When you haven't seen someone in months
The places your subconscious wanders off to change
Your dreams are different
Your strongest desires suddenly seem strange to other people
who do not understand
These days
I dream of touching the back of your neck
Feeling the softness of your hair
The warmth of your skin
With each of my ten fingers
It's a feeling I think about a lot
The back of your neck
Wrapping my arms around your shoulders
Forgetting how much taller you are than me
Remembering instantly
Muscle memory
I write about that a lot too
Because it's real
Not many people dream of flinging their arms around someone's neck
In an embrace so close
A moment so detailed
That they wake up staring at their hands
Wondering why they are empty
And not on your skin
Waking up feeling like I'd been robbed blind
Because I swore I just had you again
Only I never did
This is the only place I can see you now
Stare into your eyes that echo into infinity
Feel the warmth radiating off of your skin
And touch the back of your neck
With my hands

“I want John Cusack holding a boombox outside my window.  I wanna ride off on a lawnmower with Patrick Dempsey.  I want Jake from Sixteen Candles waiting outside the church for me.  I want Judd Nelson thrusting his fist into the air because he knows he got me.  Just once I want my life to be like an 80′s movie, preferably one with a… really awesome musical number for no apparent reason.  But no, John Hughes did not direct my life.”

As he looked into her eyes
his hand crept across her chin,
He tried to emphasize the scent that
lingered on her skin.

fresh cut wood and faded dreams,
Rich red wine and nicotine.
If looks could ****, and hers they would,
He'd lose the ground on which he stood.

But dreams sprout wings and off they flew,
Off to the place where dandelions grew.
He'd take her hand and off they'd go,
Off to the place where only they know.
And their eyes locked tight,

this moment they'd miss,
As they shared one final midnights kiss.

take a crowbar
to my ribcage
use the scar
as a book mark
and let the dark
remind you
of the time
you said
you would find

better

one night
many moons ago
I laid face down in the middle
of the street
spilling secrets to the concrete
and hoped
the stars would listen
your name poured
out of my mouth
like I was drawing a bath tub
full of doubt
and never stopping
to pull the plug
I'd let the water spill
over the edge and flood
the bathroom floor
forming a hurricane of
memories
where I swore
you loved me
more

I cried taking my
birth control today
because I don't know the next time
I'll even see your face
let alone
feel your body
between my legs

I want the boy who's never even bothered to pick up a pencil in his spare time to fall for me so **** hard the only form of solace he finds is in filling notebooks with poetry about how my eyes look like the sunsets he never bothered to watch before he met me, how my skin is so soft he has to say it out loud just to feel the words on his tongue, how my kiss sent him to heaven and how he felt like he had it better here on earth in my bed. And I know I'm not the only ******* the planet, but I want to give him tunnel vision; sunglasses tinted with love so strong that he's only able to see me in everyone he meets, see my face on crowded streets and hear my voice is silent rooms. I want him to love me more than I loved you. I want him to show me that it's possible.

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.

and i simply cannot help myself
because i've never loved anything
as much as i love you

i want my name to be the only one
that passes through your lips
i want to be the last hand
you ever hold
the final heart
you claim to grasp

you wanted to be my first
(i want to be your last)

it's june.
your ninety-six year old grandmother wraps her shaking fingers around your hand.
she's dying.
the doctors say she won't make it through the day.
you and your family gather around her bed like crows anxiously circling something from above.
waiting.
your grandmother reaches for your high school year book: ninth grade.
your stomach knots up, and you're not sure why.
silently she flips through the pages with her free hand,
the only sound being that from the oxygen flowing through her cannula.
suddenly she gasps,
and it scares you half to death because you know that she's already far more than halfway there herself,
her clammy fingers clench tighter around yours as she points to a picture on page 57.
everyone in the room looks down at the floor,
as if it is suddenly fascinating,
but you stare at her photo as your grandmother cries and says
"she was the one I was hoping you'd end up with"

it's july.
your grandmother has been gone for one month but you can't get the words she last spoke to you out of your mind.
ninth grade.
high school seems like an eternity ago -
homecoming and prom and then graduation -
you did all of these incredible things together.
but it wasn't enough for you.

