What if
I had fallen to my knees
On the cold parking lot concrete
Tears washing over my cheeks
And cries no one should ever have to hear
Bellowing out from beneath my ribs
Screaming at the sky
Looking up at your face
Forcing you
(and everyone else)
To see me in this godforsaken state
Of absolute chaos
Heartbreak
In it's rawest form
What if I had begged you to stay?
What if I'd told you I can't do this without you?
What if I'd told you how much I needed you
What if I did anything other than fighting back the tears
Maybe for myself, maybe for you,
Mostly for the crowd of people gathering
Saying their goodbyes
Anxiously looking around to bear witness to everyone else's reactions
And I didn't want to be that girl
That girl who falls to the ground
Kicking and screaming and crying and begging
But what if I was?
What if I was any girl other than the one I pretended to be that day
The one that held her tongue and kept her mouth shut because she knew the second she opened it to speak she would sob
The one that wrapped her arms around you for the last time,
and the one that let go
The one that couldn't bear to watch you walk away
So she kissed you goodbye
Got back in the car
And drove home
What if i wasn't that girl who didnt allow herself to completely fall apart until she was alone in the privacy of her own home?
What if instead I'd made a scene,
Doing what everything inside me so desperately wanted to
Grabbing hold of your hand and refusing to let go
Losing the facade of confidence
The charade of strength
But I'm not that girl
And I never will be
So each and every time you leave
I kiss you goodbye
I unclench my fists and retract my anchors
I untether my heart from it's human home
And I put on a brave face
Maybe for myself, maybe for you,
Or maybe
For that girl.

I remember one summer we planted sunflowers
and I don't remember much else about that time
except for the fact that one day I came outside
and suddenly they were taller than the house
they were beautiful
but they needed the sun to survive
it doesn't take a genius to conclude
that once winter arrived they died
and I've never been much of a gardener
but you were my sun and I was the flower

Clear moon, dear moon, pearling the air.
Guiding my way as I go here to there.
Into the unknown of the night for awhile,

Slim moon, dim moon, adding a smile.
Illuminating my path as I walk down the streets,
a bag on my back and no shoes on my feets.

Cream moon, dream moon, he opens his eyes,
beneath this ground is where his family lies.
He kneels to the earth and places a flower,
the clock striking midnight on the cemetery tower.

Still moon, chill moon, his eyes dark as the night,
His heart feeling heavy but his soul seeming light.
Blue moon, new moon, he kisses the ground,
like a life nearly lost but a soul newly found.

we floated around in an ocean
of mediocrity
sharing poems etched into the skin
on our wrists
wondering when the weight of the world would drown us in our own thoughts
thoughts of people who didn't even know
we existed
places we would never go
and things we would never say
no one knows I still sing you happy birthday
in the room where you died in my arms
its only a metaphor, of course
I'm sure you're out there somewhere
in a city that could never care
about you
like I did
tattooing your skin with her bed sheets
and kissing over coffee tables made
of all the ways I'll never get to say
I love you
the coffee table you lay books on top of
but never read
or run your knee into and curse
under your breath
I imagine this is what loving you
would have been like
and still
the thought is enough to keep me up
at night

I lie awake wondering if
on your restless nights
You're lying there
Thinking of me too
I haven't cried in weeks
I haven't heard from you in months
And tonight
I'm lying here
Imagining all the places on my body that you've touched
How my own fingertips do not feel like yours
Despite my best efforts
I cannot fool myself into thinking
For even one tired moment
That you are here with me again
Why tonight of all nights
Am I lying here crying?
I have to imagine of course
That this all comes back to you
That surely you're somewhere
On the other side of the world
Thinking of me so strongly that I felt it
All the way back here
And so to that I say
I feel you
You are here with me
You are always here with me
This love we share
Will never leave

As a child I always covered my ears
whenever I started to hear my
parents fighting about whose weekend it was
And I hated that term
Whose weekend it was
Like they owned me

As if I was nothing more than some
quarrelsome barter being habitually swapped between living quarters at the end of every week
Sometimes I wished nothing more than to be
invisable, camouflaged along the wall
of dusty old antiques
Because the only ones you ever saw
fighting over them were old people who smelled
of pastries and lilacs

But I got tired of waiting for that
And I got more tired of the *******
small talk and forced awkward smiles
and when push came to shove,
At eight years old I was tired
of being handled with kid gloves

I grew up feeling like a token of fair trade
And in school I learned that fair trade
really wasn't fair at all
Some were taught to run while others
are forced to crawl to cross the finish line
but even that can't buy you time

Because at the end of the day
I still find myself coming back to that
original thought of the antiques along the
wall of items that nobody bought
And when you see that your only
company is dust and stale air,
life finds another way to remind you
that nothing is fair.

