and it's taken me two years but I think I finally get it
it wasn't the forced laughter or the radio silence
it wasn't that every time I needed you, you never picked up your phone
too busy talking to God as usual
while I was screaming his ear off about you
you
and your white teeth and ambiguous intentions
you caught me numb on your kitchen floor
laughing in your old clothes when we're alone together praying that this time this side of you would stay
and for once you do
until there's someone new to impress or I just need to talk to someone at 1am
apathetic until something in the way of my being applies to you
and just like a kid you'll sit me down line our pieces up and try to convince me we're the same
you shoved the pieces that wouldn't quite fall into place under the couch and color coordinated and combined with no true knowledge of the picture
just like a little kid hell bent trying to please a parent
you tried to fit your life in mine but you never quite realized that I am not a puzzle and you are not a part of me
and it's taken me two years but I think I can let you go
I'm done driving to your house
I'm done watching you on social media intently trying to understand who you are and why the hell you do what you do
and it's been two whole years of passive aggressive talk contrasting quiet afternoons on your floor or blue nights spent driving around the city
it was below thirty but you let me roll my window down and so I could breathe the frigid air and tangle my wrists in the power lines
it all boils down to a simple statement:
you were there until you weren't
until it didn't revolve around you
you didn't want a friend you wanted an adventure like the pictures you pin on your wall
like the mindless **** you fill your head with to appear tragic and interesting
and I understood when you brought your new friends to my birthday
unannounced
uninvited
cold
and I saw pictures the next day of them in all of the places we used to frequent in the summer when I gave up on substance and just wanted someone to be with
and I know that the world belongs to everyone
but those nights belonged to us
quiet
secret
hot blue in a sea of navy and gold
like words whispered into a lover's shoulder
and when I saw the pictures I just kind of knew
that you never understood a ******* word of anything I said when I talked about how moments like these inevitability fall through or the cracks of existence or whatever
and you left early because they wanted to go and I smiled and said it was fine
you didn't get it
but I think I do now
it's only taken me a couple years or so.

Why trick me?
You're smarter than that,
You know lies are transparent.
I know what you're doing, I allow it to happen.
But I sit back and write this,
Rather than push you.
Because I'd like for this not to be my responsibility.
I'd like to avoid being the one to break you.

It was all dark skies and twilight and
rare glimpses and wondrous sunlight
peeking behind lurking rain clouds and
I let you take my hand the night that

Jacob died and you led me to places I
would have avoided, glass sheared my feet
but you smiled so sweetly and it emptied
that void for a little while. And you said

such terrible things about falling so
I bricked up my mouth. But I wonder
after I departed, irrevocably wordless,
if you stole that void for your own.

Vocal silence
Does for an
Argument make.
You hide behind your belligerence;
With mortar of icy rage and
Stones of cold indifference,
Laid with trowels of denial,
Lobbing nothing wrong
Like fury-fueled firebombs
Then you run a mile.

It's not a war,
It's a conflict.
I'm hunting through a jungle
Of stone-walled edicts,
My defensive guns laying ammo
On metaphorical trees
Guilty of hiding the dead.
A bunker deep enemy,
Safe in their concrete head.

Hunting a deserter
Who spent a lifetime
Learning camouflage techniques,
Sulking under cover,
Lining up their gently angry shot
For when the cross-hairs meet.

I would call you out,
But you would only go in.
It's like fighting a shadow,
My silent twin;
Naturally nurtured
To hide behind benevolence
And fight a cold war.

I warn you, it's growing thin.

Hazel eyes decorated by light lashes,
Your soul burrowed within,
I glance at passive eyes,
Afraid of what I cannot find,
I brush your lashes with *******,
So I may see you,
I brush your eyes with quivering lips,
So I may kiss your soul,
But you remain distant.

I want to reach you,
To see your soul for its entirety,
But I cannot excite your stoic eyes,
So I decide to remove my gaze,
From your hazel irises.

i'll be your
yellow
brick
road
i will lead you
where you wish
to go
and you can
step
all over me