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

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

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

     but it still happens

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

      it's like a carnival mirror

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

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

                                               muscle memory  
                                               is a real *****

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

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

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

love

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

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


                                                              ­so what

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

I know
but no
                                                              ­I can't

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

we used to be happy

                                               and I think I owe
                                               our past selves  
                                               that much

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

I'm lost in the land of whiskey and lies
trying to refamiliarize my hands with your skin
its been months
maybe years
since we've touched
each shot makes it that much harder
to remember
the freckle on your wrist
the creases in your palms
I can't seem to recall
and I was never a fan of alcohol
but forgetting for a night was never as bad
as remembering the next morning
waking to an empty bed and aching heart
breaking bones and throwing stones
didn't even come close
to the relentless pain
washing me away
with the january rain
that made a home inside your veins
and in a way
this makes me miss you more

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

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

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

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

Press the pen down to the page,
let the blank ink spill its rage.
Filling endless nothingness with tales
from untold age.

Lose yourself, and lose again.
Let destruction of your soul begin.
Wagers from the devil ringing softly in your ear,
While snow flakes fall from heaven all around the silver sphere.

Remainders of your heart left in public disarray,
reminders from all evil that nothing gold can stay.

I was rummaging through our hall closet
Looking for my suitcase
When I saw your old winter coat had fallen to the floor
I quickly picked it up
To rehome it to its rightful hanger
When I noticed your work jacket hanging idle and still
Your name tape peeking back at me
My heart pulling at my chest
And before I could even stop myself my hands were tugging on its sleeves
My fingers feeling the all too familiar texture of that waterproof fabric
That touched my skin in our many embraces just months before
Before I could stop myself I was pulling it out of the closet
Staring at this empty jacket
Imagining your body filling it
Before I could stop myself I was burying my face in its folds
Searching for your scent
The tears were instantaneous
And before I could stop myself
I fell to the floor
Clutching this jacket as if it were anything other than a collection of buttons and threads
I couldn't stop smelling it and I didn't want to
These things are all I have left of you
And although it changes nothing I throw the hanger to the floor and slide into the sleeves,
Pulling this jacket over me
Closing my eyes to imagine for a moment that you aren't even gone at all

It's been so many months since I've seen you
So many months
Of silence
Of waiting
Praying, hoping, wondering
More waiting
So many months have separated us
That now when I look back at our pictures
I feel like a stranger
Looking back on memories I can barely remember
The pictures feel like dreams
From a foggy afternoon nap
I don't recognize the closeness
I can't recall the intimacy
It all feels so far away
So far gone
That when I say I'm not even sad anymore
I mean it
I miss you of course
I miss being happy, really happy
But I'm not sad anymore
It isn't a new pain
It's hardly even a pain at all
And that worries me because missing you felt so routine
It was the only way I felt close to you
Missing you
Was a part of me
The sadness was my rawest form of intimacy
The closeness of concentration at night
Trying to remember your arms wrapped around me like anchors
All the times I begged you to stay
All the times I knew you couldn't
It's been so many, many months
And still, I wait

tell me, brother bear,
what was it that made me so naïve?
what was it about you
that made me believe
you thought of me
as blood?
my mother always taught me
that blood runs thicker than water

but you were never water to me

I was fourteen when we
began mixing drinks for the first time
that night with you, I never knew
there would be a second time
the deja vu was nearly missed
but I felt it
I smelled it in your breath and felt it
as I tipped the bottle back

the second time around
I wasn't quite sure
who exactly I was drinking for
or who I was lying to more

we were never blood

the ***** flooded my veins in such a way that his name even began to taste
like yours
and I wasn't sure why the door
seemed like such an impossible feat
to reach

but it was

and so we drank
I drank until I couldn't see straight
and your face didn't look so much
like your face
you drank until you were drunk enough
to kiss me
and I was drunk enough to stumble up
the stairs
fall into my own bed
and never tell a soul