loving you
was like having heart burn
on the wrong side of my chest
and doing my best to pretend
that still I felt nothing
in all of the places where
you once touched me

neck
collarbone
the backside of my knees

you destroyed me from the inside out
with such delicacy
that at times
I convinced myself it wasn't even
happening

loving you was a disease
that I wish
I could remember having

but now
I simply
feel
nothing

it still hurts in a way that's hard for you to explain to those who have never had to live every day knowing there are still pieces of your heart stuck inside someone else's chest. so what. so you still wear his old t-shirts to bed even though you know you should have thrown them out months ago, there are texts and photos on your phone that you can't bring yourself to erase no matter how many tears streak your face or how many times your heart breaks all over again. every single day you think of calling him, but only certain days are bad enough for you to actually contemplate it: days that used to be important and hold value - his birthday, your birthday, your anniversary, holidays - but then the obvious days turn into days where it hurts so deep that you look for reasons to call; it's raining and you want to say hey, remember that time we were in Sandusky and it thunderstormed so hard our whole hotel shook and lightening illuminated Lake Erie? remember how I was so scared, and you held me all night long? or when it's midnight and you throw on his old clothes even though they stopped smelling like his cologne an eternity ago, their cotton hasn't touched his skin in months but you wear them anyway because you resonate with that feeling, and you think of calling just to say that you wish you could feel him one last time. you do. you wish you could drive to his house again, you still know the way so well you could do it with your eyes closed, sneak up to his bedroom and crawl into bed with him even though you both complained it was too small for two people, you wish you could zip your fingers together like an old jacket, familiar and warm, you wish you could bury your face into his chest and smell his skin again, feel his lips kiss the top of your head as if this constituted saying I love you, I missed you out loud. the truth is you're more than well aware any combination of these things are very unlikely to ever occur, but that doesn't stop you from wishing, from picking up stray pennies or blowing out everyone else's birthday candles. do you remember the first time you saw a shooting star. how you were with him and how it felt a little like fate. you want to call him and tell him that you've never been so broken. that you believe you can go backward, because you don't see a forward that you like. but you can't. so instead you keep his name buried underneath your tongue. you don't cry when you miss him because no one understands it anymore; too much time has passed. get over it already. you keep his sweaters warm inside your dresser drawers and you wash the sheets weekly because they smell like someone else now. the bed never stops feeling empty. there are eight stop lights between your house and his, and this distance has never looked more red.

this heartbreak isn't textbook. it isn't like those movies, or those books, or anyone's anything. bracing yourself for impact is an impossibility. nothing - and listen to me when I say nothing - can prepare you for this pain. you begin to miss everything. everything you thought you'd never miss: his obnoxious little brother and his father playing guitar too loud and the way his mother said the word "vegetables" and never having enough room to sleep. now I don't think I could get close enough to you if I tired. the closest I am getting to you these days is when your sign is next to my sign in a horoscope. and I know you don't believe in those but this is the only hope I have left. the barnum statements of romance hold no weight until I am told that we are perfect for each other. do you believe in alternate universes? maybe in another world we are happy together, eating popsicles and sharing sticky kisses. the truth is this poem is wearing on me. I'm tired of discussing the possibility of there being another you and another me together happy on a somewhere else far away. I am tired of writing the I miss you poem. I am tired.

note: I will continue to write the I miss you poem until my fingers break.

it was late one winter night
when I first realized
I was fighting a war I would never win
a fight that was fought within my own skin
skin that I realized
I would never feel comfortable in
now
I look at freckles like name tags
scars like reminders
and bruises as memories
that I wish I did not remember
I've since become accustomed to
long sleeves and blue jeans
and people asking things
like "how did you get that one?"
"oh, the door," I would quietly say,
never to tell that the door
had a name.

on your first date you learn she takes her coffee
cooler than the starless sky
and by the end of the night you learn
she likes her showers hotter than the seventh sun
stepping out from the tub with her skin scrubbed
a scarlet hue that demands to be kissed until
dusk turns to dawn before your sleepless eyes

you wonder why she sweeps her hair to the side
after she says goodbye in the morning
why she seems so ******* guarded
all of the time
but you never ask
because you are afraid she may answer

she says she's never been in an accident
and you incorrectly assume
she is referring to a car
you swear up and down that she ought to be by now
because of the fashion in which she drives
like a madman
she says she doesn't believe in speed limits
or limits of any kind for that matter
she likes to get to where she's going and
she likes to get there fast
she's the kind of girl who doesn't believe in
taking things slow
maybe because she doesn't know how
or maybe because she doesn't want to know

she told me she loved me three weeks
before we got together by means of
mediocre poetry and a smile that
at the time
I couldn't quite understand

she says she's never been in an accident
and you incorrectly assume
she isn't referring to
all of the time
she spent
away
from
you

it's really something
how quickly things can change
how one poem ago
you were back
in my bed
in my heart
how one poem ago
you accidentally called me honey
in the middle
of a flirtatious conversation
and every time after that
was on purpose
if you ask me
there are no such thing
as accidents
I would tell you there is no
such thing
as coincidence
that you are only setting yourself
up
for failure
by choosing to believe
in miracles
if you asked me
I would tell you
a long time ago
many
many poems ago
I believed in love
at first sight
and
soul mates
and fate
but the truth is
these beliefs are built
on a quicksand foundation
of lust
and naivety
and sheer
stupidity
love
is the hardest part
of living
the deadliest war
to sign up for
your heart
is not a soldier
you
are not
a battleground
this love
is guerrilla warfare
that wink
this grin
those hands on my hips
these lips
on my neck
your breath
in my ear
my name
on your tongue
this
is
war
one poem ago
we were asleep
like lazy lovers
on a sunday afternoon
one poem ago
the sound of you
moaning my name
has seared itself
back into
my brain
one poem ago
I love you so
much that I say
I will never
let you go
and this morning
you are severing
your own arms
just to escape from
my grasp