it's august.
most people your age will soon be returning to school,
nearing the end of their masters by now.
you can't help but to picture her, smiling for her student ID photo and shuffling through the narrow aisles of an enormous school's book store,
piling her arms full of anything with a hardback and a spine that she can get her little hands on,
books, books, so many **** books -
who the hell's going to hold all of those **** books for her? -
she loved to read.
she loved to write.
you remember the day her first book was published, how she cried for hours and smiled for days,
enthralled with the knowledge that she was now an author.
you watched her sign books, you watched them sign checks,
but you knew she couldn't have cared less about their money. she didn't want it.
you remember all she wanted was for people to read her book. you remember her hunched over her laptop,
constantly updating the website that kept track of how many copies she'd sold.
you remember her signing your book.
all she wanted was for you to read it.
you remember that you never did.

it's september.
you never went back to college.
without her, it just wasn't right for you.
but still, you find yourself camped outside of the university you know she now attends,
looking at every face that exists the building and hoping to god that this one is her.
you wait for an hour,
picturing with giddy excitement the moment your eyes will meet. although there's a crowd of a hundred other bumbling college students you are positive
her eyes will instantly be drawn to yours.
you wait two hours.
and suddenly,
she's there, you see her,
god, after all this time you see her;
and she's still so **** beautiful it nearly blows your mind. you never knew one person could contain so much beauty.
just as you're about to sprint and sweep her off her feet,
you stop dead in your tracks.
the fellow who politely held the door open for the girl
who you realize is in fact no longer a girl
but a woman,
the woman who you used to love,
he takes the books from her hands and wraps his free arm tightly around her waist -
you remember her waist, her hips, her belly button, all the skin you touched and kissed a million times over,
he's touching her now as if
there was never anyone else
before.
you watch although it kills you
because it's simply impossible to turn and look away.
he pushes her bangs - had she always had bangs? - behind her ears and kisses her for what feels like a forever of its own,
and she smiles.
she never takes her eyes away from him.
she doesn't even see you standing there.

it's october.
you drink now, because it's the only way to forget.
you drive yourself near insane wondering how you ever let the love of your life slip right through your undeserving fingers.
you always knew you didn't deserve her.
you just never thought she would ever think the same.

it's november,
but the days seem to run together now.
weeks go by without any attention from you,
and this doesn't matter.
nothing matters.
you lost her.
you remember the first time you ever saw her,
you were fourteen years old.
it was january, but you were wearing shorts. the first thing she ever said to you was "why are you wearing shorts? don't you know it's winter?"
and suddenly, you didnt know.
you didn't know anything,
you didnt know it was winter or monday or 2:52 p.m,
you couldn't tell the sun from the moon or red from blue or anything that didn't have to do with her.
you stood there and you didn't say a word, because you didn't know how to do that either.
but she smiled, and she laughed,
and the sound was enough
to carry you all the way to this day
where you stand drunk,
alone,
without her.

I live in a city where
Once the spring sun finally
Sets back into the April sky
We wear smiles we forgot
That we had

How wonderful it is
To be kissed by the sweet
Sunshine after a cold long-
Distance relationship

Spring brought memories
Of summer
And summer consisted of
Ice cream cones and naps with
The ceiling fan on

It told tales of midnight kisses
And swingset sunrises
Being the first two eyes
To witness the night blue sky
Changing into firey shades
Of red

But it is not summer
       it is not spring

Without you now I live
In a never ending winter
Stuck on replay in december
With bone chilling winds
And blue lips

And oh my god
I miss your finger tips
On my skin and icecream
Cone dips
I cannot bear the silence
of night without your
Heartbeat in my ear