but let's be honest, brother bear,
our blood was never shared

It's an itch I won't allow myself to scratch
A scar that's begun to scab
and I must hit the top of my own hand
every time my fingers start to wander towards it again
I've placed that horribly depressing doggie
cone of silence around myself
Thankfully,
it's mostly invisible to everyone except me
I've built brick walls around my home,
I'm not quite sure what purpose they serve anymore,
all I know is that when I first started building,
it was meant to keep myself
from going back to you
Now that all too familiar urge has fizzled out and died along with the rest of them
That desire to hear you say my name again
The longing to feel your fingers dance over my skin
in all the places you knew made me cringe
with something much hotter than happiness
Yes, I won't lie
Those walls were meant to keep me from acting solely on impulsive
reaching for you again simply out of habit
loving you out of routine
forgiving you
because it was easier
than letting you go
But now
the walls are there to keep you the **** away
Don't ever come back for me
Don't you ******* dare
Don't come to my home
Don't show up here with a fist full of roses and a throat full of apologies,
wearing I'm Sorry's like body armor against the fire you know is sure to spit out from the mouth you used to love to kiss
And do you even recognize my hands?
The ones that tidied everything despite my undeniable messiness,
the ones that folded things neatly so only to please you, because we both know that I couldn't have gave a **** if that blanket was here or there or anywhere, I didn't care if it was folded or not, I didn't give a ****, dear, but I folded that ****** for you,
the ones that wrote poems you never even pretended to read,
the ones that created masterpieces your eyes only glanced at, never allowing yourself the time necessary to absorb their true beauty because who the hell had time for that? Hello? There were video games to play, babe.
These hands that would have moved mountains for you,
these pacifistic hands that would have killed for you,
fought wars for you,
burned themselves on the stove tops for you,
picked up all the pieces of myself that you single handedly destroyed for you,
and then, like a child, handed them right back to you.
Do you recognize these hands, love?
These hands that built brick walls so high,
I only stopped because they kissed the sky.
Don't stop me if you see me,
Don't look me in the eye,
you packed your bags and left,
you don't get to say goodbye.

Suddenly
I remembered every single reason why
I ever fell in love with you
As you pulled me towards my bed
"I've just fixed the sheets," I had said
And without the slightest hesitation
"Let's mess them up again."

And maybe it hasn't hit me yet
but part of me feels like this
is all just a dream
a bad joke,
a cosmic punch line in the waiting
I'll go home tonight
and lay down in our bed
if I can even convince myself
to first leave the couch
where we last kissed
and I will pass the pile of clothes
on the floor of your side of
the bed
and it will feel like someone stole every last breath in my lungs
but I will get it together and regroup
crawling into my side of the bed
feeling tears well up in my eyes as I catch your scent lingering on the pillow
but I will quickly revert my attention to the clothes on the floor
taking comfort in their presence
as if they are saying "im coming right back for these
to put them away"
as if this morning
when you left
was any other morning
and I will wonder
how long I can leave them lying there
before the sight of them brings me to tears
so maybe it hasn't hit me yet
that so many months now stand between us
that the seasons will change
I will turn another year older
the days will get hard
the nights will be long
and you will be gone
and I know there will be days
where I fall to my knees
drowning in tears
and anxiety
and the weight of it all
and all I will want
is to call you
and I know that this is no longer a luxury
we will be given
so maybe it hasn't hit me yet
but god
help me when it does

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

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

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

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

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

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

maybe I should have expected this
all along
for him to stop while he was ahead
and cut his losses
by desperately searching for the hold button
two and a half weeks before our lives were supposed
to start changing

maybe I rushed this part
this part where we were supposed to grow together
as if we hadn't been doing just that
for the past three years of our lives

but I'd still close my eyes every afternoon
and snuggle into the cotton of your t shirt
the warm glow of the setting sun washing over your walls
feeling like the luckiest girl alive
just to be able to be sitting there
smelling the fabric softener of your bed sheets
lilacs and lavender
feeling like if it weren't for the weight of your hand on my chest
that maybe
I could float away from all of this

two and a half weeks before our lives were supposed to start changing
I realize that
all I really need
is now

I want the world to know
that I would tear apart
my ribcage just to give
you my soul
and play you a song on
my bleeding heart strings

I want you to know
that I would pry open
my skull just to show you
that you are the only thing
that is ever on my mind

I want you to know
that I would pick through
my retinas to prove to you
that you are, and always
have been the apple of my eye