It's been one hundred and twenty days since you left
But today
I smelled you
Opened up one of your dresser drawers
And smiled at its contents
Realizing
It must have been months since I'd opened this drawer
I pulled out a single blue t-shirt
You left behind
The only one
Out of the dozen others that you own
And stuffed into your seabag
You left this one behind
I held it up and remembered the countless nights I'd spent folding these shirts
Over and over again
I held it up and imagined you wearing it
And of course I had to,
I held it up to my face, closed my eyes, and then something incredible happened
I smelled you
You, not your shampoo or shower gel, not your deodorant or your cologne, not your laundry detergent, not even the boat smell that plagues half your wardrobe
I just smelled you
Something I haven't smelled in one hundred and twenty days
A scent I didn't forget,
But rather a memory I forgot that I remembered
Instantly it brings me back
Back to all the times I hugged you as you wore this very shirt (or the one hundred variations of it)
Back to all the nights I crawled into bed next to you and smelled this
Smelled you
Back to never thinking twice about this smell
Because it was normal, routine
It was you
Which means it was also me
It was nothing to drop to my knees and cry over
Nothing to thank god for
But that was one hundred and twenty days ago
And today
This shirt means everything to me

every inch of her skin was hand carved by angels,
she was like coming up for air,
a handful of tiny miracles.
I was a cosmic mess unraveling at the seams,
a fatal storm destroying everything I touched,
turning everything that was beautiful into nothingness and dust.
and then I saw her,
the dip of her curves and her hands on her hips like she was invincible, unafraid of the walking disaster heading her way
and it had only been a couple of seconds
but already I was intent on kissing her
of discovering the secret land of her lips
lacing my fingers through the ocean of her hair and anchoring her body against my chest
pressed together like an unbreakable bond, a force to be reckoned with
we would be powerful
I could tell
but I walked towards her
my eyes like tornados and hers like the sun
I looked at her
and she looked at me
and instantly I felt myself dissolving into stardust
into nothing, into nothing like everything I'd ever touched or ever tried to love,
she looked at me
and I disappeared
she breathed me in
and we were one

I am in love with a boy
Who was born blind
In his left eye
I had no idea until one day
His grandmother decided
To fill me in
And I almost laughed because
I saw no tell-tale signs
of this affliction
And like a small child
Acting on a prediction
I covered your eye with
My hands and asked,
"So you can't see me?"
Our noses nearly touching
But our souls feeling far
"No," he replied
"But I  don't need to
To know how beautiful you are."

I want to open up my bedroom window and listen to the warm summer rain and call you and tell you I love you. That this morning I remembered how I'd try to massage your legs and you'd laugh so hard because your legs were ticklish and how I could never actually massage your legs and I love you. I want to ask if sometimes all these memories wash over you unexpectedly too, pulling you under, drowning you. I want to tell you that it's okay to call and tell me when it happens and that I love you and we can teach each other how to swim again. And I love you.

one day a few years from now
you'll remember her and how
you loved each other genuinely,
passionately

the both of you were so crazy in love and a few years from now,
when you think you've forgotten about all of that -

about the way her fingers curled around your own without hesitation,
how when you told her jokes she erupted into a belly full of contagious laughter, her smile splitting her face in two like an equator,
how when you slept, she'd reach across the bed for you, mumble your name until you kissed her back to sleep,
how that day it rained so hard the streets flooded, she pulled you outside just to makeout on the grass, you both were soaked to the bone in seconds, thunder shaking the ground so hard you felt it roaring through your spine, electrifying.
how although she was absolutely insane,
she was gentle.

she was soft and small; strong; powerful. when the world upset her she shrank into a fraction of herself,
exposed, raw, vulnerable.

she was real, and what the two of you had was real; it was real and it mattered and it was important,
but years from now when you remember all of this,
it will be 4 A.M.

you happened, you loved that storm of a girl heavy and hard and it changed both of your worlds for the better, it won't ever be the same,
you'll find yourself looking for parts of her in everyone you meet -
subconsciously comparing the softness of her lips and the weight of her heart in your hands to every new girl that comes your way,
only to walk away feeling even emptier than before.

she is the tangible definition of irreplaceable. the fact of the matter is that the tree of her memory bears the branches of truth, and the truth is that none of this will matter.

years later, when you remember all of this,
it will already be too late.

looking back on the distance
all the time spent apart and alone
and worrying
and wondering
feeling as though time
was taking its sweet time
and oh, how it was
i remember i would sit in bed at night
and stare at pictures of you until
my eyes were wet with tears
i realized i couldn't remember your face
the details
i thought of you and i couldn't see it
and the pictures never do you justice
i remember waking up each morning
to the crushing defeat
of another long day without you
ahead of me
crawling back into bed at night
thinking,
my god, this is exhausting,
this marathon of missing you.
and oh, how it was
i remember feeling like the end
was nowhere in sight
and this distance would **** me

and now
the only thing that separates us
is a handful of days
and a layover in charlotte
hours away from you
i'm looking back at the day we said goodbye
and smiling
for once
because we are so incredibly close
to the best hello
these airport walls
have ever seen

