These sounds of silence
Rumble and roar
I’m in a constant state of questioning
Asking what love is,
Filling in the gaps between all my questions
With the things we saved for March
Relishing in the idea of spring
And what it means to bloom
Peeling away at citrus,
Reaching for the plums and nectarines
In the icebox, scarfing down cooled melon
Picking at peonies and daffodils
Thinking about tea but hating its taste
I was never a morning person
But the sun these days is so new

But it’s when the winter creeps back
And I awake to a morning frost
Bits of past, pieces of December
Pine trees and heating cars
I remember the worth of remembering
And the reality of how time moves
And how all these questions
Sprinkle down with snow, rain,
sun rays, or leaves
never leaving, never eased
only knowing that I don’t know
and that seasons don’t return; they just pass

"You're mine, you!" whispers in the back of the room. A subtle reminder that I don't think you'll ever leave. You're weird. You're broken. You're everything I am. You're everything I could never be.

When my Dad asks me about my day, or lays out plates like I'm still a little kid. I dream about dull days. Those stupid ruts we couldn't shake. You're mine, you.

It's just the flickering lights. Not your eyes. Not the bitter taste of your white tongue. My ****** gums. The ache of waiting. Of running but never making it. Always looking for the silver lining of your glasses on my nightstand. My crooked nose. Gentle reminders that you'll never leave. Warm and carmine reminders that you will never leave.

My heart should be well-schooled. Because you know I've been fooled in the past. But it's always beating just too late for love to last. "Your hair looks like champagne under this lamp." Do you remember how hard that made you laugh?

That one night we cracked the window, just to let the smoke fly out. I remember thinking "it'll go further than we ever will." As the trumpets began to sing, your bony little fingers started reaching at the stars. It's funny it's not the stars I see, it's always you.

But we'll carry on. We'll carry on. After all, I know there could never be another you.

Looking in the rearview mirror
To a simpler time and place

Everything much clearer
A smile on every face

Peace, love and Innocence
So safe in mother's arms

A time when every thought made sense
Sheltered from the harm

Looking up each day
My vision filtered child

Buried life, now packed away
Once lived, recorded, filed

whispers in the wind
of a remembered
tomorrow
that will never
come to pass.

shades of broken glass
trapped in the crimson
soles of tired feet
break apart in
a multitude of
echoing patterns.

a hunger for something
without shape,
without substance,
without the traced outline
of neverending desperation,
howls deep within the throat.

bottled yesterdays
shattered on the marble
of ever-shimmering amnesia
creaking like bones
inside an hourglass on the edge
of an untangling rope.

all that is left is to hope
for a quick bite of the river
that turns all tomorrows
into forgotten yesterday.

Would the growing distance between us be filled with
angered screams
regretful tears
or a quiet understanding?

Would you place the blame on me because
I didn't love you enough
I kept my walls up
and I never invested all of my energy into us?

Would I try to explain that
my head was in a dark place
I was being pulled in a thousand directions
and I hoped you'd see the beauty in my disaster?

Would we reminisce on
our trip to that tiny island
to that little Airbnb
that had the exposed brick?

Silent goodbyes taking the longest to arrive
Like old things,
fading from memory

Some things can only end in silence
Words cause pain,
for those unwilling to let go

It's strange how certainties can become naivety
We can love,
but love can be revealed as a delusion

I no longer miss, think of, nor want you
I love you,
yet somehow I know that I'll forget most of  you

At least you'll be immortal in my ink

I'm afraid that if I die

People wont know things only I know

Like how N likes their carrots

Or how L loves her dad

Only I know this, like this

Of course others know some of this too, some of the time

But no one

Not one single person knows that you

You two

Are perfect

I mean this literally

I was gifted this knowledge when you were born

I know this viscerally, like this.

Or that you're beautiful in ways that make me hate words

In ways that render language hollow, meaningless, obscene

I am not being dramatic.

And also that you are good

By which I mean loveable

Like very and always

Fundamentally, inherently

This is not something you can ever change even though you'll probably try

And you might convince other people

Maybe even your dad, or your therapist, or your lover, or yourself

But you'll never convince me

I don't know why

I just know this

And I need you to know this too