So I still sleep with the
Ceiling fan on to remind me
Of you, dear

Sometimes I see you in glimpses
Snapshot moments with a foggy focus
A man opening the door to our apartment building for his wife
A boy wrapping his arm around his girlfriend as they walk across a parking lot
Staring for too long,
Watching how his fingers fall through her hair
Their smiles, their laughter,
Their normal Tuesday afternoon
They do not even know I am watching
They do not even know
I exist
But today
Their lives played a vital role in our story
These candid moments bring me hope
And I feel the memory of you coming to life in my stomach
Spreading like warmth throughout my body
Until a smile forms on my lips
Oh, how I'm missing you more than ever
And this is the closest I will come
To feeling your love
For months

and today is one of
those days
where you wake up
to reality snuffing out
the flame of hope
and optimism
you've spent weeks
trying to light

today I am bombarded
with the thought of you
leaving
with the weight of
92 days
hanging over my head
like a rain cloud
today
I am
tired

and I've found that even when
I'm with you
I'm not really with you
because I am always too busy
thinking about you leaving
to enjoy what little time
we get to share together
and I'm sorry for that

I don't know how to apologize
for my feelings
in a way that doesn't ask for
you to say
"you don't need to do that,"
because believe me
I do

I am sorry
that despite my best efforts
I will not be able to be strong
all of the time
or perhaps even
a majority of the time

I am sorry
that I will never get used to
saying goodbye to you
that I can promise you
leaving will never get
any easier

I told you
this would be hard
and I meant that
but I also told you
that there is no one else
in this world
that I would rather do this with
than you
and I meant that
and that is what makes this
so
easy

and I mean that.

Lately
The days are growing longer
The sun inside of me is heavy
And tired under the weight of it all
All these days without you
The sky collapses again tonight and
I am drowned in yet another puddle
Of quiet tears that soak your pillow
In a memory so bitter sweet
I feel every muscle in my body go limp
As I force myself to remember your smile
Forgetting is easy
Easier than shrinking behind the cloud of doubt that follows me wherever I go
Sinking to the floor in a pile of broken bones
As if god himself had tossed me like a bowling ball
Making no apologies for the mess I've made of everything that was once in my path
People tell me I am honorable for "holding down the fort" while you are away and don't give it a second thought
They don't know the half of it
I want to say there's nothing honorable about holding everything together with pins and needles
Trying every day to keep myself together
Keep from falling apart at the seams
You made so many holes when you left
No number of nails could hope to hold down this fort without you
Because everything feels empty when you're gone
And you've been gone for so long
I don't even know what it feels like
to be whole anymore

You told me I would fall asleep much faster if I would just put my phone down at night
Count backwards from one hundred, maybe
While thinking about little Bo peep counting her sheep
Or a cow leaping over the moon
But what you don't understand is that every night before I fall asleep
I have to look at a picture of you before I close my eyes
And if I open them again
I have to look at another picture
Because I want you to be the last thing that I see every single night before I fall asleep
And if words like these just so happen to be crawling up the back of my throat
Flying through my fingertips dying to be told
Then that they must
Because when our days are all sold and the air has turned cold
I will turn to the page that my brain somehow holds
And shout from the rooftops a love that's too old
And so off I go to sleep
As you count your sheep
And my love for you will not go untold.

I lied.
A long, long time ago you asked me what my favorite color was. When things were new and clean and easy. Still dancing around in the getting to know you stages. Some days I swear, years later, I am still just getting to know you. But that's besides the point. The point is I lied. You asked me what my favorite color was and I said red. Red is okay, I guess, but red? Plain red, Crayola red, the tin lunchbox your mother bought you for your first day of school red, isn't me.
I always liked blue. Blue anything. Ocean blue, not a cloud in the sky blue, so many clouds in the sky it's almost actually gray blue, the eye color I always wanted blue, favorite shirt blue, toilet bowl cleaner blue, internalized depression blue, art museum walls blue. Blue. I liked blue.
But here I am, saying to you without hesitation that my favorite color is red. And you say that yours is green. You're going on about how our favorite colors are Christmas colors and I am wondering when it was that I decided I needed to be someone other than myself around you.
Many years later, too many years, I am driving down Main Street with a parade of stop lights ahead of me. The colors are doing that thing when my eyes blur them out of focus. Red, green, green, red, red, green. To stop or to go. Part of me is thinking how fascinating it is that we have programmed our brains to subconsciously associate colors with actions and the bigger part of me is thinking about you. And somehow I find this is always the case with everything. As many times as we are next to each other in my line of vision we can never be together. I am talking about the stop lights but I am thinking about us. Green and red can never be on the same stop light at the same time. As soon as I leave, you show up. And it's got me thinking about how we were never really on the same page. How it's taken me this long to realize that no matter how badly either of us may have wanted it, we can never exist together.