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

Sticking my nose in places in which it did not rightfully belong had never failed to be a flaw of mine
And along with that came an absurd amount of assumption making and curiosity
Like when I sat at the back of a cluttered classroom looking around at all of the people whose backs were turned to me
And I watched the girl who wore black shirts and ate assorted candies as she feverishly tapped her feet against the floor
Wondering what she was trying to distract herself from remembering
And I looked at the boy who never raised his hand for anything and while role call was being taken was barely audible as he spoke his name
Wondering who it was in his life that made him so unostentatious, and why
I glanced at the girl who sat in the corner of the room, the girl who always came to class with an armada of water bottles, now guzzling a soda pop
Wondering what other old habits she had given into
And then I looked at myself
With this pencil in my hand and all these thoughts in my head that only the insides of my eyelids would have the pleasure of meeting
Wondering if anyone was wondering about me

one day everything falls apart. your hands and her promises and you heart. loving her turns into not sleeping. ever. that one day six months later when you finally saw her again and choking on not saying I love you before she left because you can't stand the thought of her not saying it back. the possibility. this ache. someone asks you what happened between the two of you and you say that even the continents came apart. they don't get it. you don't either. something breaks inside of you every time the wind blows and you smell her perfume. something harder than glass. they call this something hope. she knows where you live and she knows you never leave but she isn't coming back. make no mistake. there will be no surprise visits. no knock on your door at five a.m, no tear streaked hello's and no heartfelt I missed you's. no happy ending. no ending at all. just a belly full of whiskey and the last time she told you she loved you. her words feel like plagiarism in your ear. you wonder how her mother would feel about this. you wonder if her mother saw this coming a mile away. you wonder if her mother will always be right. you take another drink and wonder how this glass would sound as it breaks against your wall. the moment it leaves your hand you regret it. what a mess. all liquor and love sick and four a.m. the rorschach stains on this carpet from back when you were practicing for ava or evelyn or aiden. she picked the names. all the carpet cleaner in the world won't erase the memory. you wouldn't try even if it would. the empty chair theory doesn't soothe this broken heart of yours. nothing does. you pull another glass from the cupboard and see her lipstick stain on the edge. you imagine being small enough to jump from the top and landing hard enough to **** yourself but softly enough to not leave a stain. they would look at you and say, "I think this one was an accident." and they are wrong.

Lately I've been busy trying not to
fall in love with you
trying not to notice how undeniably right
it feels to be right here, right now
how easy it is
pretending not to know
how utterly effortless it would be
to love you

So instead I force the thought
of the inevitable end
the part where you can't even look me
in the eye as you're leaving
you don't even say goodbye
and almost just as my heart managed
to stitch itself back up
it breaks all over again
the deja vu is sickening

While you're busy falling in love with me
I'm busy not even noticing
the newness of it all
because I am hopelessly stuck in the past
yet constantly fearing for the future

You're busy kissing my neck
and I am busy picturing your lips
saying someone else's name
tasting the goodbye hidden in the
it's not you, it's me on your tongue

Your fingertips trace over the valley
of my side as if there is braille
etched into my skin
and you can't get enough of it
you look at me like I'm the last thing
you're ever going to see
you kiss me with urgency
and say my name as if it's the
sweetest thing to ever fill your mouth

You are busy falling in love with me
and I am busy failing miserably

busy
falling in love
with you.

I'm damaged goods.
the mail-in rebate you'll never quite get around to sending.
rather you neatly sit it atop your chestnut coffee table, politely acknowledge it's existence, and try to remember to buy postage stamps for an envelope you believe you will mail.
you won't.
you will ignore it.
just as you have ignored me.
legs crossed, sitting atop the coffee table we never bothered to buy, scraped knees and insecurities that you have tried your best to deny.
the mail in rebate will one day expire.
I pray that I will not.

Somehow
the sadness connected us
We were alone in the world but
together through the silence in the air
that bred nostalgia and memories
we weren't fond of

I didn't have to see your wrists to know
that the skin had once been kissed
by the blade that all too often
tempted death
I didn't have to

because I had seen it in the way
your eyes fell to the floor when
you spoke my name,

how your voice cracked when
you apologized,

how on the rare occasion that
our eyes met you didn't look away
but you didn't smile either

I didn't need to hear the words to know
what you were saying
You were dying
but not dying at all

and that was the problem
Because you can't will yourself
to make your heart stop beating
even though sometimes
at 3 am you want to

