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

You caught me smiling and you thought it was for the world around us
in that moment,
I failed to tell you, that I was smiling for you.
Because of all the world in this earth, you are the world to me.

You asked me what made me happy
And I couldn’t sum up the words in that moment
To tell you it was how the red sun flashed across your eyes, lighting up your skin, setting your face aflame in golden light.
I couldn’t give you the colours or words
In how I loved the way the sun perfectly shaped to your face
Your nose
And your eyes

No language, no movement, no colour will ever be able to express the beauty you posses  

As You caught me smiling for you.

if it was my turn to stand up
but I sat down
who do you look to first?
those standing before me, or those sitting behind me?

its funny

to break for someone that is not yours
for dreams you did not have before

but i cannot spot picturing

Those little hands
as they stretched out for me

with all the trust in the world

and the way your smile
made me see
as we giggled

how there could be more

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

To cling to a pillow
A curious thing
In love
Anguish
Anger
Or pain
A curious thing
To cling to a pillow

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

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

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?

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

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

The wolf sits in the corner
Waiting
As
Crumbs
Drop to ensue his survival
Waiting
For the day

The wolf sits in the corner
Waiting
For crumbs that do not fall

The wolf grows larger straying from the corner
The wolf grows smaller hiding in the corner

The wolf waits
To be fed crumbs of jealousy
Or to be starved of peace

The wolf no longer waits

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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 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’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 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.

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

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

Oh what a thing
To love and be loved

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.

words will never do you justice  
Because words cannot let you taste the way
the water from your back
only made me thirstier.
the way your shoulders smell like home,
a home of campfire, grease, ***, and rain
words cannot let you see the way
you cocked your head at me
with all the gears and wheels turning
to finally lay me down
words cannot express
How you pushed and pulled me
to grow a little more
words cannot let you hear the rustle of the sheets and the sound of you breathing
mixed with your heartbeat and the wind outside
a whisper against your ear
words only let me tell you of a moment
without letting you live it

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.

it was the sea And it’s uncanny ability
To wash you into me
So that
The particles of I met the particles of you

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

I feel we miss the point

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