I live in the shadow of a girl who never existed. I exist in the wake of a love lost. When the fire came and took everything, I was the only thing that remained. God was there to pry the dagger from my trembling hands. He looked me in the eye and said "it's time to let go now, if you don't you'll never learn how." So I thanked him for this second chance he had given me and I left, forgetting what I thought I didn't believe in. I thought the worst of it was over, but no time spent in Hell could've prepared me for Earth. But then I found him, and I found solace in the corners of his mind. I tried to help but there were so many bombs and only one of me and I am so small. I fell from Heaven's Grace with ease but I was not prepared to fall in love. I was scared, for a King could never love a peasant. If I had to choose, I would fall from Heaven a million times over before I would willingly choose to fall in love. Because I know what to expect when I hit the ground, I know how to brace my small body against the dirt. But I do not know how to protect myself against a broken heart. The first time he took me out of his head and put me in the light I was petrified; I had spent so much time knowing his every thought that this foreign uncertainty made me feel sick. But there was beauty in it too, a small spark of heat growing somewhere inside of me and that was the most terrifying part of it all. That night I begged God to let me back into Heaven, but he told me this was my home now. So I learned the ways of life in this small town, I taught myself to be polite and to laugh at all of the right times. I made friends and eventually lost friends, I got in and out of relationships so fast it left me reeling. But every night, my Brothers and Sisters would come to me and tell me that I had to go and find him before it was too late. So I left, and I wandered until I found Him, and I told him I loved him even though I wasn't sure what that word was supposed to mean. I gave him all the parts of me I thought were lost forever, I let him see me naked, I let him see my Grace and where my wings had been before I Fell. He kissed the scars on my knuckles and told me I was beautiful, and as the old human saying goes "the rest was history." This is my home now, we have a beautiful Nephilim child and a tiny house in the woods. I feel human in my heart, because he has planted the seeds of love in me. I am writing this as a letter to myself, so that I can read it whenever I need, so to never forget where I came from and how I got here. I don't miss Heaven anymore, I have found true Nirvana in the way our daughters' eyes light up when he comes home from work. I used to be mad at my father for sending me down here but now I wish there was a way to let him now how grateful I am, though I have a feeling he already knows. We are expecting another little girl in May. We're going to name her Amriel - or Amy, for short. I know I said that I would never willingly fall in love but if falling in love means a perfect husband and a daughter who dreams about Angels and draws clouds on her walls, then I would choose to fall in love over and over again.

So much of me was lost in the fire. There are days when I can’t help but go looking for those pieces, but please don’t follow me. Just be there when I come home, because I will always come home. Please be patient with me, I am still so broken and sometimes I forget how to love. Don’t let me start fights just because I feel numb, I will hate myself so much more in the morning and you will get sick of my constant stream of apologies. You’re not him and you never will be; you are a million times better. Please don’t ever compare yourself to my past. Sometimes I cry for no reason, just hold my hands no matter how hard they are shaking and don’t let me drown. Forgive me if I ever flinch away from your touch, this skin of mine is not used to kindness. There is a black hole buried inside of me; be careful. I will write about you until my fingers bleed, I will follow you to the ends of the earth, I will make myself sick with loving you. I will turn myself inside out with worry. I will run, I will push. Oh my god, I will push. I will hurt myself and I won’t call you because I don’t want to need you. I will confess in tears on your bedroom floor the next day and I will feel too guilty to even look you in the eye. Please tell me it’s okay, even if it’s not. I promise I am trying, but I still fall sometimes. Let me be the little spoon, let me hog the blankets, let me steal your fries. I will always talk during movies, I will forget that it’s impolite to point or to stare, and I will never learn how to whisper quite right. I will try and tear myself apart and then beg you to help sew me back together. I will pretend I don’t need your help even when I do, don’t let me push you away. I will always feel like a burden, “confidence” is not in my vocabulary. I am light years past overly sensitive, and nearly everything hurts my feelings even if I don’t want it to. I am stubborn, and I will get mad when you tell me what I need to hear even though secretly I am so grateful. I will make stupid jokes that fall flat and laugh too loudly at all of the wrong times. I will trip and knock things over way more times than either of us can count. I will say “I love you” too much, I will say it in between every sentence. I just don’t want you to ever forget. I will tease you for how loud you snore, even though it really makes my heart swell. I’m going to get you sick, I’m going to steal your clothes, I’m going to make your life Hell. I have a lot of baggage and a lot of drama, and no matter how hard I try to keep you out of it I can’t. I will probably ask you to marry me at some point, and I know I will talk about the future even if I try not to. Always pretend you don’t notice that I’m embarrassing myself. Tell me what you dreamt about, tell me what you saw on your drive to school. Tell me what you and your friends did this weekend, tell me what movie you and your parents watched. Tell me everything, I want to know everything. Tell me what you think about the world, tell me what you think about God. Don’t let me forget who I am. I love you, okay? Even when I’m bad at showing it.

