nostalgia
hits you
in the dead center of
a soft afternoon
in small, subtle ways
and all I want is to shake off
it's relentless embrace

i stare at a photo
of your face
years before you knew me
and i see a brightness
about you
i've never known
nowadays,
you look so strange to me
i liked it better when i viewed you from afar
when i didn't respond to the smell of your skin
when i had no idea what your lips felt like
on mine

today i stared at the sky
how could i not?
every cloud a memory of you and i
nothing so riveting as the blank color of blue and pink
you, once so familiar to me
now gone grey
now gone, entirely
i stopped on the side of the road
and mouthed out loud
"look, the sky. it's for you"
as if i held the answers in my hands
here, i'll give them all to you
as we fumble though this life
not knowing what to do
from morning to night
in that moment,
our love and our demise
all made sense to me
i forgave you
and you forgave me
and finally
maybe
there was no guilt left
this time
only hues of clouds
blue and pink

my longing for you cannot be known

hiding
kept you in hiding
slowly pining
down my palms
(for you)
for once, i give in
to secret
recoiling my blood
when i realize what i'm doing
but it's so easy
loving
well, maybe it shouldn't be
but it is
a persistent knocking
at my temples
i cannot help but feel the weight
of your knuckles tonight

like a child clung to you
out of knowing no better
but i knew better
i always have
yet i still stuck around
out of habit?
out of desire?
out of love?
"still don't know what love means"
that ******* line gets me every time
because i live that dusty pain in his voice
when sung
and you and i darling
were a song not meant for singing

i'd like to remember you
in the greatest light
how perfect your smile was
how firm you touched me
the way you laughed on the basketball court
the nights we made love and meant it
your rants about gardening
your voice lifting when you spoke confidently
your lips as you would recite every lyric to Lil Wayne
your mind as we would lay side by side
how warm your skin felt against mine
our mutual love for the secret Mexican spot
your blue, blue eyes
how soft they would stare at me
for a time
and god, i loved that time
you hated your hands
but oh, i loved them
you owned me
i was your map
for a time
and god, i miss that time
when your words breathed romance
and i felt drunk off what you were giving out
and you gave, and you gave, and you gave
and it felt insane
it felt free
it felt like i was in love

oh, i want to remember all this
and not your striped underwear on the floor
to the left of you
her legs tangled in your sheets
your head, cowered
eyes hung over the drapes of shame
we all felt
in different ways

don't make this the last thing i see from you
you decide that
you show me
if you want to

i drove
and parked the van
two houses down
in fear you'd see me in the mirror light
reflecting
on nerves
but i don't think you ever saw me then

i would walk
into the corner bar
and see you immediately
unmasked
heavy with two drinks in hand
ready to forget the day
and dive into the night
the night where we would play
husband and wife
for 12 hours at a time
and in the morning
i would wake up
wondering why
i was never good enough
for the rest of your 12 hours time

You'd like me to believe
all your lines of repents
But you've got a mind that needs
needing
So you'll never learn a thing

dark skin
light heart
you always had a way of making me feel
completely invincible
you still do
even if i don't speak to you

And she said
"Sometimes things are dumb and that's okay"
And I realized then
I will never be afraid
To love
To love
(You)

I sit here
In this ***** bar
With you
And we talk about my last attempt at love
And my god
What a failure it was
You- you were always so available
For a short time
And I was caught up in denial and grief
For a shorter time
And now we share ideals over Mexican food
And I hold in
The very thing I would love to say to you
But darling
I won't
Because time seems to never be on my side
These days
Or maybe my entire life
So, instead
I'll think of you
As you sit in front of me
Never knowing
Or maybe you already do

I am the scorned
I am your devoted one
until my memory is gone

I am not promising you years, my girl
simply hours, in ours
to have you obsessed with it all
i should keep my mouth shut

silence my faith
i wanted you
all along
i needed you

You are my past, You are my absence
Swimming in anger's defeat
Now can you stop fighting and come over to me
already?