I want you to know
that I know
you wouldn't do any
of this for me,
despite the fact that I
wouldn't hesitate to walk
you through the dying garden
of my soul
But most importantly
I want you to know
that I love you every second
of the day,

regardlessly

strangely
there's something somewhat comforting
about nobody appreciating
your poetry
and in knowing that not everyone will read
and no one will fully
understand
there's something promising about the void of silence
and its perpetually unending eternity of emptiness
and quiet
my mind is a maze that no one bothers to play with
and this bothers me greatly
yet not at all

If at the end of my days I could chose only one memory to keep,
It would be the day that seemed like days stuck on infinite repeat.
The entire weight of the universe rested on the words,
I watched his lips as they moved until my vision blurred.
"I love you,"  he whispered, and I knew the words were true.
Like innocence and certainty, the sky would marvel blue.

I can't help it
whenever I see photographs
I can't help but to say that they
would be better with you in them
your smile screams a hundred thousand sunsets and nights spent kissing somewhere
we shouldn't have been
there was something so twistedly romantic about hands touching among secrecy,
hearts racing that shouldn't be

I couldn't help but to love you
but I know
someday this will pass, too

you are both my Friday night and Saturday morning. when most people read that sentence they likely picture the two of us in the same bed, falling asleep together and then waking the next morning tangled up in each others arms like weeds that refuse to stop growing. they are wrong. what I mean by this is that I am up until four in the morning with this ache in my chest that wears your name. what I mean is that I woke up to sports center on my television and for the smallest fraction of a second it felt like waking up in your bedroom. what I mean is that it has been 165 days, 3,960 hours, 237,600 minutes, 14,256,000 seconds since I've seen the sun, smelled the roses, brewed the coffee, made the bed, held your heart, lost my breath. I have been empty for this five month 13 day eternity.

You are the light among my
existential darkness
The song that people sing
when they are in love
What better way to analogize you
than with the words that pass between
the lips of two humans
whose hearts have sewn
themselves together
for eternity

I look at you and see nothing but
possibility
I see hope hiding behind your eyes
and happiness holding tight to your teeth
when you smile

And what could possibly be better
than this?
This moment where we are alone with
each other and the world

My pillows know all of our secrets
and my sheets smell like your skin
You kiss my face and leave half moons
on your favorite parts of my neck
One hand lost in the ocean of my hair
the other exploring the dips of my spine
Our bodied tied together like a knot
that no amount of time could hope
to untie

And while we're talking about time
no stretch of it could ever
be enough with you

You are a church that never closes,
a sun that doesn't set,
a wall clock beautifully frozen

Let me worship you

You are a forest fire
and I
am but a single match
envying the ferocity
of your flame

And time is the greatest tease of all
I am wrist deep inside your chest
working away at the gears
that move the hands of time
Begging them to stop

Wishing on every single shooting star,
every birthday candle,
every penny,
That when we're alone with each other
and the world,
and the walls of my bedroom
are eavesdropping on our
moonlit pillow talk

The night decides to stretch on into infinity
and the sun never bothers to rise

its 4 am and I'm drunk off the very thought of you and I'm looking at the moon thinking about the first time we ever kissed and how the sun peeked over your shoulders and for a very brief moment my lips touched yours and your soul touched mine but now I'm alone at 4 in the morning and my blood is cold and slow and I'm staring at the moon wondering if its staring back at me from outer space as I'm forming galaxies of thoughts in my head imagining who invented things like semi colons and sentences and punctuation and I want to break every single grammar rule in existance by telling you that I am the human form of a run on sentence and that I love you more than any string of words could ever hope to say

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

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

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

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

The day is drawing near
and every year it comes around
every year
the flashbacks saturate every
dark corner of my mind
I've written
and written
and written
about that night so many times
that I can't stand to anymore
you know what happened in that room
and so do I
but now there's someone new
someone who looks at me
and doesn't see your hand prints
on my skin
who doesn't know
that years later
I still carry the weight of that night
on my chest
it sits there while I sleep
counting my breaths
permeating my dreams
enveloping every empty thought
with an unwelcomed thought
of you
I've got so many skeletons
and I would love to say
that they're all buried beneath the dirt
of time
but they aren't
sometimes
they slip out from the closet
and sit right beside me
sometimes
they hold my hand
and sometimes
like today
they crawl inside my skin
and make themselves
at home

I'd sing for you until my vocal chords bled and I dread the day I can no longer play piano because its always been the only way I've ever known how to say that I love you without moving my lips or spreading my hips so I'll go until I can't feel my finger tips because what's something beautiful without a little pain? life's not worth living if you never go insane. so I'll play this ******* piano until I give myself arthritis but the night is young and our souls are old and my hands break more than they hold.