Licorice veins and pancake hands. You've got a universe where your brain should be and a feather for a heart. Your love is like a mountain range, your love is like a crashing wave. I say, "Oh, please ,can we have a wrap-around porch? And a balcony to kiss you on? And a swing to watch you grow old on?" And you say, "In time, darling." And I say, "But I want so badly for it to be now." We drive until our eyes go blurry and I pick you flowers on the side of the road. I put them in your hair, like a crown, and tell you you're the king of the forest, only the forest is inside of me; but I don't tell you that part. We make love in a truck stop bathroom and I tell you that if there is an after life I want to spend it with you. I burn your birthday breakfast (and lunch and dinner), but you kiss my eyelashes and assure me that take-out is fine. You write me short stories on butterfly wings and I whisper 'I love you' through my fingertips. We go to the moon one night and meet God, he tells us we are right for not believing. I ask you to marry me somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle, you tell me yes on one condition: I stop trying to change the way I view the world. If we were younger, I would throw a baseball through your window and ride my bike across your lawn. If you put me under a blacklight, you'd see nothing but your fingertips. I want to bake you apple pie-or blueberry, if you prefer.  A garden in the backyard, full of sunflowers for your mother and lotuses for mine. Chocolate chip pancakes with a side of memories for breakfast, and chocolate milk to drink. We can fall asleep and travel the world. Tell me about your dreams, the good and the bad. How many dogs is too many dogs? I want to melt into you.

We’re in the back of your car and I’m looking at the stars and it just kind of hits me, so hard it knocks the wind out of me. You’re the love of my life, and I want to tell you but I don’t. There’s a lot of things I think about telling you, but I don’t. You look at me and say “let’s run away”, and I don’t think you realize that it’s impossible to run away when you are my home. I follow where you go. I want to map out your body with the palms of my hands, I want every peak, every valley, every dip, and every curve etched into my brain. I want to ball you up and hide you safely behind my eyelids. If your love was a sea I would swim to the end of it, if your hands were bumble bees I would sing to them always, if your heart was a hummingbird I would grow you a garden full of flowers so it was never scarce of nectar. I can’t write like you do, I can’t move the earth like you do. But I love you, oh my god, I love you. I’ve been waiting for you my whole life. I know that one day we’re going to die and anything we did while we were living won’t matter, but you will. You’ll be the one thing I somehow remember, it’ll be oblivion and you. The great love of my life.

I'm ******* terrified because I miss you so much my heart feels like it's caving in and I saw you seven hours ago. Looking at your face in the dark I can already feel how badly it is going to hurt when you leave. There are 10-12 hours (give or take) everyday that I'm not with you so in one week that means there's almost 5 days I'm missing out on and in one month that's roughly 20 days spent without you and in one year thats 240 days I don't get to see you. It scares me that I know that. It scares me how much that upsets me. Some days I wake up feeling like you're already gone. I'm already sad for next year. It may be your last semester but it feels like mine too, but its not a relief. I'm stuck here for another year and a half and by the time I catch up with you, you'll be all moved on. I've never been this comfortable and that's how I know I probably won't survive you leaving, and I can lie to myself and say it'll be fine but my heart is already breaking. How am I supposed to change every aspect of my life? I said I wouldn't need you but my fingers were crossed. I think I've needed you my whole life. I shouldn't put this weight on your shoulders, I shouldn't be pulling you down. I shouldn't be doing this to you. I would like to be able to say that I deserve this and I deserve you but I know that I don't. You're a gift from the Universe that I got by mistake but I'm too selfish to give you back. I'll probably be the first to say "I love you" but I know I'll be the last to leave.

I sat for an hour in my car, in the cold, in the silence. I went through pictures of us until my thumb went numb. I let the life drain out of my phone battery and then I let it drain out of me and then I began to cry. I don’t know why I get so sad sometimes, I just do, but I wish I could stop it. How come every time you drive away it feels like I’m never going to see you again? How come my heart breaks with the weight of missing you when you’re only a room away? I don’t want to need you. I don’t want to do this to you. I love with no point of return and no intent of returning and you ripped the map up the night I made you laugh for the first time.

