your new beau sleeps
on the left side of the bed
and he has a smile like mercury, like moonlight:
it spills over you like a melody you just remembered
your mother used to sing when you were sleeping.

your new beau sings
(sometimes loudly, in the shower)
and he showers you with love like summer rain:
warm and soft and charming, like a teddy bear you find
that still smiles, buoyed by ghosts of your affection.

your new beau lights
cigarettes, your heart, the room
with the careless chaos-grace of a tornado:
sleek and bold and brilliant, so natural yet so strange
that you can't ever really catch your breath around him.

but there's another reason why
he will remind you of a storm
and there's a reason his bedside is the left;
he left me, he always leaves, and someday he'll leave you too
as the moon sets, the rain stops, the storm rests.

he'll leave you unmoored, and adrift, and confused
a ghost ship, alone in the blue,

he'll appear in your daydreams like the quickening wind
that asks of your sails: "where to?"

i am a girl
and he is a star
and there are so, so many girls just like me
that it seems very silly to want him.

i am a fan, in love with his voice:
with the curls of his hair:
with the gentle dips of his smile and the uproarious sound of his laugh:
i am a fan, but i am one of so many thousands
that it would be silly to dream about him.

he is a star, crash-landed on earth,
galactic-bright grin and planet-colored eyes,
so many personalities that he slips
in and out of every one
like they're clothes, like a game, like they're breathing--
and i could never know all or any of them
but that doesn't stop me from wanting to.

he is my nebula, flung farther from me
than a string of adorations could cross
in a lifetime, in ten, in ten thousand;
so close, sometimes, when the timing is right
but still more distant than a million twinkling galaxies.

till i find my own brilliant sun
he will shine in my sad-thoughts like a dream;
and they will say, oh, i love him, he's wonderful
i will bite back the heartache he's too good to bear
and i'll say, yes, i know.

he's celestial.

do you think the sun knows how much pleasure it gives
how warm are its rays; how soft is its touch?
i don't think the sun knows that we love it,
but you do.
do you think the birds know how familiar their songs are
how gentle their love-notes; how vibrant their feathers?
i don't think the birds know that we see them,
but you should.
the sun and the birds and the skies and the seas:
all of them so different, and all of them so beautiful
before humans ever thought to even give them names.
and you too were beautiful before you even thought
that the creeping torrid shame should have a space, should have a voice:
it should not. you are wonderful,
and you should know that.

maybe you're never going to have a fairy-tale ending;
maybe your dreams of stained-glass windows will shatter before they can fully form;
but i promise you that you'll be happy.
someday you will find that person you've been waiting for,
that person who fills up the cracks you didn't know you had,
you'll drink good drinks and eat good food,
you'll laugh the laughs you weren't always sure that you deserved.
i know you've been hurt
and you've given hurt
but that doesn't exempt you from a happy ending.
maybe it won't be the kind you thought you wanted,
but life, my darling, is sometimes so much better than dreams.

it's the height of this summer, and we sit hand-in-hand
wishing on futures that can't come to pass
the sand 'neath our toes is as warm as the sun
kids laugh like we did when we were still young
the salt on the breeze blows in from the sea
and sometimes i think it's enough, you and me.

we talk about nothing, everything, life:
your secrets, my daydreams, our favourite skies
next summer, you say, we can go somewhere new
but we always end up in our spot, me and you.
the birds can expect us, by now
ah, this place:
like there's nothing on earth but just us, face to face.

next summer we're back, and the waves say hello
(you wink, for they're privy to what i don't know)
"here's something," you say, "just to show how i feel--"
it's a ring, nestled deep in our sandcastle's hill.
and under the burgeoning light of the stars
at last, this place knows we will never be far.

how can we? now this spot has both of our hearts.

i gave you up
for your own good
let you sift like sand through my empty fingertips
i watched you love her
watched you touch her
i said i was fine, because it was what i had to be
and now that you've come back
and i'm holding you again
but you're not you anymore
just a fragment of
her
she was the wind that blew through your hollow bones
and your heart is a chamber
(dark empty seeking:)
i wouldn't have done this, if it were me
but i'm the dust she left behind
(forgotten)

i wasn't supposed to hear the last words you ever spoke,
wasn't meant to scream, beg, cry for you to stay,
we had a future planned, a dream at hand,
but dreams are such terrible things.
you weren't supposed to die before me,
and you weren't supposed to leave me,
and this isn't the way that the world should work
except, i guess, it is.
there's nothing i can do at your grave
just stand there and cry tears you'll never wipe away
and even amidst the noise i can't help and think
but we were supposed to live forever.

head tipped back
eyes wide
(you don't look like someone with nothing to hide)
blade-sharp breaths
like your hands on my skin
(is this where i say i don't care where you've been?)
you lie like it's easy and leave like it's hard
(but i don't want the truth and you don't want my heart)
say my name, then; we'll pretend it's enough
(sometimes i forget it's supposed to be love)