But darling, I don't want you to
Don't go
Please
I need you more than I say

south carolina and ohio and the blurred lines of love and something else. something worse. dangerous. all this talk of coming home. you imagine she means your heart instead of your house. she is held captive by the bounds of her past. all romance and regret. pink wine never tasted good anyway. then again nothing tastes quite like her smile. you could get drunk on her drink of choice every single night and still wake up each morning with a hangover from hell and an empty heart and aching hands. you have got to stop punching those walls. what is it with you. you and hurting things that only exist to protect you. tell us about that night you got so drunk you swore you were speaking to god. tell us how he listened. how you spoke about her candy eyes and her gum drop lips and golden skin. to look at her was to gaze upon the heavens. he understands. you analogize love making to walking into a church and getting to know each and every pew by name. he takes no offense to this. you ask him if south carolina is better for having her in its bounds. you can't quite explain it but ohio feels a lot less like home now that she's gone. you feel like a drifter. she says there are white sand beaches and sunsets you can't even imagine and entire neighborhoods swallowed up by trees. you want to tell her this broken heart of yours is beginning to ache again. as if it ever stopped. you and god share a laugh at this one. you think no one is listening but you are wrong. all this talk of being in love. she says you are in love with the idea of love but she is wrong and she knows it. so what. the million dollar question. what does it all mean and why. god, why. why her, why this, why here, why now, why. but he only shakes his head. in this he says that the answers are nestled in all the moments you mumble his name. when she is moaning yours, when you are scared, when you are happy, when you are relieved. how every moment with her feels like a culmination of each of these. you understand. you do.

where i come from, people speak of peace as if it was, is and always will be an inanimate object of sorts. something far too great for mankind to reach out and grab, to hold, to touch. we speak of peace as if we do not live each day finding new ways to love ourselves and each other, as if we do not find solace in his arms or serenity along the creases of her palms. we have spent far too long searching for someone instead of somewhere to call home, too many yesterdays ago we spoke of prosperity in a sense that made us question our beliefs, something rooted so deep inside of us we lost sight of the peace we created with our lips, kisses that claimed every part of a heart that was stitched together with broken pieces of itself. hear me when I say that peace was never intangible, we hold it in our hands every day. the love letter you've read halfway through but stop before you get to the final "I love you" because laced within the lies is a good bye that you never agreed to, peace is freeing yourself from the anchors printed on card stock paper sealed by the lips of a girl whose name you may never forget. peace is 5 o'clock shadow sprinkled across his chin like cinnamon bun crumbs after six days of no sleep, spending each night celebrating the sunset and injecting the rainbow into his blood flow. it's the kind of high you'll never find laying along the bottom of the bottle at midnight when the world is challenging you to a mental fist fight, drinking yourself into amnesia or blowing out a cloud full of regret after taking a drag on your first cigarette. we were just freaks searching for peace in all the wrong places, we forgot how to live like each day was our last and started passing the time by wishing that it was. perhaps peace was most prominent in our childhood, like when you were a kid on the fourth of July and held a sparkler for the first time and your parents watched the fire reflecting in your eyes. when we were five peace was popsicles and nap time, we took the world by surprise and explored until our eyes were too heavy to continue. and since then peace has felt less like Popsicles and more like hour glass sand, slipping through our hands as if we never even held it at all. but hear me when I say that peace is a process of breaking down walls, it is composed of small symphonies in our heartbeats and the stories etched onto our feet from places we've been and sights that we've seen. peace is his hands and her hips, together again, love letters and Popsicles and skin upon skin.

It's back
the all too familiar ache
that demands
attention
and necessitates
acknowledgement
yet again
I am reminded
of you

For as long as I could remember
Your favorite month was December
You found solace in the solstice and
Snowfall and didn't particularly mind
Rosy cheeks or numb fingers

I had thought it odd that anyone
Could love something so cold and
Destructive and see it not as that -
But as gentle and serene

And I realized this was the very way
That you saw me
And I never questioned how such a warm
Heart could love so many unloved things
Again

Perhaps there are more words spoken in the midst of silence.
A tear, a touch, an embrace.
An invisible conversation opaque to anyone but the two.
A shattered soul, a heavy heart. Which as they kiss
Consume.

Perhaps there is love buried deep inside hate.
Waiting, watching, knowing.
Swallowed in a sea of empty promises and lies.
A sorrowed soul, a hollow heart. Which as they mix
Devise.

Perhaps there is a message in times of disbelief.
Hiding, hoping, planning.
A beam of faith shining bright behind the darkest drape.
A searching soul, a healing heart. Which as they meet
Escape.

I am many things,
none of which are seemingly significant in any sort of the manner.
However, everything that I am,
I can assure you, you are not.

I am the orange sun blazing bright in the morning sky,
clouded by last nights storm.
You are the rain, the torrential downpour and encore of rain,
cold and dark and inhumane.

I am the tulip rejoicing for spring,
pushing my way up through the earth,
my pedals the crown of a king.
You are the dirt, the godforsaken dirt,
suffocating and undulating the cause of
my aching pain.
I am an old song, the melodious symphony
of all notes played wrong.

And yet as broken heart strings bled the blues,
I reached into the sky and handed every star to you.

