I don’t want to write about you anymore
I don’t want to see your face - or hers
Because there’s a deep, dark hole in me,
carved out by the things you did - and didn’t
A chasm; a hall of caves; a graveyard
I don’t want to tell them
I don’t want my scars to define me
I don’t want to be an urn, holding the ashes of my past lovers,
but I am afraid those embers will never die
I don’t want to tell myself that I am worthy of love
I want to wake up and see it in someone's eyes
I want my chasms and caves and graveyards to echo in triumph
But my shadows’ shadows know that I have not yet fully healed

I won’t forget the way you shared your bed with her while I carried your child in my womb
I won’t forget the way you bulldozed my grace and love just because I would rebloom
I won’t forget the way you left me standing in the streets of Montreal—the reckless, frigid free-for-all
I won’t forget our heart-to-hearts, fall-aparts, fresh-starts
I won’t forget our once shared-dreams, fire-water color schemes; tip-toeing, balance-beams
I won’t forget your lack of self-acceptance; your fear, resistance, dependence
I won’t forget the way you disguise your loneliness; insecurity, disappointment—
your selfishness; inconsistency, vacant empathy
I won’t forget your impatience; porcelain ego, complacence
I won’t forget the way you’d kiss my feet; plead for forgiveness; make promises, repeat
I won’t forget an honest memory of you—instability, volatility
But I will only ever wish you depth, perspective, and humility

I want to be a gardener; to sow seeds and watch them grow
I want to be a mother; to pour my love into a little heart
I want to be a painter; to capture moments with a brush
I want to be a dancer; to melt into your eyes
I want to feel the warmth of a thousand suns
I want to swallow the ocean until it's still
I want to be euphoric
and captivated
and passionately entwined

I want to be your soulmate; to never let each other down
I want to let go of all my pain; to turn it into beauty

I want to kiss away your fear
and teach you self-forgiveness
and breathe your recycled air

I want to live life slowly and make time for getting lost
so that I can be constantly re-found.

A blank page, so much space to write everything that could be said
-- yet nothing should be.

Sometimes silence is the only true reflection of something that can't be bound by any combination of lines or sounds.
When words cannot give me the peace of defining that which overcomes me,
I fall into a void of dulled existence;

I call, crawl, scratch the walls of the mind that bound me.
My heart screams and breaks itself to free me.
I fall, lay flat on the back that carries me;
look at the walls that stare at me;
feel the emptiness of my own echo chamber.

I remember that I am not skin and bone,
that I am planets and galaxies;
that I am a universe imploding;
that heartbreak is a human condition and that love is a string of energy that binds our stardust particles.

I remember that everything is temporary, and I remember that you do not define me.

When I was a child my mother and father taught me to love
       My innocent heart was a sponge
I soaked up the love in every color and in every smell
and I would touch cheeks wet from tears of sad eyes
and wonder why love made them cry
I rung out my love into eager, outstretched palms
and never thought it would run dry

Drowning thoughts drain emotion
Turning tides swarm the ocean
Single gasps of air linger on the surface
Reflecting shadows of intended purpose

Words not worth wondering how to spell how it feels
If only you’d seen my soul, you would see it on my face
Nestled in the needles of your chest I bleed the colors of a rainbow