In that moment we shared a glance, and he saw straight into the depths
of my soul.
I saw myself in his eyes and
felt his heart beat against my chest,
keeping perfect rhythm.

"I'm in love with you," he told me, as if
it was the first time he had said the words.
but it wasn't
and for some strange reason, it felt
as though it was.
Like everything was clear now, and
every time he had said it before was just practice.
This was real.

He gathered me in his arms and
I let myself fall into him,
Listening to the soft sound of his breathing
and feeling the rise and fall of his
back under my arms.
"I love you," he whispered in my ear.
The words flowed so gently
and with such ease that I remembered
he had been saying that same sentence
countless times a day for the past year of my life,
only this time was different.
It felt different in my stomach and
brought the snowball to my throat
that I got when I tried my hardest
not to cry.

I closed my eyes and realized I
had never seen a moment
more beautiful than this,
even though my eyes were closed.
"I love you," I told him,
and in that moment,
I knew I had never spoken any words
more true than those.

"What's it like?"*
Someone asks you on the bus, in line at the supermarket, or over a Sunday cup of tea.
It's a funny feeling; your stomach shifting uneasily and the smile forming on your face simultaneously.
You've done it again. Your lips couldn't help but to frame his name in a conversation that had nothing to do with him. And yet, you still found a way to think of him and mumble his name through a grin and a heavy heart.
So, what's it like?
They mean being away from the one you love, but all you can comprehend is what it is like to love him. And to love him, some days, is your only saving grace. Your safe spot. And yet, at the same time, your Achilles heel. Those parts of your heart are tender with the lonely nights, the constant worry, and the million and one what if's. The fact that you watch a How to Make the Perfect Omelette video at midnight while laying in bed alone, because he is gone, and all you can do to pass the time is plan things for when he comes home. It's a culmination of every night you thought would be the last night without him. It's waking up the next morning to an empty, quiet home, and filling up the air with awful noises that escape from the deepest parts of sadness. It's waking up in a panic saying his name in the middle of the night because you were dreaming of him once again. It's how, anymore, dreams are the only way you see or hear from him.
But love? It's also waking up six hours early the day he comes home, because you're too excited to possibly sleep. It's spending entirely too much time doing your hair and makeup that morning, when you know all he cares about is having you in his arms again. It's seeing his car pull up. It's the butterflies you get and the smile you couldn't stop if you tried. It's running up to him after months of imagining this moment and it being so much more perfect than you ever could have thought. It's feeling him wrap you up in his embrace and finally, finally feeling whole again. It's the second, or the third, or the hundredth "first" kiss.
It's everything.

Maybe it's even worse
when people compliment my poetry
Saying things like
that was so beautiful, and
you are so talented
Because there is nothing
******* beautiful about ripping
apart your heart and looking
for something, for anything to find
worth not hating
And it takes no talent to sit in solitude
and think and think and think
until the only place for you to
put the words you can't speak is onto
some crumpled up piece of paper
And they wonder why all poets live lives
full of love but more of loss
Living breathing and eventually dying
for someone who burned like the sun
and stung like frost.