I moved into our new apartment building
and for two weeks
every time I heard someone in the hallway outside our front door
I imagined it was you
coming home to me

for two weeks
I had every light in our place on
all the time
to let myself pretend
this home was occupied
and wished
I had someone
to argue over
the electric bill
with

for two weeks
I went to the beach
and sat alone
stared out into the ocean
for hours
until the sun burned my skin
and the sand found it's way
into my eyes
here
I allowed myself
to think for a moment
that you are only miles
away from me
just out of my reach
but safe
nonetheless

for two weeks
I looked out the bedroom window
and the kitchen window
and the living room window
all the windows I could find
searching for your car
your face
you

in two weeks we came so close
to seeing each other
and yet
we're still so far apart

for two weeks I checked my phone
two hundred times a day
I sent you texts
I knew you would not answer
or receive
and called to tell your voicemail
goodnight

for two weeks I fought back tears
in grocery stores
as I bought entirely too much food
for just one person
but I filled up the cart anyway
because what if you come home?
the milk went sour
and the bread ran dry
and I took out four bags of trash
by myself

in two weeks
I transformed a house into a home
without you
I hung decorations you have never seen
in a place you have never been
I bought furniture
without asking your opinion
on the tan sofa
or the gray one
I had to make these decisions
without you
I put together our dinner table
and ate at it alone
I found
this home feels one hundred times
more empty
with all these furnishings
that are meant to accommodate
several people
and yet
here I am
alone

for two weeks
for two months
I've waited
and god
please let it be over soon

it took me many years to figure out
why your love of math was so prevalent
to understand that you developed
a passion for consistency
and certainty
an assuring stability that you were
sure to find with the order of operations
or the apothecary system
a kind of reassurance that wasn't
compatible with me
and i have since come to terms with
my hatred of chemistry
because things in science cannot
be proven
only disproved
just like your love for me cannot be proven
only disproved over time and
with old age
and how someday i know i will
resemble a cold mug of coffee sitting
immotile on your kitchen counter
waiting for the occasional stir which
i know all too well will eventually
stop coming
as i watch with the utmost silence
you sip from your piping hot tea.

the monday morning migraine
rears its ugly head
yet again
it is 9:52
and I am thinking
about how you
can make a poem
out of anything
love letters and
hate letters
and
goodbye and
hello letters
all the same
because either
you feel the pain
now
or you save it
til the end
so I need someone
to tell me
what constitutes
an end

it hurts. it hurts like you never thought it could hurt, never imagined it could hurt. it hurts to be alone, it hurts to know that you don't have him anymore. and what does that even mean, anyway? to have him?
for me it meant safety. it meant never wondering how you were going to spend your free time. it meant always having someone to tell your secrets to, someone's hand to hold, someone to hold you, someone to kiss. it meant having someone to love.
it hurts, having all of that taken away. all of the circumstances, every reason that led up to it; they're all irrelevant because nothing makes it hurt any less.
it's kind of like walking around with a hole in your chest. a big, enormous, gaping hole where your heart used to be.
one time I cried at the orthodontist, and it was awkward and all - lying there, crying with some strangers hands in my mouth.
but it's been even worse at night, lying in bed, crying, when someone who used to be my entire world has their hands inside my chest, scraping out the half of their heart I'd become so accustomed to carrying around, I actually let myself believe it was my own.
it hurts. I know.
and I'm so, so sorry.

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.

They say it's been weeks
And by they
I mean all the calenders
constantly reminding me of your,
although undeniably different,
no longer painful absence
The goodbye I never actually received
reminds me of a slow growing tumor
that hugs to your bones
It quite literally grows on you
and while I never saw it
and most certainly never heard it
I felt it in my marrow
And now I feel it's presence so strongly
that I can almost begin to convince myself
you said it
I can almost hear the words
readying for attack,
hiding in the Trojan horse of your heart
that I so foolishly believed
was an unreturnable entity
of the timeless love that you promised me
forever with
It's been weeks
but has it really?
I'm already beginning to forget the sound of your voice, the color of your eyes, the weight of your hands in my own
And while this is a shame for the sake of memory,
I cannot say with honesty that I wish
I could remember
I don't even recognize you anymore
Your innocence has since been replaced with malice
You are no longer the same boy
that I fell so irrevocably in love with
at an age so young
you have to wonder
if we ever really even knew what love meant
at all
If anyone asks,
I won't deny the space you occupied in my heart for so long
I won't lie about the way you made my stomach turn with something I dare say resembled butterflies,
I won't pretend that you never made me smile so hard it felt as if my face was about to tear in two, and that I wouldn't have complained if it had
I won't excuse the existence of the love we shared
for the sake of your ******* conscious
But with the same token of truth,
if anyone ever asks me about that password I never quite got around to changing;
how my fingers fly over the keyboard with equal parts ease and elegance;
typing time and time again that same string of letters and numbers that served as our initials and the date I'll never be able to ******* forget; they will stop me and say,
"That must be significant. What does it mean?"
I will turn to them and say that I have absolutely no idea
It's all just nonsense, really
I've practiced saying it so often
that surely it must be true by now
as the words are dancing off of my tongue
buzzing like children with sheer excitement at the possibility of getting caught in a lie
I may pause for a small moment
and remember my favorite parts of you
hands, lips, neck
candy laughter and sunset eyes
But you aren't that boy anymore
and I couldn't love you again if I tried.