I guess now that all is momentarily calm
the war has stopped
and the dust has settled
it's easy to see
that after all there was to say has been said
and all there was to do has been done
I am still the only one
holding on

I have known no greater pain
than this
         this moment where you no longer
love me back

this life where I am alone and
without you
this world where you are not mine
this morning I woke up alone
and tonight
I will fall asleep alone
only to repeat this daunting new cycle
the next day
and the next

and I can't even put this into a context
in which I am familiar with
because this world where I am alone
and without you
has never before existed

I am sick with the constant thought of you;
of your contagious laughter and
our poisonous love
that I am painfully aware
we no longer share

and in this moment
I feel it everywhere

everywhere
everywhere
everywhere

I will not sit here in lies I cannot swallow,
I cannot wallow in this world of sorrow
without you
I cannot hold my head up and pretend as if
you never meant anything to me -

how can I pretend you never meant anything to me when
I cannot stand to breathe this hollowed air
without you,
live on this broken, godforsaken earth
without you,

and is it me or has time completely stopped
without you?
is it me
or has the earth reverted to spinning backwards on its axis
without you,
have the tides of the ocean ceased to kiss its beloved beach
without you,

or has it only been me?

has it only been me
who has spun backwards on my axis
and stood frozen in the empty sea

dear god,
has it only been me
all along?

today. do you know what day it is. has the thought yet to cross your mind or are you still too busy divorcing my memories, pretending your hands aren't ***** from burying the past. have you wiped your palms clean of these sins or are we still entertaining the idea of holiness here. when was the last time you stepped foot inside of a church. threading my fingers through your own as if in silent prayer to never forget this feeling. can you feel it yet. the confessional booth of your bedroom and all the times we sinned so hard that hell started to sound like a happily ever after. do you think about that day as much as I do. you down on one knee presenting me with a diamond ring brighter than god's teeth. the beginning of the end. who do I apologize to for never making it past the preamble. whose house is this church we call a home. all I know is that I would come to you every sunday morning for the rest of eternity if you'd just open up your ******* doors. tell me how to love again, tell me to repent. command me seven hail mary's and watch me taste your name through every single one. your name. honeysuckle and rosemary. the day we buried the children we never had, the day I carved their names into the tombstone of my heart. every day there is a new funeral. voicemails and memories and all things not tangible enough to warrant a casket but still tangible enough to line the graveyard of my mind. *hail mary full of grace, please let me forget his face.

so you came back
            so what
            so now every poem
                          every love letter
                          every "this is not a poem but"
                          every "this is not a love letter but"
                          every "okay, so this is definitely a poem and that is certainly a love letter"
they're all irrelevant now
every night I spent at the bottom
of the mariana trench holding
my breath waiting for you to
take it again
every morning I woke up with
a pillow wetter than niagara falls
and a chest so empty
                for so long
it has still not adjusted to this life
without your heart tucked away
under my ribs
but now that you're here again
and I've got you so close that I can
feel your heartbeat through
my back
your arms wrapped around me
surrounded by the peacefulness
of sleep
and innocence
I find myself constantly touching you
counting your fingers or staring at you
for so long that it begins to get weird
but you don't get it
you've been gone for so long that these
details have somehow escaped
my memory
how soft your hair is
and
how perfectly your hands fit into mine
how tall you are
how long I could hug you
and how
I would never need to let go
or come up for air
             so what
             so you're back now and it isn't fair
for me to hold onto this sadness
             so it's time for me to forgive
                                           and forget
only how am I supposed to forget
this feeling
or
this lack thereof
how am I supposed to forgive you
for nearly killing me
for throwing me over board
for ignoring the SOS of my silence
for forcing me to spend my nights alone
on the ocean floor
you knew I was afraid of drowning
and you tied these cinder blocks
of empty promises to my feet
but you know
and you knew I would be powerless in this
war of holding grudges
        of pride
you know and you knew that when
it comes to you I am always left waiting
with open arms and a hopeful heart
             so what
             so now that we're here again in your bed
and I feel your heartbeat through
my back
your arms wrapped around me
like a straitjacket I never want
to be freed from
every poem
every love letter
now
the clock
resets
to zero
and the score
is settled
again

