to love is not about ******* winning me over
it is not the dazzling
the sequins
the show
showcasing to me how great it could be

see that’s where your wrong

to love is bringing me that little coffee
doing the dishes when your tired
having that conversation as your under your truck with me
It’s loving with compassion
and fear
and trying to heal yourself to grow with your partner
it isn’t “winning me over”
so its not another task you need to continue doing

I just wanted you to love me
not at the expense of yourself

I wanted you to love me, not win me over.

I wasn’t something to be ‘won’ anyways.

I might still love you
maybe the thought of me
and you

and the good moments

maybe that’s why it’s so hard

because I haven’t stopped loving all the little moments or the smell of you

i might still love you

cause nothing tastes like that first kiss
and the longer one after that

the trail of clothes, or hat tipped back

maybe, maybe i still do,

but i can’t.

don’t mind if I do
crawl into your lap

seeking the comfort of familiarity
and knowing where the coffee cups are

and the way your sheets feel curled against my legs
and my back against your chest

but
I know we’d mind

so don’t mind me

dad told me

he’s always gonna run.

before you ran the first time.

then the second.

and finally, the third. when you fed me to the wolves because it was easier than facing them yourself.

and I didn’t have thick enough skin for that

something I’ve learnt

and maybe grieved along the way

is striving to be something

is so very different

from wanting to want to be something

that requires you to love

and god just to try

more than you fear

and I watched you close that door

over

and over

before I decided to finally walk away

he got me flowers

just because. or maybe not just because, but because I asked him to.

but he got me the ones I actually liked. and paid attention to the way I smiled.

he got me flowers. and I know he wouldn’t hesitate to set up a reminder,

to get me more

he asked me,

between a half cocked grin, and sip of whiskey —

‘Do you make every man fall in love with you?’

and that negroni —

really never tasted sweeter, against my tongue

I am the definition of a god’s love

I may come bearing gifts
Showering you in adoration and devotion
wrapped in the most pleasurable ways
caring for you in ways you have never known
caressing your soul in the most intimate ways

only to leave when you least expect it

left begging at an alter
I’ve vacated and no longer visit

when i told him about you,

about how safe you made me. smiling while i expressed all the ways you made me realize life was worth all the time and relationships, squeals, and terror, messy open mouth kisses, and doing the thing scared!

i was reminded that you were, and always will be, exactly what i needed- right then. and i just hope,

i was exactly what you needed too.

to someone

my worst will be their best, and my best will be their 'meh'

it just means that a few of those someone's

were not meant for me

i was putting up the little fragmented bats
really just letting them explode everywhere

when i remembered you asked if you could be here
and i tried
i did not to cry
and when the first tear fell
was

when i realized that not every source of love in my life came from you
that the flowers L brought me
and C allowing me to replay that song
J giving me space to ramble and
S telling me how i needed to wax the car
was
when i realized i would really be okay

because you were a perfect chapter of my life, but you were not meant to be in the rest of mine

and that is okay

i think what really broke me

was the way you said

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

I scrubbed or at least tried to
every layer of skin he touched or weirdly rubbed
scrapping my lips into the colour they used to be when you kissed me
and I sat in the bathtub
having scrapped my tongue to a lovely red
knowing it wouldn’t have happened if I was with you
but I’m not yours anymore, am i?

he told me I was beautiful
but you would’ve told me I was stunning
and I now
have to go on
knowing you’d call me stunning, while he
he only calls me beautiful

Lost in Translation never made sense to me before
I don’t know why it suddenly does now
like the silence and looks
clicked
why loneliness sometimes can be so busy
getting lost

It’s almost like dust settled.
routine suddenly happened after spontaneity ran out one morning to grab some milk.

and we're both pretending like it'll be right back

I like the way your name feels
dragged across the nape of my neck
leaving streaks of you to be remembered by

But I prefer the way you kiss me
down the embers of being
and the crease of my spine

for all the songs that speak of lovers bathed in the whispers of moonlight or wrapped in the sheets of sunshine
the glimpses of your eyes
will be whispered across generations
regarding that lover of mine

I want to touch you
like it was that first night
I want to hear your laugh
amongst the blurry images
I want to say it's totally okay
cause what does the future matter anyway?
but mostly
I want to pretend like you're not a fish
and I a bird
just waiting for the other to give out

to wake up
in agony because i was dreaming of you
and it didn't last longer
to smack into a pole
because their laugh sounded like yours
or on days like today
when pillows
feel like interlopers
where even in the shower
tears won't grace us with their presence
and
I can't even drink my scotch
because it reminds me of you

i wanted to be the one for you
not the one that got away

She told me he bought her silver jewelry for her birthday
and I felt like crying
because he didn’t ask her best friend
her sister
or her taste
and she had to sit through with smiles
simply excited for silver jewelry
while she wears gold.

