i want to be the reason there is light inside your eyes again. the reason you worship the sunrise, instead of clinging red knuckled to the end of each dying day.

You walk around with your head hanging low,
blocking out all emotion,
you avoid eye contact and fight getting attached,
and live by simply going through motions.

You push people away who try to help,
and refuse to talk about your mind,
you've shut down all that you've so far felt,
and close your eyes to those who are kind.

You see, you've held yourself together so long,
you're afraid you'd fall apart,
if you lost focus for just a couple of seconds
and let people into your heart.

You've built yourself an icy shell,
your walls so strong and high,
they keep your tears from seeping out,
you couldn't break them down if you tried.

But, sweetheart, you really have to know
that you would be alright,
if you let your guard down for the people you love,
and didn't put up a fight.

I'm not sure what you went through
that scared you off from the world,
you seem to only notice the bad you knew,
and kept your fingers curled.

But really, darling, you have to remember,
life isn't always there to hurt you;
that the beauty of living overpowers the worst,
and that you'll always somehow pull through.

There has to be balance of the good and the bad
or the Earth would be thrown off its axis,
everything happens for a reason, be glad,
as in the end, the reason wouldn’t go amiss.

Yes, it will take time to fully recover,
but remember, one step at a time;
because after everything that you've gone through,
what's important is to start the climb.

Exhale negativity, one breath after another,
remember that you'll always win,
so as long as you open up your heart
and begin to let them in.

Three years now
I have started off
Pressed into your lips

Two years now
February has been my personal hell
And you held my hand

One summer now
We didn't make it all the way
And you kissed my hand goodbye

I don't know how many nights
I have cried to you
And you don't know
How many of those nights
I cried about you

I tried to make the best pudding I could
     out of the crumbs of time you give me.

It tasted like half-baked smiles and salty tears.

I cry in my dreams
For the people I have lost
I knock on their doors
One by one
And take them for a walk

We just have a talk
And I listen
To the things they wanted to say
From a time
They weren't yet gone

They change faces throughout
And I shudder,
And I'm glad
They're finally back

While we sit atop a car
In a green suburb street
The last face is yours
Your smile filled with tears

You stared off
And said:
"You understand, right?"
And smiled,
"I can see,
You understand"

Then I wake up
In reality
And I've got no time
For tears in mine
And I know
They only lived
In the fabrication
Of my mind

We met when your best friend was in love with me.
You joked that you were falling in love with me, too.
I laughed.
Eventually, I fell back.
And we fell together, deeper and deeper into something we never did figure out.
Now, I am here wondering
when I will be able to stop wondering when you will come running,
arms open, to tell me
"It's you! It's always been you."
And I will laugh that it's always been you, too.
Except I won't be joking.

I wrote about the frozen water on the bay that last winter to convince myself
that you are not
the only thing
I write about,
and you're not really.
I just don't think the ice will melt unless you burn it with me this spring.

And sometimes I wake up empty
and wonder at what point in the night you got up and left,
the same way I used to.
And then I remember how long it's really been.
And I remain empty.

Some nights I don't sleep at all.
I wait for the sky to change.
I name the mornings after the times I missed you most
and the stars after the nights you decided to stay.
You always told me naming a part of the sky was foolish until I named one after you.

I take advantage of the catalysts.
I test how high I can stay and for how long.
There is so much happening in my mind that it's taken over my body.
And I am involuntarily running in circles.
My body must think that if it keeps moving,
it will eventually run into you.
I haven't eaten in days
because I can't find an appetite for anything but the way you tasted.
And avoiding "reality" is ironically easier when I'm awake for days,
Because I don't have to wake up to the sharp reminder that you're gone.
And that I miss you.
It's just a constant dull ache.

Missing you is driving all night to watch the sun come up but being too busy collecting sea shells you might have liked on the beach to look at the sky.

Missing you is wishing I had the guts to jump.

Every night it all comes down to missing you from the bottom of a bottle,
or the passenger seat of a strange boys car.

And every time I end up on a busy road,
I wonder how many other passengers are missing someone.
I wonder if before I learned to miss you,
people of the past could have ever imagined
that someone like you would buy an old snapshot of their child on a rocking horse from an antique shop,
in search of an imagined, falsified nostalgia.

And I wonder if the brain takes snapshots of what should be nostalgic,
thus leading to the invention of imagined memories.
When my most treasured memories are those imagined, how will I tell the difference?

The mornings we watched turn to light together (we never did),
The nights we spent without arguing (they never happened),
The time you told me you appreciated the way I saw the world (you never even opened your eyes).

And you used to tell me that searching for seashells and watching sunrises and collecting experiences that make me feel whole arent "real life".
And I'm dying to know what "real life" is because the one thing that is timeless is that the sun does rise.
And exists.
How much more real can we get?

But where's my credibility?
I believed in us.

And I was going to name this one after you, but I can't remember your name.

two eyes four paws tail
puppy wiggles end to end
happy to see you