When you find yourself surrounded
by emptiness and despair,
walking into lonely rooms filled
with hollowed air,
come to me
take my hand
off to never never land.
Where you will never be alone
and never shed a tear,
off to never never land,
take my hand, my dear.

Remove heart from your chest and
throw it on the ground.
Sift through the lies until
it doesn't make a sound.
Mix it in a bowl until
the blood turns cool as ice.
Now whisk it on the stove top and
saute it over night.
Check progress in the morning and
if all goes well as planned,

you have a recipe for a heartache that
no one will understand.

Before you find yourself gasping
for breath at 3:27 in the morning
In the conformity of your makeshift
bed sheet fortress that you've built up
like the barriers that stand around your heart
Wondering how it is possible to
drown without water
Remember that as you run your
fingers over a photograph
That this changes nothing
That staring at a torn and
many times too folded map of the world
Serves about as much purpose
as it did when you stared into his eyes
and hoped to see yourself in there
Or when he slept and you cried
and half of you did not
want to wake him
but the other half desperately
wanted some part of his soul
to know despite his current state
of consciousness that
you were dying inside
But this changes nothing
Because that was then and
this is now,
and the world doesn't wait for anyone.

perhaps many years from this day
I will stumble across you
not the actual you,
the you with eyes as brown as mine and
hands that reminded me how to feel

but some other form of you

a ticket stub from that one movie we saw
a couple of months ago
we sat in the back so that no one would know
we spent our time sharing kisses
instead of watching the movie
that we evidently paid eight dollars
and fifty cents each
to go see

or a password on the computer
I never bothered to change
our initials and the date
I couldn't forget if I tried
are still the only combination
of letters and numbers
that have ever completely made sense to me

perhaps many years from this day
I will stumble across you
yes, you, the actual you
with some other girl under your arm
gleaming up at your brown eyes
your hands laced together
as if it had only been her
all along

I will stumble across you
on a busy city street
you are with her
and I am alone

but I will stumble across you
and I will smile.

falling in love was kind of like
trying to explain what colors are
to a blind person
it was when you ran up the basement stairs as a kid
but never quite knew what it was
you were running away from
what it was that you hoped wasn't chasing you up the stairs
but you were always too scared
to turn around and look
or being afraid of the dark
even though you didn't know
what you were really scared of
its like laying in bed at night
in a more or less constant state of paranoia
and hearing a noise come from across the room
but not wanting to turn and see what it could be
see, we've never really known what it is that we're scared of
falling in love is being scared of everything that might happen
its being scared of what's chasing you up the stairs, lingering in the darkness or hiding in your bedroom
its being scared, but not caring
because you fall in love anyway

Is it love when you can find yourself
gazing deep into their eyes,
Is it love how when you're with them you
escape from your disguise?

How two bodies and two souls can merge
as a single heart,
Or how you can walk the wretched tails
of two paths that never part?

Is it love how you're still so young
yet you've come so far,
when he looks you in the eyes and whispers,
"You don't know how beautiful you are,"

When I was sixteen I took up smoking
To remind my lips of your taste
Cigarettes in the mornings and
Cigars in the evening
I watched the sunset change colors
In the reflection of your eyes
And if I could inject that sight into my veins
Or inhale it through my lungs and electrify my brain
I would
But unfortunately
As far as I'm concerned sunsets remain
Unable to be injected and your smile uningested like the drugs that they were
You left me feeling like a fifty year chain smoker whose lips were left forever untouched
by a single cigarette
And I still don't know how that's possible
But I don't want to
So with every inhale I'll breathe you in and push you back out like the poison that you were
And I still don't know where you are, love
Hiding within the constant tides of carbon monoxide
But the sunset doesn't seem so far