But it wasn’t just jewelry, or cars, flowers, or jokes.
It wasn’t that hats, the stove, or the door.

she told me he bought her silver jewelry
so I sat there
realizing
that hadn’t happened to her before.

it is just
so exhausting
to finally put the masks on the table
only to realize
you have to put them back on
in a way that you can still tell it’s me
just
without seeing me

why does that half glass of red
taste so much sexier
when cuddled in bed
with a snoring floof
and a fresh set of sheets

it’s breathtaking
how love changes
growing and morphing and blossoming as we grow and morph ourselves
love goes from mums cooking to dads cocktails to friends hugs to lovers embraces
until it morphs
into 1:48am phone calls about which car soap because he always did it and I couldn’t find it anyway
and you realize soap was what mattered
Love changes
And it’s breathtaking

sometimes we must realize
that there’s a reason
lovers who sit beside each other
last longer
than those who do not
because
how can you hold the rope
together
when your constantly tugging against
the other?

Over margaritas
And FaceTime calls
She suddenly stopped
and said to me
he really is your ‘great love’
isn’t he?

You make me feel
Like the bottom of a wave
The richest of colours
The deepest of greens

you seek me out with careless abandon
or simply the determination of a knight
Unafraid to back down

from the little woman
Peeking around the willows
Dripping in her lake

You pause with awe and wonder
like you could see every moment that made this second, to get here, worth it


As a little grin traces my face
and I pull you in
and you sink
as I drag you under
blissfully
unaware

I love when I stumble across a
moment
where you know it’s one that will be encased in bubble wrap
Preserved with the jams and jellies
Coveted on the shelf
With all the good little memories I have with you
and the way your eyes crinkle when I laugh that particular way
so I smile
and remind myself to keep extra mason jars and bubble wrap
— just for such occasions

I wanted him
like a man drunk wants cake
not at all then suddenly starving

I needed him
against all reason
and every crash of the wave

I loved him
watching as then sun drifted into the horizon
Reaching for the moon

Only to miss it
And hopelessly

We both tried again

tonight is one of those nights
where the stars would’ve looked perfect waltzing across your back
As candlelight flickered on fingertips where kisses just passed
I want to hear every murmur and sigh
as you flick the strands over my shoulder
I know the whispers won’t stop till starlight tucks itself in
and our giggles and dreams echo till day breaks in

Please tell me why the scotch
Swirling around the glass
Stokes the fires in my soul
As it swirls playfully along my tongue
To incite the words brushing against the smoke as it leaves my breath

Till the glass is empty
and fires go cold

please
god please
come trace my collar with you lips and my freckles with you fingertips
because i miss the way you laughed along my neck
down that little indent in my palm
i want you to whisper to me
all we didn't get to say
as the night turns into the softest dawn

i don't know when
or why
but it changed

and it was in that heartbeat, in it's echoed refrain
i realized i would never feel like that again
about him.

and that was okay.

because the feel of my jeans grazing across his palms become better with repetition.
because the feel of his smile whisked my favourite lemon loaf into creation, filling itself with peace in this familiarity.
because the feel of his arms were not that of steel, but hearths; warming the depths of my being I did not know had gotten cold.

it would feel better

and that was okay.

in moments like this, i wonder
should i say thank you?
or scowl at my own tongue
because why must you be 'thanked'

for finding the beauty in the way a masterpiece i did not create became encased and enclosed around me? a heartbreaking masterpiece my soul hides behind.

but darling, really.

must i thank you?

dare I thank you for noticing

the way my hips flow like new streams
making their own path to once again embrace. finding themselves through pure instinct.

should i say thank you?

for seeing the same desire in me that Venus possessed in the arms of passion, the same ones lost to history we so seek to be held by?

or may i say thank you.

thank you for guiding me up the stairs that never end, winding along as I am, so that I may be, all that I am. Thank you for blindly reaching into the dark and choosing to love all that you touch...

even Eros would have loved you.

As your willful blindness and seeking touch brought me to the final step, so that I may say

thank you.

I am sick of this
beige
of the way it sits against my chest
so that I cannot feel
too much
or even too little

I would tell time to come here so that I may dine her, in hopes to speed up the process. but she is late for our dinner once more.

And so I sit, holding a beige cup, with a beige sweater, in a beige room. Hoping it’ll ever turn transparent, so I may start again.

we lost you
and part of me still doesn’t know that
but when I cried
speaking to him about how nothing will be the same and you’ll never get to hold little laughter and wipe little tears away
clinging to birthdays and little voices
he told me
that my hands
are extensions of you
so you will hold it all
the packages, the smiles, the screams, and the giggles.

and it made me smile—

thinking of the day you get to hold my Theo, with me.

when we try to compare strength
in the moments of silence
and in screams

I feel we miss the point

he whispered
and it echoed across the hall
down my knees
across the teacups and the bookshelf
it rang along my bones
Beating against my ears

Till it rang empty
against the window panes
As they shuddered
after the close

there aren’t words
and golf clubs don’t hit hard enough
because at the end of the day
you won’t ever get to hold my Elizabeth or my Theodore
and I still don’t know
If I’m mad at
or simply for you
because you said we’d get to laugh at the way a white dress would twirl round as **** jokes were said and tears were shed
But instead
I just miss you

I wish for you to love me
against the hollows an the bones
I need for you to love me
so I can be whole once more

she sways to the beat of the drum
picking up speed
Feeling the spice and the ***

You wake up and realize with ache on your tongue
it was a night to remember
she could’ve been the one

I wish more people talked about
the paradise
to be found wrapped in the arms of a lover
embraced by the warmth of sunshine
and caressed by an afternoon of snuggles

A man of many talents
walked through my door
God I hope he walks through once more