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

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

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

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

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

but what is a broken home
when you've never known anything else?
anything beside empty chairs
and closed doors
floors that dont tell you
who's walking by the creaks
I dont recall how old I was
when I stopped peeking in your bedroom
every morning
to come crawl into bed with you
it seems so strange to me now
because we cant even seem to look
each other in the eye
and every goodbye is either prior to
or followed by
a sigh
I'm not quite sure when it started
and I don't know
that it can ever be stopped
we fought about simple things,
dinner and movies and
who'd pick up when the telephone rings
the arguments are silent now
nestled between closing doors
and awkward hello's
because we both know
I can never say for sure
when the door
will open again

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

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

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

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

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

It's 3 a.m,
and a month ago, I would have drugged myself to sleep to simply steal a few hours of blissful unconsciousness.
I would have cried until I couldn't any longer, I would have thumbed through each and every photo of you, your voice would have been my last cognizant thought.
I would wake up and convince myself that if I had to, I would wait an eternity for you.

It's 3 a.m,
and now, I'm not thinking of you.
I haven't touched my sleeping pills all week, and I'm staring at the stars realizing that even the smallest victories are worth celebrating. I no longer close my eyes and hope to see your face when I finally decide to open them again. I smile, and you are not the reason why.

It's 3 a.m,
and your body wasn't the last one to be in my bed. Your hands will soon forget the feeling of my skin beneath your palms, all the while his fingertips are rejoicing at the sensation and singing hallelujah in their sleep. You let me go, and he can't stand to watch me leave.

It's 3 a.m,
and finally,
finally,
finally,
I am free

it's almost 3 a.m
and my eyes are begging for sleep
but my fingers are dreaming of your skin
and longing for your touch
and I miss you so much that
I started sleeping on your side of the bed
and I swear I can still feel your lips on my forehead
or the warmth of your voice in my ear whispering goodnight
I love you
you said
it's almost 3 a.m
and one side of the bed
will always be empty
it doesn't matter where I lay
because I swear I feel you everywhere
your name in my throat
and your fingers in my hair
but that doesn't even begin to compare
to the fact that when they asked me for my blood type
I almost choked on your smile
ten thousand miles between our veins and
you still manage to take my breath away
it's almost 3 a.m
and even when my blood turns to whiskey
my mind wanders back to you
in this drunken state of black and blue
I love you
you said
it's 3 a.m
goodnight from your side
of the bed

I remember the day we said goodbye
I think about it all the time
Spending those last two hours with you
Staring at the clock
As if I could will the minutes not to pass
As if each second didn't bring the inevitable that much closer
I felt all the words I didn't know how to say sinking to my stomach
All the times I thought about begging you not to go
All the wars I knew I would lose
I remember staring at you for too long because I knew eventually I would forget the details of your face
The dimples on your cheeks, the smile that filled your entire face, the eyes that made me weak and the laugh that brought me to my knees
I knew I would soon forget these things
Not by choice
Not like one day you wake up and just can't remember anymore
It's much more cruel than that
It's every morning you wake up and feel a little bit farther away
The memory of you feels even farther out of reach
And you try,
You try like you wouldn't believe
I try to force feed myself the memories from that day
The cold winter wind making our noses numb,
Our fingers intertwining,
Your hand anchoring itself to my waist
But that was months ago
And some days I don't know how we got here
Some days you feel so ******* far away
Some days I don't leave our bed because everything hurts too bad
But every day
I love you more than the last
And I miss you more than most

growing up my mother always said
that ***** hands and scraped knees
were good for me
my father taught me
how to ride a bike
and drive a car
but you taught me that life was only
worth living if you lived it with
someone you loved

I guess my father loved cigarettes
more than he loved kissing my mother
and I suppose I loved your hands
much more than any other
set of bones on your body because
it was much harder to recover
from nights of an empty bed and
lonely legs than it was for you to say

goodbye
or
why

my mother failed to mention that
broken hearts and open arms spent waiting
in half made beds behind unlocked doors know much more of pain than ****** elbows and yellowed bruises

my hips had hoped to make your hands
their final resting place
and my lips knew no greater taste
than the toxcity of your kisses
and I wonder
if this is
good
for
me

May
the first day
of a new month
how
appropriate

May
you used to be my favorite month
the weather turns warm
and the rain subsides
my birthday
graduations
and just a general sense
that things
are getting
better

May
today it is pouring down rain
literally
and metaphorically
I cried for the first time last night
in months
a flood of emotions
that have failed
to remain
repressed

May
although if you asked
I would swear to you
that I am still stuck
in January
how have 5 months passed already
where has the time gone
and when will the rest of it go
when