In the throes of a trophy
In the throes of a nobody
While on top of your beautiful body

Nothing so beautiful as nothing at all

your body, a chapel
your right arm my religion
i hesitate to call you my love yet i always feel it

i'm used to obsession but this is different
i worship every detail of your blonde skin and manic indecision

Pretty soon,
No void will have existed
You know how we humans work
Don't forget
Or pretend to miss it

be gentle
be gentle with yourself
for the times i will not

and i promise you
i wish i held grace
but i know none
when it comes to love
darling

I liked it better
When you were a stranger
Some pretty stranger
Who never hurt me
Someone I could stare at
Blindly
Someone I could daydream
Of
Before I knew the sound of your voice
Before I knew the salt of your skin
You were some reverie I liked to sleep in
You were worlds unknown
Never to begin

okay.
so, i learn from trial and error.
once again.
i know that i need to assess and assemble,
gather and gamble,
toss and change
what it is that has me restless.
okay.
so, i learn that i need to enjoy time
alone
withdrawn
but i do that a lot
anyway.
use the past as a model
for what worked
and what was done
and look forward to
mistakes, love and those
moments
it feels good to be
alive.

a new year for you
old fashioned
i'll lay my head in the lap of you
and think of years past
and these years,
they pass
stand by as we grow
into
new

everyone on here

we are all writing about the same thing

lost love

gained love

broken hearted

learning to live (again)

hell, you know i’m no different

but i wanted to be

the one woman who could present to her a tarnished offering

something worthwhile

something that would make her see

that i’ve loved hard before but it’s next level when it comes to her

could hardly even try to explain that before i got shut down

with

"we weren’t even together-so i can’t really end it"

so, i swallow my words

because you’ve no use for my nouns or verbs.

I say mama
I'm blessed
but I'm a mess
that a woman has made me
and if you were around to see
you'd be ashamed
one, two many times
i've knelt on the floor
head to the boards
moaning her name
followed by the strange sensation of
"why"
for whole nights, i wept
i could only do that
i loved her
i loved her hard
so much in fact,
i couldn't keep much else in my life in tact
everything else fell apart at the seams
as my eyes
they never strayed
from the blonde parade
that was roaming inside of me
and now,
i lay down with the sound
the noise has died off
but the silence sticks around
i dwell
in moments when i am alone because i can
and when i start to get sentimental
i am reminded
that i could have never been her girl
never been her man
never been more than what i already am
time has no table
love has no line
and we've got nothing but time

such cracks feral tides
praise the loved hides

all of me
wants to erase
the doubts
i've had all along
but you play
like a song
right in front of me
the same lines
repeat repeat
if you can't allow me to articulate what it is that upsets me
if you turn your back
while i have bent mine
you leave me with nothing left
but a cracked mind, crooked spine

"And even if I could get you back, I don't try
You weren't all that good, but I loved you like you were
Mine
Is it the only thing, I keep it like I see it"

You were not that good
You were not that good
You were not much of anything
I am learning

It's not confusing
just the past is all

darling
you are no longer
my darling
because you've a head full of other
darlings
yet, you still won't admit it
you'd rather lie next to my side
and sleep in lies
but why don't you lay next your truths
instead?

and here you are
looking
beside me
inside me
i cannot see beyond it
beyond you
i feel your absence
i see into it
looking away
logic would say that i should not miss you this much
being the short time we have known each other
but logic has nothing to do with tonight

we will never see eye to eye
you, on the other side of this country
could never be mine
and rightfully so, i do not want you
it's taken me a long time
to get there
to feel a void
to not let my mind get to there
nowadays,
it stays
still
so still
like i've always wanted it to

words
leave me
confused
minute by minute
playback commentary
but i've no listen left

romance
is what keeps us
alive
love
is what keeps us
dead

my grandmother
once held my hand
many nights,
she would explain
the process of loving
and i would simply nod my head
to justify
the heartbreak i've always felt
as a young child

my father
once held my neck
against the bathroom wall
possibly in his anger
possibly in this love
and told me that
i looked ugly when i frowned
and i would simply nod my head
to cancel out the sound
that came from him
(smile)

my mother
lost a lot
at a young age


and you
you bring all the
blood line memories
back
with your reckless love
that has truly wrecked me, love
now why you'd go ahead and do that?

4th of july. you haunted me but now i thank you. you gave me what no other Holiday could. you showed me truth. you showed me ruin. you made this heart of gold turn into stone and then back into flesh. ready for something good, ready for something new.

drunk as hell
in my head
i lay
with arms wrapped around you
it is there
you can be
everything
we would like to be
it is there
only

you pressed your body against me
for a time
and i undeniably became yours

you shattered your mind loving me
it was hard to reach
and still, i was undeniably yours

the efforts we make to stay in love
it will **** us, it will keep us warm
it will end what we knew we were
it will create what it was

loving you is muscle memory
and i want your muscle on me
i want your mouth in between
crossing our teeth
and you won't need to apologize for your future shortcomings
because i already know

holy shift
you are a mess, darling
no longer my darling
i happily hand you off
to yet another one of your broken limbs
and sing a solemn hymn
quietly under my breath