One time
I asked you if we could have a mirror installed on the ceiling above your bed
You laughed and then said,
why would we do that?
I felt only slightly embarrassed as I answered
that I wanted to see you from a third person perspective lying next to me
Because at times it felt almost too good to be true
Like when you say all these things you thought that you knew
And it turns out you never really knew anything at all
Like that it actually is possible to spend the better part of your entire existence trying to identify with the freckles on his back
or attempting to keep all of your sanity intact when you find yourself avalanching in love as you run your fingers along the track of his spine
At which point I pointed out how nice the mirror would be
So at any time I could glance up and see our bodies intertwined like the waves in the sea
And the absolute guarantee that there will always be stars in the sky
Even if you can't see them
The same way that in every goodbye there are words left unsaid and tears that aren't shed for the simple reason that we are all just trying to somehow keep our **** together
And so whether or not there will ever be a mirror above your bed I'm not quite sure
So I suppose, for the time being, my other senses will have to assure me that this will suffice
But that's quite alright
Because the feel of your skin on my hands is more than enough to ignite my own imaginative powers of the beautiful way you must look next to me at night

I am sitting across from you in a small diner booth over two cups of coffee that neither of us are drinking. you can't drink because you're too busy talking and I can't drink because my mouth has been frozen shut ever since we walked through the door. this silence feels more familiar than you do anymore. and when did you start ordering coffee? when did I? who are we now and how did we get here? how did it come to this? how did we let it come to this? how many nights did you spend fighting sleep because you couldn't stop thinking of me, wondering how I was doing or if I'd managed to stitch myself back together yet. how many nights. your mouth is still moving but I'm unable to hear what it is that you're saying. these words don't matter. they hold no weight at all. now you're apologizing. for what, I want to ask, but there are a million and one things you have to be sorry for, none of which you are. instead of I'm sorry it was always it's a joke, lighten up or you know I didn't mean it. I know. you didn't mean anything you said to me. I guess I'm crying now because your hand is reaching over the table to touch my cheek and your eyes are doing the thing where you look completely caught off guard. not sympathetic, just confused. I can't remember why we came here. why did we come here? how long has it been? you look different now, distant and not in love with me anymore. I don't like this view. I want to ask you if we can go back. you wouldn't know what I mean. you never do. did. sorry. I love you. I want to grab you by your shoulders and shout into your soul that I love you - that I've always loved you - that I never stopped and I never will. what are we doing here? then it happens. you reach for your pocket and my heart stops inside my chest as you extract the black box. the people around us probably think this is a proposal. I know better. your mouth moves again and your lips frame her name and the date and you're sorry but I'm not invited. and everything stops. it was supposed to be me. my white dress and your black tie and my father's hands shaking yours and my mother fixing my veil and my walk down the aisle and your vows in my ear. mine. my dress my day my church my life my you. you're saying you are sorry but you're not. it's something else. it's guilt. it's regret. it's the fact that we both know this is not how things were supposed to end up but here we are. cold cups of coffee and empty hearts. how did this happen how did we get here how did it come to this how
how did we let it come to this

It's a special sort of twisted, really - my subconscious forcing me to endure this hell even in my sleep. I can't seem to seek refuge anywhere now; you occupy every corner of my mind, as if you didn't every day before. And can I ask, how do your hands make it through the day? How do your fingers pass the time, do your palms ever cry wondering where mine have been? It's been so long since I've touched your soul, and I'm just now beginning to realize that that is very different than simply touching your skin. But there was nothing simple about it. There was nothing mundane, ordinary, or casual about our love - and unfortunately for you these are the truths that quite frankly just cannot be denied. You can try all you want, use all your might to pretend that this love never happened between the two of us. You may be able to fool them; hell, you may even be able to fool yourself every now and again, but when you're alone in the deepest parts of yourself, I like to believe that you'll feel me there the most - feel my hair tickle your arm or my fingers drag over your spine or my lips brush against your neck - these are the places you will feel me most, and I will feel you everywhere, forever.

my mother asks me
quite frequently
why I ever even gave you
the time of day
because all you ever left me with
was ****** knuckles you didn't
have the decency to kiss
before you left me standing
in an empty room
with broken picture frames of you

now

the only wall decor I own
are holes
a little too big
to fit my fists
and I wonder
if this
was how you pictured it to be
as you left me
standing in a sea of equal parts
empty and envy

envious of whoever's sheets
you're sleeping in tonight
and I know two wrongs
don't make a right
but the two of us did

you kissed all the wounded
parts of my skin
and I don't know if you realized
the worst of the damage was done
on the inside
I don't think you knew that
I was the kind of sick
that a first aid kit
could never fix

and I knew someday
you wouldn't have time for this anymore
but I can't remember
how I breathed before
I had you to exhale life
into my lungs and
plant kisses on my skin

and I'll never get the chance
to hold your hand again
all I'm left with are the memories
broken glass
walls with holes
and a sea of broken dreams

I wished you happy birthday, and washed up on the island of lost love. When was it that we fell out of sync? I want to retrace each moment, pin point the exact place in time where you looked at me and saw someone else. Where you stopped opening your eyes at all when I was underneath you. I know these truths are the hard ones, but I need to know. I wished you happy birthday and I didn't say that I loved you. It was hard, like talking to a friend and noticing that they have something stuck in their teeth. Do you say something or not? I've got all of your promises stuck in my teeth. All the toothpicks in the world wouldn't help. Maybe I'm keeping them like souvenirs for when you decide you mean them again. I wished you happy birthday, and you said thank you. Why do our conversations look like two people speaking who have never even been in love? Do you remember? All the long nights, all the first times, all the last times. I don't think I could ever forget. I wished you happy birthday, and I couldn't help myself, I had to ask. "Was I first?" there's something reassuring about asking questions you already know the answers to. But I can't help hearing that children's song dancing in the back of my brain. "First is the worst, second is the best," but second isn't best. I was so consumed with being your first, you being my first, that I forgot the most prominent childhood truth. First is the worst.
I wanted to be your last.