I'll see you on the other side

I feel sick to my stomach when I think of you kissing anyone else
I'm sick with the torturous knowledge that none of them could ever hope to love you like
I did
I want to tell her that I held your heart in my hands for so long that it became commonplace until the day you decided you wanted it back
I want to call you a re-gifter
But I can't seem to get the bees out of my throat
Swallowing glass has to be less painful than this
Than watching you look for someone else like I haven't been standing right in front of you all this time
Yesterday was my first Thanksgiving without you in years
And I'm not sure I remember how to be thankful for anything else
I'm trying to remember the last sunset we saw together
The sky painted itself black and blue and I pretended not to identify with that
I've been writing poetry warning myself of this day for years
And taking this ring off my finger doesn't make it any less painful
or any easier to fool myself into thinking
that I haven't shoved the last 4 years of my life into a box underneath my bed
Like forgetting you is really that simple
I wonder if the ring will still fit by the time you come around again
I wonder if you'll come around again
at all
I want to tell those girls that you don't love them
I wonder if they've imagined what your bedroom looks like yet
I wonder if they know that
the valleys of your mattress are still waiting for me to come back
Waiting to transform against our weight and fill the spaces between your shoulders and my spine
I want to tell them that your walls watched us kiss so many times that it became as common as you turning the lights off
But none of that even matters anymore
and this is the saddest holiday of them all

It is June 16
And I am awakened
At 4:30 in the morning
By a phone call
The first time I have heard your voice
In months
At first it feels like a dream
And maybe it is
But in this dream
When I open my eyes
I can still hear your voice
I can still hear your laugh
I am happier than I have been
In months

It is June 17
And I am already anticipating
The day you will leave again
Sadness rearing it's ugly head
Remember me? It said
The kitchen is a mess
And I can't reach the sink
The trash hasn't been taken out
In weeks
Clothes litter our apartment floor
But it's been months since I've spoken to you
So I ignore them some more

It's June 19
And you're leaving tomorrow
It's all I can think about
I spend half the day at work
And most of the day thinking of you
Escaping outside to call you
On my lunch break
Rushing home
To plug in my phone
And Skype you until we both fall asleep
I'm not ready to say goodbye

It's June 20
And today's the last day
I wake up to one last phone call
And soak up every second of your voice
Your laugh
Your love
The milk expired
There's jelly and syrup on the kitchen floor
And I have no food to eat for dinner
Everything
Is still a mess
Today's the day we say goodbye
We talk and we wait
And I stare at the clock
Fighting back tears
"I love you," you say
And for a moment
Everything's okay
But today's still the day
And I know what comes next
The dreaded goodbye
The tears I can't stop
You telling me to be strong
Me telling you to be safe
Closing my eyes
I refuse to be the one
To let you go

It's June 21
And my heart is hurting
My mind is wandering
And everything feels heavy
The waiting begins again
And I force feed myself
Memories of your voice
So as not to forget
yet again
I'm walking outside
And I'm sorry if i can't meet your eyes today
As i pass by
It all just hurts too bad
And i don't want you to see
this pathetic look on my face
and I don't want to look at you
And see his face
Where yours should be
So I'm looking at my feet
Imagining the day
I come running back to you
Leaping into your arms
And forgetting every bit of this pain

But that day is months away
And today
It is June 21

This feels like a nightmare I've already had too many times before
Only now, I can't manage to wake up
I'm not sure who you were trying to convince when you said you wished this wasn't happening
I wish I could remember the last good day we had
Because all I can seem to remember is four years ago when we were so young and so dumb and so ******* naive and now
And there's no in between
I remember looking at you like you were some kind of God
who swooped down from the sky and saved me
I loved you so much it consumed me
and I didn't ever plan on stopping
The saddest sentence I ever said to you was
"I'm sorry things didn't work out the way we always thought they would."
I wanted you to tell me to shut up
That I had nothing to be sorry for or
that our time wasn't up,
that we still had a chance,
that you still loved me enough to try one more time or a hundred more times,
that love was enough,
but all you said was
*"Me, too."

