the world we're in is made
for the silence between your words
now filled with goodbyes, un-lingering;
it is made for you,
breaking my heart in ways
poetry can never beautify.
it is made for the
goodnights never said
and your sneakers,
now missing from the shoe rack
and the last scents of your perfume
on the blanket you left behind.

but in a perfect world
beyond the black hole we're in,
your playlist is still my voice
saying i love yous in a loop.
in a perfect world,
the paper roses still bookmark
our favorite pages;
the side of your eyes still wrinkle
at the sound of my name;
we still live for the 5 am silence
mixed with regular coffee sips
and empty streets
and eye contacts
and that was our kind
of making love.

in a perfect world,
i still read you limericks
and you still annoy me
with your terrible puns
and we still tackle each other in bed
and it still leads to snuggling up,
and never to empty stares
and heartbeats that have
started beating backwards.

in a perfect world,
i'll never run out of metaphors
to write another poem for you,
the way you run out
of love for me.
in a perfect world,
you'll never slip out of my hands
the way my hair
has slipped out of yours.

in a perfect world,
i won't have to write this poem, darling

cause in a perfect world,
i never would have lost you.
in a perfect world,
you've never left at all.
your smile's still there when i wake up;
i'm still your cliche
"girl who feels like sunsets in a winter",
and i'm still
the one you love.

there is
the calm
before
and after
and
in-between that
is my mind,
caught
in a
n e v e r - e n d i n g
storm.

She was an art,
but she wasn't the type
you'd find in museums
or the type that would
make you feel profound things
in your chest.

She was an art
tucked in hidden pockets
of a faded yellow dress.
She was an art,

slowly sketching herself
out of existence.

When I leave,
cut me out of our
polaroids taped
on your bedroom walls;
let the vowels in
‘i love you’ fade,
like the last bits
of my scent left
on the pillows we shared,
let yourself forget
the words to the verses
to the songs
we said
were ours.

When I leave,
don’t say my name
like a post-nightmare
prayer
or re-read the poems
I wrote for you when
we were out at the sea
or looking at the stars
from my favorite spot.

When I leave, darling,
please remember
that I am sorry that
you fell in love
with someone
who left
after
she promised
she
would not.

I am sorry
that you fell in love
with someone
who needs to leave
before
she gets left behind.

I am sorry, darling
that
you fell in love
with someone
like
me.

the world will go down the same way it tried to hurt her —
through fire
and she will dance
in the debris.