i once had a dream.
about her, 
of course. 
who else would it have been?

and she was there --
in front of me
laughing, 
looking so
effortlessly
pretty,
like joy had learnt
how to refract
through her smile.
and she was
my girlfriend.
my
girlfriend.
and her lips --
they looked
like they were something...
between a promise
and a secret.
warm,
and soft.
i smiled
at her.
gosh.
she slowly leaned in,
and i had
plummeted
into waking.

it was just a dream.
not real.
not at all real.
but god --
it felt like solace.

you said it was a joke,
about how you wanted to kiss me
you looked me
straight in my eyes
and told me,
"i could kiss you right now"
then pulled away after a moment.
your touch lingered,
i could still feel your hands there,
on my cheeks,
holding them.
i could still feel
your body heat --
you had gotten too close
close enough for me to still feel it
because even though you left
you were still there.

you said it was a joke,
but the look in your eyes
it was desperate,
like you needed a push
to kiss me
then
and there

He said I always make things worse.

I traced our last conversation
inside my lip with my tongue,
until it burned like citrus.

My teeth still taste like that night—
miso soup, metallic coffee, a dare—
and the word “almost” said until it split.

I don’t start the fires—
I just know how to fan them
so the smoke spells mine,
so the ashes spell proof.

“You’re welcome for the mirror,” I said,
then, “You flinched first,”
like scripture I was tired of reciting.

He called me a problem
and then prayed for something exciting.
Well, God listens.
And she’s been on my side lately.
(And sometimes inside me.
And sometimes wearing red.)

You say I write like it’s a weapon.
But you brought a sword to my poem.
You heard me speak—and called it war.

I’m not the plot twist.
I’m the motif.
I’m the whisper that keeps showing up
even when you don’t name it.
Especially when you don’t name it.

You wanted a girl who could break
without getting any on your shoes.
Who called it miscommunication
when it was a massacre.
I called it Thursday.

I made you feel.
You made it a crime scene.
Now every sentence tastes like sirens.
But sure—blame me
for the blood in your mouth
when you kissed me wrong.

So yeah—
maybe I do make things worse.
But worse is where the story gets good.
Where you start reading slower.
Where your hands start shaking.

It’s not that I ruin things.
I just ask questions
that don’t look good in daylight.

It’s not that I mean to wreck things.
I just don’t know how to leave a room
without checking every exit
twice.

And labeling each one ‘almost.’

You ever love someone
so hard you forget to be charming?
Me neither.

He thought he was the mystery.
I’m the red string
and the corkboard
and the girl in the basement
with the map of everything that never happened.

You didn’t fall for me.
You fell through me.
That’s not my fault.
It’s gravity.
Or girlhood.
Or God, laughing behind her hand.

Say it again. Slower. This time, with your hands in your pockets.

Almost....
death could not hold a torch to the word that lingers in my mind every second of every day.
we were almost something, and that almost will haunt me for the rest of my life.
I will think about how we almost kissed that night in the dark, drunk off ***** and each other.
how you almost held my hand when we were so close to each other in the back of that old chevy truck.
the almost, when you smiled at me,
when we looked at each other,
when every word held so much anticipation.
our almost will be my forever.

Just because the flower never bloomed,
And the wind carried no trace of its scent,
Doesn’t mean it wasn’t beautiful.

Maybe the season was cruel,
Maybe the sun never reached it,
Maybe it was meant to stay unseen.

But in another time, another spring,
Maybe it will bloom
And we won’t ask if it was ever just a bud.
We’ll know it was always meant to be.

I’m almost a poet.
I almost make sense
Enough to impress
Others with my senseful nonsense

I’m almost a poet
And I almost understand
Others’s poems and other poets
In the end no use, I tried to no end
But I like to pretend.

I’m almost a poet,
My metaphors are almost immersive enough
And my edges and corners are almost not rough

I’m almost a poet
I’m almost there
But not quite
I’m almost a poet
Almost - a man.

_M

You buried me
Half the world away
And a lifetime ago

Yet you find me
In your every daydream
In every foreign touch
In every what if...

Almost...
But never quite