i'm not sure what it is, but tonight i'm thinking about people i used to know.
my childhood best friend, i hear she's awful now but i still love her no matter what, even though i haven't seen her in years. the boy who told me he was in love with me and gave me a crescent-moon thumbnail scar that i still carry today, having not seen him in four years. I look at my left hand and think of our friendship. My grandmother, long past ashes now, with her secret candy drawer, teaching me how to knit and giving me incorrect interpretations of country music. the boy that moved briefly into my drama class, downloaded one of my favourite albums to my phone and took my heart with him when he left. i think of him when i hear those songs, still some of my favourites. ny third grade teacher who told me about idioms and made me write my ks a specific way. my handwriting still looks like your name, sir. the boy who would fix my hair when it got messy, who moved on to cooler friends, and acts like he never touched my face for the sake of it. i still have his number. the girl who i loved books with for years, until we began to read different things and ran out of things to talk about. The boy i dated that sat on the floor of the mall with me and talked to me about all his favourite tv shows and held my head in his lap and never read the book i got him for chirstmas and now only calls me by my last name. the boy who i bought hotwheels in an airport with. i haven't peeled the complementary sticker off my headphones yet, so i haven't stopped thinking of him. on nights like these i miss them. i remember them tenderly. i still feel their phantom arms around me, and it is emptier than a lack of sensation. my heart is a bus stop, more empty for having been full.

there we sit, waiting
for your dad to pick us up
bus stop pavement
spilling our guts

just like we did
when we used to talk
secrets glistening on the pavement
i don't know you anymore

opening like a mouth
the sun is bright and hot
like a tongue or a ribcage
that i used to know the shape of

spit blood at me and
ask me for advice
let me read the sequel
let me back into your life

we could laugh in the sun and dance in the rain~
though you exist worlds & stars away.

~its alright.

i still breathe, if not your name-

still awaken at night & dream at day.

i still live for my wonder & die with my heart, all or naught, wild & untamed-
just-
not for your sake.
ill settle for wind chimes & wildflowers & me

your eyes reflect the stars, but your soul reflects her heart

I’ll never be anything more than that in your eyes

You never looked me in the eye
You craved self-estrangement more than you craved me
You traded brown for green
Became my dearest enemy

I still see you sometimes
You walk past me in the halls
I hold the door subconsciously
You thank me reflexively
Walk through the frame
Could you ever know, how deeply I feel your distance?
But you walk through the frame
And I silently ache

I wish you could see me now
I wish you would read my clumsy poetry
Each word is just a word.
But the stars are just stars
They mean nothing without a heart

you are so pretty
like sunlight with freckles and something unique
i wanted to learn all the facets of your smile
to coax forth each glimmering new dimension of your mystique

but i think
now i know all there is to you
at least for the time being
but love, all the things i intended to know in you
no longer seem so alluring