Living within a death consumed shell,
Engrossed by the madness; a horrifying hell.
Another day goes by living life in a tomb,
Not a sun in the sky, nor a flower to bloom.
Identity lies within the names on the tags,
Fighting for freedom, fighting for flags.
The empty, sorrowed soldier’s eyes
Watch in silence as another man dies.
Locked inside this final fight,
Soldiers die for wrong and right.
And here their bodies laid to rest,
Each of their hearts and souls ablessed.
For one is but a grain of sand,
Lost along this foreign land.

how great it is to realize
that without you now,
there is nothing keeping me here
here in this town,
in this state,
with these people

how great it is to realize
that now I am alone
and free
free to find love and myself and
love within myself
away from you

how awful it is to realize
that these things aren't great at all
standing here without you now,
I can't help but feel so small
the world is big and our love was great,
but it was great and that was all.

how great it is to realize
that I can stand without you now
and that I will not fall.

do you remember the table. you probably have no idea what I'm talking about, but do you remember the table. the garage sale your mother went to one summer morning and the beginning of the end. the small wooden table she couldn't help but to buy for the day that will never come. you buried it's possibility of existing the day you decided to let me go. but back to this table. do you remember it yet. how we imagined making pancakes in the morning and sitting at that table over cups of cold orange juice and warm breakfast and happy hearts. helping the kids with their homework and doing... other things I'm not comfortable discussing with your mother when she asks what we'll do with it one day. you know. you used to want me in any way you could get me. now I write the names of the children we will never have until my hands shake. I make too many pancakes and pour four more glasses of juice than I need for the family we will never create. it's a habit I can't seem to break. just tell me that you remember the table.

I won't rest until you know
that my name sounded best
coming out of your mouth
sliding between your lips and
rolling off your tongue
and sticking onto the *****
of my neck

I need you to know
that your finger tips
belong on the small of my back
or pressed against my lips
amongst the silence before a kiss
and nothing on this earth beats
being tangled up
in your bed sheets
where my extra skin
and awkward curve
may surpass without the judgment
of your mattress and be caressed
as if you didn't have the nerve
and constant urge
to make me believe
I was beautiful

but I don't see it

because when I think of beautiful
I think of your smile
and popsicles
and sunsets

I think of how falling asleep in
your arms is only second best
to waking up in your chest
with your heartbeat in my ear
and my face against your flesh
you once told me

that your favorite time of day
was the way
the sun shifted in harmony
against the bay
of my labored breathing
crashing along the rocks
of your insides
in a nonstop riptide
at five a.m

I then decided

that the way the rays of sunday
morning sunshine
bent before our eyes
knew nothing of beauty compared
to the warmth that lies
between our blankets and
a fresh black brew

fingers and toes and
god only knows
the only place I feel beautiful
is among the morning dew
in bed with you

It's almost been two weeks
and it's safe to say that if clocks didn't exist
this would feel more like two years

I sleep on the left side of the bed
just in case you decide to come back
in the middle of the night
I close the front door behind me but I
always leave it unlocked
incase you need to let yourself in
I keep the key to my heart under
the doormat of my soul
You step on it
and I say thank you
I keep all my belongings in my pockets
leaving my hands free for the off chance
that you come up behind me
and reach for one

You cracked open my chest asking
for your heart back
and I handed you the hammer
You didn't even say thank you,
you must have forgotten your manners
somewhere along the way;
somewhere between loving me and becoming enemies

I can't seem to sleep without you singing
me goodnight
The memories race through my mind like
an old tape that only plays on repeat,
I can't decide if it's broken or not.

You were good at fixing things
with your hands,
all hammers and nails and tape measures,
I wonder how long we'd have to pull
on either end before you gave up
and let go

I tell myself it's all just temporary insanity.
That one day you'll come back to me
with a red tool box in your hand ready
to fix the ******* mess you've made
It's a little like trying to treat
a stab wound
with a bandaid

It's a little like telling myself
that you still love me,
because pretending is easier
than facing the truth
and the truth is that
we haven't spoken in months;
the right side of my bed stays cold;
my hands are always empty;
and the front door never opened
again.