"thank god, there's nothing of her left"

the young girl
the one with the beautiful face
and strong arms
the southern drawl
the voice that cut clear across all rooms
my room
i made room for you
because i wanted to
you told me tonight
that we never had had to fight
for one another
but you are wrong
see,
all this time
i fought for you
when all signs
said to leave
but i'm no good at leaving
i stuck through
endless parades
celebrating how awful
we were
i saw through
the guidelines
and threats
i took it all as a blind warning
because all i saw was you
you
you
the blonde child at war with herself
and all i wanted was to love you
wholly
holy
humbly
turned myself inside out for you
only to find that
you would throw it away
in a five minute bind
i hope it was worth it
i hope it was
what you needed
i hope it was
true

I'm ******
singing love songs to my ceiling
humming
humming
humming to you
every note, a reminder of you
every note, a reminder of why i have to leave

Lonely tear
Drops
Tear inside my chest
And I swear I felt you
The entire day
Even though
You'll never be here again

the reality
of nights without you
hits me in the chest
at the most random of times
the sudden thud
of what's to come
blind sides
hides
behind the eyes
of futures unknown
of possibly my future wife
but i don't let my mind go there
anymore
because anymore
sounds more like a chore
and for you
it's all about the leaving.

i want someone to wake me in the morning
with "good morning" texts
to get creative with it
to get with it
are you with it?
sometimes, i feel it

this morning, i'm in it
the sun is hiding secrets and i'm dancing in my head
in my head,
so many thoughts
sing to me

i want to sing to myself
and mean it
full body
kind of love
full body
worthwhile
full blood
consuming
only me
only me
only

she was right
when she said
that she doesn't like to save love letters
or even nice notes as gestures
maybe "right" is not the right word
maybe "smart" is the better choice
because while she can walk away
and see through it
i'm left with dozens of screen shots of our old romance
and how romantic she could be
i don't dare look at them
they stay, haunting my photo albums on this computer screen
but i refuse to indulge
because i'm afraid of how they'll hit me

so, tonight
i will start something new
possibly
maybe
i should

new choices
in not loving you
or rather learning how
to not love you
and to nourish
these feelings that were what you used to call
"sacred"

I wake
and I cannot help but
wonder
who you now wake up to
if anyone at all
(the mind is trouble)
(the mind is trouble)
(the mind is trouble)

If
You were not taken
I would take you
To the smallest parts
Of me
And place my hands
Over your heart
And tell you
(Once)
That you may have left
But you never left me
And I,
Never you

babygirl
thinks she can
fool
a fool
which is tempting
but i know better
you lost these eyes
a while ago
when you went for another's

don't need a label
to have you be mine
i'm yours
i've been
since the night
these eyes
caught on to you

i swear,
your voice split the room
and my brain
into two halves
a visual i could not apprehend
or understand
so i didn't try

i wanted you
in my mind
i was already on top of you
but i sat there
with an ache that ran through
my body
while you spoke about
your favorite things
and recited popular rap songs

you held my hand at the corner of the bar
for a brief moment
and i died
i lived
my ******* heart fell to the floor
and i swallowed my words
along with my sighs

months later
and you give me the same effect
it's sad to think
that you may never
know this
that you question this
when it's the truth
i cling to most

Let your life ending
be an example to me

I cannot go like that.

I must stay here.
For so many reasons, I must stay.

I got tired of thinking
so I slid to the edge of the bed
and rallied my arms across the night stand
and gave in
over indulged in your plans
until I merely became a whim

Laying in
Another town
In a solemn bed
Not my own
I realize
You were never
My own
To begin with
I salute to the sky
I once believed to be endless
And nod to the rhythms
I felt long before this
Singing softly
Mouthing in numbers


A  N  G  E  L  E  S

such a heavy love
at times, i choke
on the shape of
forgetting you

Trying to wrap my head around
your mistakes
and why you did
what you did
but the answers aren't coming
and she keeps singing
"you know, we could be great"
but if i'm taking inventory
you were never a sanctuary
but *******, you were so sweet for a couple months
but i know myself
and i could wallow in the small moments of good
and have it all overlook
what hurt you have caused
and **** it
I don't want to love you anymore
I don't even think I do
it's just that nights are hard
and with idle time, comes an idle mind
but you just can't be what i think about anymore.