Does it make you happy that someone just can't wash the memory of you out of their head? Because I told myself I would dissolve your essence in my system. I told myself I wouldn't waste a drop of ink or a single letter for someone I know isn't coming back.

The thought of you is toxic. Every cell in my body is yearning for you to haunt me again. And here I am, writing a poem that you will never, ever, read. I don't even know if you know about this account. Hell, I don't even know if you know I still make poems. I told myself I'd stop writing about you. But every emotion that  triggers a wave of poetry throughout my body is caused by you.

And no matter how much it hurts to do nothing but hope your name appears on my phone again, there is no place in this world I'd rather be than to wait here for you.

i miss pieces of you that you never let me see,
the parts that you buried inside your graveyard chest
all bone and lost feelings and mourning

your mouth tastes like ash, though you swear you never lit a cigarette
i am foolish enough to go grave robbing
in the absence of your love,
in the no man's land plagued with pictures of us

in the valley of despair and up the mountain of missing you
tumultuous thunder claps that bring angels to their knees,
death laughing every time I look at you
and you turn the other way

the funeral procession is long over but i cannot get my feet
to stop dragging
i cannot look up from the ground we are buried in

it's as if when your love died, i died of a collapsed lung,
of suffocating under the weight of what we could have been
but never were
they took me to the hospital but no doctor could figure out what was wrong with me
neither could i.

the collapsing in my chest, the way i gripped the sterile sheets and said
god take me home,
god take me to him,
god if you exist make him love me again

god if you exist raise me like lazarus and make him come running to me

the dizziness, the flowers they laid  in my ribcage, the graves that look the same

god, if you exist, take me home

I am a poet because of you.
It's the way your being
delivered a tidal wave of
poetic awakening to my
once dull veins.

Your lips watered
the flowers in my tongue
that were once called prose
but now they developed into poems.

Your fingers latched
perfectly into mine and
your nerves reacted to my nerves so right
and in that moment I knew our hands  were designed for each other.

And although
your tongue left my tongue
and your hand left my hand,
the diabolical mixture of your blissful and painful memories
kept the flowers in my tongue alive.

Soon enough, the flowers
crawled through my arms and hands,
begging me to write
the poetry that they bring.

You will never read this
but I forever thank you,
for I will always be a poet
because of you.

this morning I woke
and for a short, tender
moment
I swore I could feel your breath
against my back.
I remembered once again
that someone else
with rose petal lips and
piano piece hands
was waking up to your heartbeat.
I wondered
if you ever had moments
where you believed I was still
under your skin
and if it ever felt alien
when her piano hands played
stripped back versions of songs,
even though her rose petal lips
couldn't kiss the most vulnerable parts
of you.

all of these letters I write. all of these thoughts I think. all of these feelings I feel. all of these dreams I dream. all of these things you can't find it in you to care about. all my hopes for the future. all yours that never included me. all of these songs that skip on the word “stay”. all of the lyrics that should have reminded you of me. the tv that's never going to have the right channel. the bed that’s never going to be made. the heart that’s never getting the chance to be loved. the sky that's never going to stop raining. the rain that never fell on you. the way everything fell on me. all at once. just like the way an avalanche slides down a mountain. just like the way the fan is still spinning in mid december. the way I'm still trying. the way you don't want me to. the way forgetting feels like leaving. the way you wouldn't know the difference. the hands on the clock. they keep ticking. my hands. they keep shaking. you're not here to hold them. I bury my memories under flat pillows. you bury yours in the backyard. this sinking feeling. this dream. this nightmare. this game. the way I lose you. the way you never wanted me to win. the batting cages. the batter. the home run. the base. none of it being me. the way this feels too beginning to be an end. the way you don't care either way.

Dearest,

you may be farther

but

my love will never falter.

i'll be waiting patiently

for you to come home to me.

you fell in love with his eyes,

and then his face.

you fell in love with his laugh,

and then the sound of his voice.

you fell in love with his quirk,

and then all of his flaws.

you fell in love with his present,

and then with his past as you knew more.

you fell in love with his brokenness,

and then his whole.

you fell in love with the idea of him,

and then with him.

(p)

They say all ounce,
all speck,
of cell would be renewed
in seven years.

That all of me
shall fade away,
away,
seven years
from here.

How comforting to
know one day
that there shall be no
part of me,
part of me that you have once
laid your hands
on and kissed

- my heart,
   left for my own
   taking;
   my body,
   *void
   of clues of you.

"There's something about traveling to places, you know," you said.
You just got back from some country in the East to celebrate New Years
with relatives from home. You were two days too late, due to a delayed
flight you complained so much about as soon as you landed. You hugged
me, I pecked you on the cheek, and then we sat down.

"It's the culture, the diversity of each place, and oh God," you continued.
"The languages—I've learned so many different words—that's what I love
most!"

You rambled on and on all throughout as the night went on, stopping in
between stories to swallow the food you took in and drink the beverages
you ordered. I smiled and laughed as you went on with your experiences
while you were away.

The time read 12:06 in the morning, but that didn't stop you from talking
eight months worth of stories since you left. Eventually, you did stop, and
that's when I realized how long I smiled as I stared at you. Your eyes, and
how they shine a streak of gold because of the chandelier atop our table.

You looked beautiful that night, the same way you did during the time
when we stayed out late at night to look at the stars and watch them disappear
as the sun rises. Well, you looked at the stars and anticipated the sunrise;
I looked at you then.

"Why are you staring at me like that?" you ask and then you followed it with
a chuckle, and I was reverted back to reality. You smiled at me (God knows how
long, and how I didn't want it to stop), but moments later, your radiant smile
turned to a frown I was hoping I never had to see. You wiped your lips, stood up,
and got your things.

You looked at me with your eyes, the same eyes that closed and turned away back
then; the same eyes that decided to leave.

"It's never going to happen again," you shook your head. "I'm sorry."

And then you left.

—————————————————————————————————

I followed her outside, called out for her name, and then took her hand. She turned
and looked at me, and that was when I knew I was ******* as soon as I decided to
tell her what I wanted to say ever since she came back.

"You learned a lot of different and new words, but you never learned to say I love you back."