May
nothing good will come of you
this year

It's got me wondering how many
more times I'll have to fall apart
before all the pieces of me are gone

why is it that every single day
I am stuck in this catastrophe
of missing you
and the thought of me is one
that never bothers to cross your mind

I want to ask how you're doing
and while I'm at it I think I'd also like
to ask how the hell you think
you've managed to move on

the cat we never owned has had my
tongue for the past two months
but now I am volatile

irrational
with the thought of showing her the ring
you had plans of putting on my finger
just weeks before everything was
shot to ****

it shouldn't matter
and maybe it doesn't
but do you think of me?

when the sun shines through your bedroom window and catches
against the glass
throwing rainbow prisms on your wall
when you see a stray dog
or breathe a stanza of poetry
when you've been working on something
and your hands are stained with paint the way
mine always seemed to be
back when I was in love and inspired and
always had something to make for you to
look at but never see

and when you look at her
do you see me?

are you haunted by the memory
of everything you promised me?

or is it all just a messy pile of nothing
years worth of everythings that you
shoved into a day
hours of kisses that you erased
from existence
and a body beneath you that all
you had to do was replace

when you're about to fall asleep
can you ******* name on your tongue
telling you goodnight?

when you wake up
do you ever wonder where I am?
whose bed I'm sleeping in
who's kissing my neck
and taking my socks off with his teeth

do you think of me
wondering
or is it nothing more
than just a memory?

I wish to identify myself
with every familiar part of you
to turn and face you at the break
of dawn and find comfort in the way
you breathe as you awake
and rest quite contently on your shoulders
as they bear the impossible weight
of an apology

I took shelter beneath your finger tips
as they turned the pages
of your favorite book
and I found myself seeking refuge
in your palms as you shook
my fathers hand

the same hand that held a
million different demanded
apologies and fragments of
broken promises and hooks
that wrenched themselves
around our hearts and
sunk down into our skin

the same hand that shoke
hastily at the arms of rapture
with veins that resembled
lightening strikes embedded in
our flesh

I want to forget the rest
of the world and go get
lost inside your chest
I want to call your body home
make friends with your bones and
take shelter beneath your ribcage

your smile radiates a rendered
warmth that my lips
haven't felt in days,
and as I turn to face your empty
bed side at the break of dawn
my mind suddenly recalls
the way your lips curled up
as you said you'd always stay

where, oh where have you gone

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


it is.

Perhaps the most beautiful part
of it all was the fact that he
loved me regardless of my
many imperfections. I swear far
too much, I fail at moderation,
and I am quite possibly the most
emotionally inconsistent being
on this ******* earth. But in
his eyes, every day was a new day.
A new day to live and laugh and
love - if we were lucky, we did
these things together. In his eyes,
he was always lucky.
In mine, I still am.
I am lucky to have loved you.
*Gosh, I am lucky beyond
compare.

If I had to define the word love
I guess I would start with the way
after so long has passed two people
are able to converse by means of
squeezing hands or sharing glances
But maybe a better place to begin
would be how for as long as I had
known you, I could count the number
of times I had ever witnessed tears
fall from your eyes on one hand
None of those times including when
your older brother left to go over seas,
or as you held a pole on your
grandfather's casket
But today I watched your eyes fill
with tears as I spoke your name
and told you that I loved you by means
of nonsense metaphors
and ammature poetry
So I guess in the end
it doesn't really matter where i begin
to define the word love
As long as I have you by my side

tomorrow was never promised. I know that, I guess I always knew that. one day too many yesterday's ago you told me that eventually, one day, we'd be waking up to each other in a bed two sizes too big for only two people but that was okay because your voice always had a way of filling every empty space, the void in the air or the empty between our sheets. a bed two sizes too big can quickly become two sizes too small when all you want to do is fall into a set of arms that are no longer laying there. too many yesterdays ago we spoke of tomorrows and forevers, of sunday mornings and tuesday brunch and kitchen counters and coffee tables. we spent days staring at globes picking out all the places where we knew we'd never go, and I couldn't breathe when you finally decided to pack your bags and leave.
part of me hoped you'd come back.
part of me still does.