I was seemingly unaware that I was
falling in love with you
With the way you cursed my name
and told me that you hated school dances
But I longed to dance with you
And find myself swooning in a cocoon
of black night dresses and tuxedos
With your arms wrapped tightly around
my waist and my hands laying along
the ***** of your shoulders
And I enjoyed the thought that you fancied
me in a way I naught knew possible
Because at the time I had yet to discover
the missing part of myself that was buried somewhere
within you

I guess
all I ever really wanted
was to be symbolic of something
equal parts happiness and freedom
like the way your flesh lept as your heartbeat slowed inside your chest
as you held her hand
and how my blood turned thick
and cold at the sight of her lips
on your cheek and her smile at
your laughter

I want to tell her that
on the second of September
I kissed you so hard I swore
my lips would have fallen off
had it not been for the way
your voice seemed
to stitch up all the breaking
parts of me

and I wonder if shes seen
the inside of your bedroom yet
where the walls watched us talk and
the windows saw us whisper
midnight secrets

I bet she doesn't even write poetry
about the way you blink when you think
of something good to say or how your shirt wrinkles as you breathe and if she doesn't count your heartbeats before you fall asleep I don't know how I'll live with myself knowing that I lost you to someone who symbolizes happiness with inanimate objects like dog houses and swing sets or white picket  fences and NOT THE WAY YOUR LIPS MOVE WHEN YOU SAY I LOVE YOU OR HOW YOUR VOICE CRACKS AS YOU APOLOGIZE

I don't know how to end this without crying and trying to tell myself that happiness does not only exist
in your kisses
and this is
the closest I'll ever come
to saying I love you
again

Constantly,
over and over and over again
I find myself tripping and
breaking my back for people
who would never even think
of doing the same for me

And I realize that life really is
a never resting sea that takes
no mercy at all in beating the
best of people down
Down
Down

But then I look at you,
mid sentence and in full rant
about how none of this is fair
and and I realized you were actually
listening to me
A real live pair of working
human ears listening to me

And I didn't know how
and I didn't know why
but it didn't even matter because
when you kissed me I felt alive
in a way that made me forget
all of the times I had sworn I
wished I was dead

All I knew was that life
wasn't fair but I didn't even care
because it wasn't fair that
you loved me, because I didn't
deserve it, but God ****** I swear
one day I would earn it

they told us boys weren't
supposed to be beautiful.
that girls don't get *****
and every single scraped knee
was worthy of a band aid,
and somehow no one made
it okay quite like your mother could.
boys weren't supposed to be beautiful,
but I don't think they ever saw
your eyes like I did.
and something about your smile
made me forget about skinned knees
and broken bones
and your laughter made me not worry
about sticks and stones.
boys weren't supposed to be beautiful,
but you were.
god, you were.

There are emergency vehicles screeching
down the inner city streets of me
sirens blaring, civilians cramming their
cars along the curb in a polite form
of avoidance
and you are speeding through the yellow-
lighted intersections of my broken heart
busy with the thought of rescue
because all the aching parts of me have convinced you that it is necessary
and you are my only hope.

My body is a work of art, crafted equal parts by my parents and the stars and Jupiter. The blood that runs through my veins is golden. I am stitched together with ribbons of resilience and strength. I am unbreakable. Invincible. You cannot touch me.

the invisible struggle that exists between wanting to write and not wanting people to know is named after you. late nights and sharpie scrawls on crumpled pieces of paper that will never see the outside of a trashcan. the insides of my eyelids and the paper slips kissed by dull pencil tips are the only ones who will ever know. 3 a.m is the closest thing I've ever had to a friend. the silence is deafening and sleeping is an impossible paradise because I belong on the opposite end of the world. somehow I know that no number of miles will suffice in the category of distance between our bodies. its been months but I still smell the alcohol on your breath that is a little too close to my ear. your hand by my thigh. a warmth on my neck that shouldn't even exist and I can hear myself saying no but my mouth isn't moving and I dont even ******* want to sit here and make rhymes about that night because you aren't ******* worth any of it. you aren't worth a ******* rhyme or a poem or a metaphor because you ruined *everything.