At 11:46 PM I told you I loved you too
It was Thursday on June 28th of 2018
You declared you didn’t want to say it over text yet we did
I promised you as soon as I could see you I would tell you in person
That day couldn’t come soon enough

I lose myself in memories past
Watch scenes on a loop
Run these memories through filters so that
Brighter, softer, more muted hues speckle the reminiscing
Harsh lines now resemble an impressionist painting
Harsh words now a poets tongue become
Harsh actions a noble deed to overcome a harsher pain.
Harsh words fall soft from the tongue
Diluted memories in ombré hue
Gradually blending and shading
Until only an impression of a memory remains.

Tracing daybreak by the fingertips,

each shade of the sun trying to burn through me,

leaving behind my silhouette,

leaving behind a memory,

reminiscing days long past,

chasing the moon

Love me
Take me
I’m nothing more than a bag of hollow bones until you speak life into me
You
Your name
Breathes and lives in and throughout me
Not a day goes by when I don’t think your name
It’s like knowing my own
My heart is characterized by you
It is you
It knows no other response but to your name
Hearing it, it leaps like my mother demanding me forward
I wish I didn’t have to learn this way
I wish it so different
I wish you by my side
You and I
Your lips on my neck
Your hand on my thigh

Only sandy shores and sunsets can temporarily fulfill what you gave me
All the love
The security
The Laughs

I wish so much
But in all, I wish you happiness
For what more can my heart deserve?

Everything I did was viewed through the lens
of some sophisticated world traveler.
You really critiqued me, from how I got on the bus,
your eyes checking my intuition of how to stand while it moved,
seeing how I engaged in conversation with strangers,
scanning the clothes I've curated,
and gladly noting how "little I seemed to care about them",
chalking everything up to "american ignorance",
to scoping my bookshelf for your overrated preferences,
you are prying into my music taste,
my palette,
my body.

Meanwhile,
I get on the bus per usual,
wide stance to balance the stop-and-go motions,
I tell people have a nice day and make small talk about most everything!
especially the weather,
my collection of clothes is a museum themselves,
I care and tend to each piece carefully,
I think American's are happy-go-lucky double edged swords,
My bookshelves,
music taste,
pallet,
and body
are all full of volumes
unreachable by those who try to see me through
their narrow monocular.

Do you remember those days before when we were care free?

Before when nothing mattered other than what adventure we'd go on next?

Before we had to worry about real world problems?

Before we made our social media accounts?

Before we encountered that first bully?

Before mental illness bothered us?

Before we felt like we were drowning?

Before we slit our wrists that first time?

Before we got so depressed that we tried to take our own lives so many times that we lost track and failing each time and each failed time adding to that collection of scars on our bodies that, if we ever get out of this black hole, will one day look back on and wonder how everything got so bad, but maybe I won't, maybe I will be successful.