
was burn them all
as if the flames dancing across our smiling faces
could erase the pain I felt now
in the wake
of losing you
and take all of your lies with it

so let's go on pretending that it's over,
                                             that we're done
you don't have to call and I won't expect you to

so let's go on pretending that I'm fine and you're fine and everything is just fine
let's

     but it still happens

somehow an old photo finds its way into
my broken hands and at first I do
not even recognize the people
staring back at me

      it's like a carnival mirror

your reflection moves against the glass
in synchrony with you
your smile is your smile and your arms
are your arms but
it doesn't look like you

      so it's a little like that
your smile is my smile and my arms are wrapped around you
almost as if I knew
one day you would let me go

                                               muscle memory  
                                               is a real *****

I remember the way your hair felt
as I ran my fingers through it
you hated it when I did that

I remember the nape of your neck
how it tasted
how you tasted

I remember your skin against my palms
how you were always hot and I was always cold and we told ourselves we were a perfect match
playing with fire is dangerous
love is dangerous

love

I remember making it
almost as vividly
as I remember you breaking
my heart

my tongue is numb,
my hands are numb,
I
am numb


                                                              ­so what

just get rid of it, they say
you've burned all the rest

I know
but no
                                                              ­I can't

I'm keeping it because I know you've pitched all of yours
that in your universe there is no longer a shred of evidence tying you to me
painting the picture
of us being in love
          being happy

we used to be happy

                                               and I think I owe
                                               our past selves  
                                               that much

so I will continue to remember
               continue to feel it all
because I know you've learned
to walk,
but I
can only crawl.

I was never big into religion
rather I devoted my beliefs of a
higher power
to the reality of true love,
of soul mates,
of faith

coincidence never existed in my good book
but ever since you've gone
my god of choice is crumbling

crumbling under the fact that miracle
and mistake
are only four letters apart

crumbling under the weight of every
broken promise
I swear I still feel your pinky tied to
my own
I swear you still love me
sorry

crumbling under the weight of time
these winter months are brutally cold
the wind is blunt with honesty
and you are a coward
who is afraid to love as deeply
as we once did

crumbling under the weight of the last time
you said that you loved me

crumbling
because as your lips moved
I knew
I knew I would never hear those words again from you

our anniversary has come and gone
and I suppose I'm crumbling under the weight of that, too

but mostly
I am crumbling under the weight
of pretending I won't wait
for you.

Concept.
I am stopping in a parking lot to pick up a penny - heads up - and wishing that you, wherever you are now, are happy; that you are safe. I stopped wishing for you to be thinking of me too many moons ago to count successfully. You are scrambling through the empty pockets of eternity fishing for loose change.

Concept.
You are thinking of me. I am taking an afternoon nap and you are thinking of me. You aren't exactly sure about how long it's been since we last spoke but something about the swirl of your fingerprints says it's been a while. You think of me once, just this once, and I laugh in my sleep; as if the thought of you isn't something that consumes me every cognizant moment of the day.

Concept.
We are still together, only we're different people now. My head rests in your lap and your fingers ballroom dance through my hair. We are laying on a couch in a room that is much too plain to belong to either of us. You are watching something on TV, and I am watching you. I was always watching you.

Concept.
Everything is different, but nothing's really changed. Your hands have always been a bit too big to belong to my own. My heart was always the one getting sucker punched. I was always a *******. And you always loved to see me bleed.

Concept.
I say that always is a big word, and you say it isn't big enough.