Sometimes I wish you were a bad person,
As if you'd have hit or yelled,
Or tried to make me feel poorly about myself,
Or do anything wrong at the slightest,
But you never did,
Rather, you had showed me what love is,
Writing notes that I still read some nights,
Holding my hands or kissing my lips,
All the small things you done for me,
Make me miss you more everyday.
But I know if you were a bad person,
It wouldn't hurt so bad anymore.

its coming up on a year
a year without you
longer than I had with you to begin with
and I can say I don't think of you often
in passing more than anything
and i feel little about it

I know one day it will be my wedding day
someday, as lace cinches my waist and vows hover in the air,
as i get ready you’ll cross my mind
not from longing, just a glitch in memory’s muscle
curiosity killed the cat but I’ve been dead all my life
so I’ll wonder where life has taken you
and I’ll be glad I don’t know for sure, glad you’re not at the end of the altar waiting for me
and maybe I’ll have the children I would never have been able to have with you
and they’ll like poetry, and I’ll think of you again
I’ll teach my boy to not act the way you did, the way I hope by then you don't either

I’ve come to accept that thinking of you will happen
you shaped me as a person and six months can hold a lot of weight, turns out
I’ve stopped worrying about subconscious meanings
I think of you not because you still hurt me, not because I’ve not moved on
I think of you the way i do about those mornings when I was seven and watched the tv all alone  just to let time pass
in the way i think about that one mean girl from middle school, or that pretty girl from high school
in the way i think about my grandpa, the memories few and blurry and probably half made up
in the way i think about my first job, a lesson of bitter taste followed by so much better
in the way i think about every other boy that came and hurt and went

I miss her,
I miss her perfectly loose curls,
I miss her gorgeous brown eyes,
I miss falling asleep to the sound of her voice,
I miss when she could make me smile when nobody else could,
I miss holding her sharpie-tattooed,
I miss kissing her soft lips,
I miss feeling the warmth in her hugs,
I miss the way she would look at me,
I miss when she'd tell me how much she loved me,
I miss when we thought we were made for each other.

She is the reason
I count the exits before I sit down.
3 windows, 2 doors, 4 friends to go talk to,
I fold myself small in crowded rooms.
I let my shadow walk ahead—
just in case she is waiting behind me.

She is the reason
my name sounds foreign in my own mouth.
It used to be mine,
warm, whole, sure.
Now it is just a noise I do not trust.
“Matthew” she’d call.

I hate hearing that sound

She—
(is the reason I mistake love for danger)
(is the reason I taste irony in "I miss you")
(is the reason I do not know how to love)

She is the reason
I flinch before I am touched.
I flinch before I am hurt.
I flinch before there is even a reason to.

A hug should be easy, not torture.

She is the reason I can’t say "no."
No is a match against gasoline breath.
No is a door ripped off its hinges.
No is a crime scene where I am the suspect.
(why did you make her so mad?)

She is the reason I smile when I am scared.
A trick I learned to survive.
A trick I cannot unlearn.
A trick that fools everyone,
even me.

—But she is not here.

Is she?
I tell myself she is gone,
but she is still the reason.

She is the reason I run.
She is the reason I stay.
She is the reason I am afraid to be loved,
and the reason I am terrified to be alone.

She is the reason.
And I hate that she still is.

i burn with fury
he could leave me
but i don’t have that luxury
he saved himself from me
i am held hostage
by this obligation to live
his abandonment is not termed
selfish the way mine would be
so i stay,
alone with the knowledge that i am someone people leave.
someone everyone leaves

he had this light in his eyes.
i never thought i would see “home” so vividly
until i looked into those eyes
those sweet brown eyes
filled with light.

i look into your eyes now
searching for the light he had
and i see nothing

i ask you thousands of questions
to understand you
like i understood him-
or so i thought i did-
but you say nothing

you make me smile
but not laugh like he did
volcanic eruptions of pure bliss
now valleys of yearning

i fear i’ve gone too far
and i can’t go back to him
what would he say anyways?
he still wouldn’t want me
though i was so sure he did

and you’re smiling at me
and you’re complimenting me
but i’m looking right past you
trying to see if i can see him
through the crowds and swarms of people

you look at me, and i smile back
but i’m staring into your deep brown eyes
searching for a light
that only he had

i wish i never put
you
in my journal
because the thought of
you
is so cringey,
that i didn't even want to open it.

In Time
To be understood, that’s all I needed.
To be touched, not just skin-deep but soul deep.
But I was never truly seen.

My eyes dulled hollowed.
Yours… gone.
I watched from behind invisible bars
As you kept living.

A hollow man, buried in memories.
Stuck in the past,
Convicted by what I did,
By what we were,
By your love, your promises.

And I still wonder…
Did God turn His face from me?
Did your eyes ever really care?
Was I just a stepping stone on your cruel little journey?

“I love you,” I whispered,
Heart still waiting for you to come home.
Mind frozen in time,
A relic waiting to be remembered.