You are crushed up candy hearts. You are a song that gets stuck in my head for weeks on end. You are skin on skin. You are heat. You are electric. You are my journal, the one I lost and still cry over. You are forgotten movies and discarded shirts. You are meeting me half way. You are meeting me at the bridge. You are desire. You are coming home after the longest day. You are what it feels like to have your bones settle in. You are sweaty palms and wet lips and sparkling eyes. You are comfort. Have you noticed that all of my poems start with "you" these days? There are two hearts left on your bedroom floor and while one may be mine, they both belong to you.

There’s beauty, there’s magnificence, there’s splendor, and then there’s you. Sometimes I’m not 100% sure if you’re even human, or if you’re this superior race slumming it with all of us apes. I thought I knew what it meant to be in love until you told me about the 3 times you laughed so hard you cried. You ask me if I’m happy with you and I think you’re kidding because, c’mon, you’re the best thing I’ve ever had. I was falling through space when you found me. Well, I say found, but it’s more like we collided. You were Haley’s comet and I was blinded by your light and I stumbled into your path. If I believed in God I would say that he wanted us to be together. Sometimes, late at night, I imagine a bunch of Gods and Goddesses up in the sky fighting over you. I think that’s why we have thunder storms. Zeus is screaming at Aphrodite that he must have you because something so beautiful could only be his son, but Hades is trying to explain why he deserves you because you are worth more than anything money could buy. But I think that I deserve you the most, because even though I’m not a goddess, my love for you is pure and untouchable. I cannot give you the world, I cannot grace the earth with a permanent overcast for you, I cannot make all of your dreams come true. I cannot do anything but stand by you and hold your hands even when arthritis has taken over. I’d move mountains if the sun was in your eyes. I’d change the seasons if the temperature made you uncomfortable. I’d breathe underwater for you any day. But I know you, and I can see how pure your soul is, and I know you could never ask for any of those things. But you deserve those things, you deserve every good thing the Universe has ever created. You are the best thing the Universe has ever created.

I tend to shut down, intimacy and touch have never been my strong suit and I usually retreat into the safe crevices of my mind, and that’s how I know you’re my gift from the Universe. My one special thing. When you kissed me, it’s like I finally woke up. Everything has been dull and muted and only halfway there and I’ve been hiding for so long, but I’m not hiding anymore. You followed me into my mind and we got lost together and I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to get you out and that is something I am completely okay with. I’ve kissed too many boys and too many girls but nothing can compare to you. None of my past loves matter, it’s like they’re not even real, just a ghost from another life. All that matters now is you and the fact that you must be some sort of miracle worker, because the walls of my mind are far too high for me to even climb out of but somehow you found a way in. Everything is beautiful with you safely tucked away in my heart and my head and I’m not scared of anything anymore.

Having feelings for you was like blindfolding myself and spinning around in a bunch of circles and getting really drunk and then deciding to go stumbling through a canyon with only one way out. I knew what I was getting myself into but I am a strong believer in the benefit of the doubt, of miracles. I wanted to know you from the inside out but sometimes I think I only know you from the outside in. On paper, we were perfect. Everyone thought we were made, ****, even I did; but there were flaws in our fabric that not even we could see. I’ve been told that if a writer falls in love with you, you never die but what happens when you fall in love with a writer? Sometimes I think if you laid me down side by side with a corpse you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. There’s a lot to be said about lost relationships, but what is there to be said about almost, could-have, should-have beens? I don’t know if I’m allowed to miss the way you’d say my name like you knew something I didn’t, like there was this big secret about me that only you knew. Sometimes anger and sorrow block out longing, but that’s not to say that I don’t miss you. I hold my breath whenever I see you but I’m not even sure why or what I am so afraid of. You were always the one to pick up the pieces but I’m not sure what to do now when you’re the one that put them there. I know I will be fine, and that one day I won’t exist and nothing will matter, but right now everything matters. I am a veteran in heartbreak, I know what to do this time. I’m a sucker for symbolism, and I think maybe that’s why I opened that fortune cookie last night. I wanted so badly to mean the world to you like you did to me, I wanted so badly to show you that love was good and though she hurt you I never would. I wanted so badly for us to grow, and to thrive. I wanted so badly for so many things but all I’ve got left is a dead rose and a text message waiting to be sent. I’m way past losing track of time. Tracking time. Things that seem so minuscule are colossal to me and every slight shift in your demeanor felt like a hurricane. I remember this one time, I got so ******* high and all I could do was talk about your hands. That’s when everyone knew I was ******, because I was singing songs about your hands before I ever got to hold them. I think I owe it to myself to find closure, but how can I expect to do that when I don’t even know how to end a poem? I was just a bad apple and you are the most beautiful orchard. I never deserved to be a part of you.