Take me as a definition: a surface-level heart that drowns in
deep thought, quietly pondering love, quietly grieving loss.
Loss not just for someone; a loss for most words. Because
when you’ve been dealing with a lot, you stop explaining
and start enduring.

Take me, for example: yesterday I had a conversation with
myself, but it sounded like I was addressing the ugly stuff,
the versions of me I don’t post about. Getting a little older,
I now feel the subtraction of duration settling in my bones.
It’s not pain exactly. It’s more like time knocking without
waiting for permission.

Multiply that by multiple misfires, all the times I believed,
in my head, that I’d finally found the one. Now, I’m left
divided. Not between people, but between the stories I told
myself; the truths I keep avoiding. Insanely rich with poor
results — "wait, that doesn’t add up." As that’s the math of
memory: it never balances the way love promises it will.

Still I need a leg up, not just to raise the hopes of this tired
heart, but just to step out of my despairs. Because lately,
I’ve been third-wheeling the very idea of love; a tagalong
to a party I used to host. And when it comes to falling for
someone with a previously broken heart, you learn quick:
it doesn’t come with a spare.

I’ve realized love either helps you make strong memories
or leaves you with the memory of a sus stain. You can’t
always tell which until it’s already on you, and by then
you’re already trying to scrub out that which you hoped
to sustain.

The Arithmetic of Almost-Love.

Two-step verification — it takes two to fall in love,
but that’s yet to be confirmed. Grinding gears just
to talk, shifting through awkward conversations,
but we can’t reverse all the bad things we’ve said
at those rushing high speeds.

Lovers with underwear conversations, trying to fix
what they barely understood, so unaware of what’s
really the problem. We run into relationships holding
open scissors —the result? Just another love story
cut too short.

But teach yourself to love someone new, still maybe
the lesson won’t stick. So brace for impact when they
say, "I truly love embracing you."

And I feel like Saturday news — as they talk about us
like weekend headlines. They say I left my imprint
on you, but that just comes from being pressed for
a time, rushing to report every mistake before the
feeling fades.

Needing nothing — and in the same breath, needing
each other. Yet neither of us has anything long-lasting
to give. To love someone with real deep depth while
they only offer surface depth. Lurid entertainments.
Frozen, unflattering coitus. And quoting someone else’s
expressions because we’re too shy to speak out our own
love language.

Two people, extending their existence — but modern
love feels like this: one of us still alive in the moment,
while the other is just living in a picture without you
in the end. ////// You claimed to be bound to each
other, but it was really bound to end

Untie me from your thoughts —
acting loose from your love;
  not what I should’ve known.
Knot-tongued,
  unable to say what I’m really feeling
    inside the chambers of my heart.
Dumpling cheekbones
  feeding off your smile —
    it's a soft scene.
But all of our best actions
  still aren’t worth a movie screen.
And aren’t we looking
  a little too scripted
    in front of our peers?
You —
  my original promissory note.
Please take note
  of every step you take in my mind,
    scribbling down your movements
      like wandering footnotes.
____________

There’s also the shaking trial of courtship —
  in the jaws of both judges.
You say what you want —
  and it turns out to be
    exactly what I don’t.
You try to live in my thoughts,
  but I’m still renting that house.
No roots, no keys —
  just memories on a month-to-month lease.
____________

To say every man is just, "a dog" —
  their barking mingles on,
chasing their own tails,
  returning to the ones who wronged them
    as if they were wrong.
But the dog’s got a bone to pick,
  and it contests every bone.
____________

Truth is —
this, like our love,
  was never meant
    to be a love poem.