"If you love someome, let them go."

Easier said than done. How am I supposed to let you go? How do I unclench my fists, how do I unhook my hands, how do I unstitch my heart? I was never good at taking things apart; I only ever knew how to keep them together.

"If they come back, they're yours..."

Coming back. This quote fails to acknowledge all the lost time in between leaving and returning. All the days that run together like a mess you don't know how to clean up, the weeks that pass agonizingly slow, the months that go by without ever hearing from you.

I know how the quote goes, I know how it ends. Saying it out loud tends to turn my stomach and squeeze my heart until it hurts. I can't handle that possibility - the possibility of you never really being mine to begin with. It's a thought I won't let my mind try to rationalize. It's a theory I refuse to accept.

You were mine. We shared four amazing years of laughter, of adventure, of love. The days went by quickly and the weeks passed with ease, each month came and went without any attention from us. Time didn't matter.
It hardly existed at all.

You were mine. I loved you beyond a reason why, beyond pride, beyond fault or mistake. I loved you regardless of circumstance and without obligation. I loved you so much it consumed me. I loved you, and you were mine to love.
You were mine,
but maybe I was never yours.

"if they don't, they never were."

I am many things,
none of which are seemingly significant in any sort of the manner.
However, everything that I am,
I can assure you, you are not.

I am the orange sun blazing bright in the morning sky,
clouded by last nights storm.
You are the rain, the torrential downpour and encore of rain,
cold and dark and inhumane.

I am the tulip rejoicing for spring,
pushing my way up through the earth,
my pedals the crown of a king.
You are the dirt, the godforsaken dirt,
suffocating and undulating the cause of
my aching pain.
I am an old song, the melodious symphony
of all notes played wrong.

And yet as broken heart strings bled the blues,
I reached into the sky and handed every star to you.

Isn't it something? How everything lines up just so. Their car and your car. You never stop to think how miraculous an eight-sided piece of red metal is until it could have turned back the hands of time. We would have stopped. They would have gone straight. no police cars, no ambulances, no fire trucks. No crying mothers and no worried lovers. No blood. No bruises. No nothing. And somehow, this reminds you of him. Somehow, years later, everything still reminds you of him. Loose change or a rainy day or a slow song. The collision of everything. So what. So you are sitting on the side of an unfamiliar country road six feet deep in a cornfield. The windshield is shattered. You don't remember the air bags going off, but they did. Everyone says there are signs. As many sleepless nights you spent trying to go back and find them you always come away empty handed. The officers are asking, at what point did you know you were going to hit their car? you feel your heart tugging at your chest, reminding you of the night you asked him when it was that he fell out of love with you. The officer doesn't understand. Nobody understands. All anyone wants is an answer. As if it's ever that simple. Back to this stop sign. How a handful of seconds could have prevented everything. How a little more love could have saved us. How I loved you until there was nothing left but bones and skin and how it still wasn't enough. How I stretched myself thin and how I still couldn't reach you. I cannot remember the moment of impact. I do not know why you stopped loving me. all I know, is that it happened.

It's like walking around with your shoes on the wrong feet.
It's like trying to write with your left hand.
It's like trying to keep your head above water when no one ever taught you how to swim.
It's like that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you know you've forgotten something.
It's like when you were in school, and the teacher told you to take notes, but you thought you'd be able to remember without them, and you were wrong.
It's like the advice your mother used to give you, but you never listened to.
It's like you were always aware of the possibility, you just never accepted the thought that it could ever become a reality.

I guess I was always best at making messes of things like the inside of your chest or the rest of the world. its a lot easier than anyone ever tells you to become addicted to the sick and twisted feeling in your stomach when you hear things like "he lives with his grandparents now" or "she tried to **** herself in ninth grade". cracked ribs and broken hearts are not one in the same. one will always hurt far worse than the other and it's always the one that hospitals can't fix. white washed walls and sterile hallways filled with empty people waiting for their lives to change raspy breath and pale skin I remember going to the hospital as a kid and asking "are there people dying in there?" my mother never did give me an answer. the truth is, there are people dying everywhere. only the lucky ones make it to the hospital. the truth is people die on bathroom floors with a stomach full of pills and a fist full of love letters that will never be sent. people die over the phone choking on a throat full of apologies they'll never spill. people die popping sorrys like pills and swallong broken teeth by eating glass as if it were easier than saying I love you for the last time. we break ribs to make space for people who have no intention of staying and the last time I spoke your name was three days ago in a drunken haze lying on my back and shouting to the moon "I love you more" wishing that it was you I've screamed your name to the raining sky more times that I'd like to say but each day I find myself swallowing your promises and choking on the forevers you ensured me we'd spend together as if you ever even meant it
you didn't
and I can't even ******* breathe because its always been me lying on the bathroom floor with more pills than I should even know exist with a fist full of letters I'll never get to kiss and I still pick up the phone just to hear the busy tone and mumble apologies until I dont know what I'm saying and I'm swallowing ***** bottles and chewing on glass to make saying I love you for the last time feel less like living and more like dying
im dying
im dying
im dying