it is a little funny to me
how little words jotted down in moments of feeling have become touchstones to my soul.

where i can trace the etches of love, lust, and loss with you.

but not even just with you, with myself, and apparently, you the reader.

it is a little funny to me.

how my touchstones, have also, in turn— become yours.

where you could see i couldn't sleep. maybe couldn't breathe. where soul aches and loss weighs, and memories become whispers against my skin.

and i could almost feel your laughter skate across my shoulder, or fingers against my cheek.

so i guess i'll continue
jotting down little moments, hoping a few more come my way

funny how poems sometimes slowly become mere diary entries
like it is normal for you to peek into my soul, from whatever corner or slice of internet you appear to be on.
the way connection can happen without sound or eyes on one another.
but you know me anyways.

you know the way i love art, of colour and how green seems to have a hold on me, but you may not know how terrified i am of being truly seen. you also know my partner loved to make me laugh, and held me like the stars were nothing compared to my smile, but maybe not the way he sounded explaining the differences between certain engines.

you know the way i have loved, and lost, but maybe not that some of it was my doing.

and as sips of wine becomes sips of bottles i am left to ponder such loss and love. maybe even lust.

i just wish i could spend most days

discussing the use of colour. or the way humans can capture such emotion in things that do not breathe, but steal my breath anyways.

i wish i could spend most days

looking at the abyss, the way he holds her. the way she holds him, his hands curled up to her head ready to press her in further, just as much for protection as it is for his own need.

i wish i could spend most days

telling you that Rodin's kiss really doesn't showcase love the way Paolo would have done everything all over again, to be with her. But that doesn't change the way he wishes she didn't meet the same end with him.

to lust, to need is one thing. to lunge for a kiss, aching, like it might be stolen from you.

but to love. my god to love, to cling, to cherish— is quite another. To protect, to honour, to know pride means nothing if it means i get to hold you. to be anything you need me to be.

i wish i could spend most days

discussing the way he so clearly loved her. and how she loved him.

I’m stuck

Between hating the love stories where they didn’t fit but “love overcame it anyways”

because why did we play with the pieces that couldn’t fit together and pretend it didn’t matter

avoiding conversations like they were distant future things, intangible, and uncondensable

and as I sit here, rooting through the leftovers of my processing
I know my grief simply overshadows the joy for a moment
Holding space for the lost piece of me, I am happy, and honoured you get to hold.

but grieving her nonetheless.

So I’m stuck

pretending like I won’t always, on some level, be trying to put the pieces together

cause  “love overcame it anyways”

I didn’t realize how much I changed who I was

until my head hit my pillow and the clock kept moving
while I stayed still
or a metaphorical semblance of it anyways

trying to sleep like I hadn’t trained myself
like a dog with a bone
to text you goodnight, or call when you got off

I wasn’t aware how much you soaked into the fibre of my being. Which is why before midnight is so ******* hard.

because all I want to do

is ask how your day was. like a dog with a bone, trying not to beg for more

I know some day
a little Lizzy may ask me
“what was your first love like mum?”

and I’ll have to muster up the way to tell her

He was perfect.
because he made me fall in love with life, with love.
With Scotch, and the way the smoke could be found twirling in his perfectly green eyes.
he taught me all the ways I should be loved, and to love in return.
the ways I should be respected, and worshiped.
he kept my heart safe, and gave me freedom, gave me joy like I’d never known before.

And all while choking back the emotion. I’d also have to tell her

but he also gave me sorrow
like I’d never known before.
because for all of his perfection, he was a fish, and I a bird.

we couldn’t reside in each others worlds for too long, cause darling we didn’t fit.

It just wasn’t meant to be.

“Do you miss him?”

Only every time I smell a campfire, taste a scotch, or see the sea.

How can you hold some of my favourite memories
And make me cherish every piece of you
but then be shattered
by the man I knew you could be