I try so hard to be a poet.

I'm writing you from the back of a coffee shop napkin because it's the only place I know you might see it.
I'm smoking cigarettes just so I remember to breathe,
And filling in the blanks between them
With meaningless words
That sound like they might give me a reason
Like "romantic" and "addiction"
And sometimes
Just your name
Over and over and over
Until I'm brushing ink off my fingers and onto my new jeans.

The earth is grasping at my fingertips.
It's 2AM and I don't know how I sleep at night.
(I don't)

Some nights I lie awake and think
About how there's a universe inside of you.
I'm shooting for the moon
But I'm coming out much closer to the sun than I expected.

I lie awake and picture,
In my head,
All the ways that this can go wrong
    Will go wrong
          Have gone wrong
I thought we were getting better
But it's more like
We're getting older every second.
We're just pennies in pockets of good luck addicts
We were born to make a change
But instead I'm watching re-runs of lifetime at 3 in the morning.
(Nothing ever changes)

Every night I tell myself
That tomorrow
I'm going to try a little harder
To try.
Every morning I tell myself
That tomorrow
Would be a better day to start.
(I live by the golden plated rule.)
I'm running out of room on the back of bookshop receipts,
And the woman behind the desk is telling me
That I'm running out of time
Until they close for the night.
What I hear
Is that I'm running out of time
To live forever.

When I was eight years old,
I told my mother
That I would never smoke a cigarette
And I've always thought it was funny
How we learn to break promises at an early age.
(You are not the exception.)
Now I measure daylight in smoke breaks
And starlight
In how many times I can be a contradiction to a former me.
(Eight and counting)

I try so hard to be a poet,
But the truth is
I can't make any promises.