Maybe if I smelt less like vanilla and more like thunder you’d still be here. The flow of my hair is a tangle of flowers and berries with names we both can’t pronounce, but yours always left the scent of home and sunlight behind. I know the tips of my fingers still taste like strawberries and the words that left your tongue dripped like honey. That you felt like static, moved like lightning and I was always in awe; the time you draped me in roses and called me yours, the time you told me my name in your mouth reminded you of only the best things. Maybe if I wasn’t who I am, maybe if you weren’t who you were. Maybe if the footprints I leave behind weren’t made of silence, maybe if the moments we made weren’t littered with scars -

I will always wonder why God decided to take you away from me.

(A.H.Z)

I am sorry that you wished for spring and
ended up with summer. How I only feel
bones and not the warmth you desperately
want to show me. That at night you pray
for my peace but come morning I am only
a marionette that resembles the fading ember
of father's cigarettes. How I cannot bear to step
out of this house; the ghosts will devour
me if I do, both inside and out. The skin
upon my soul cracks and cracks; like the
pavement you fell in when you broke your
feet. The time you told me to feel less, to stop
blaming myself; I am sorry for that too, that
I have tried and I cannot. Perhaps one day I
will manage to breathe without choking on
all the silences I cannot word, perhaps one
day I will be able to sleep without death on
the precipice. I am sorry I am the moon and
not the sun for you, that my sister radiates
light and I only reflect it. I have half your mind
and the full sum of your smile, but if only my
voice would remain as calm as yours when you
deal with misery, maybe I would finally learn to
be okay.

(A.H.Z)

There exists an empty void in
the middle of my chest where
my heart once was, and I cannot
remember the taste of daylight,
cannot remember anything but
the aches in my head and the
trembling of my hands.

I have spiraled down the edge
far too fast and for far too long,
darkness seeping into the corners
of my eyes like they belong; but
when I wake this human skin still
stays -

Forgive me, I can only choke on
all the words I cannot bring
myself to say.

(A.H.Z)

I've been trying to word the infinity that I experienced with you. To condense the moments between my lungs and breathe them onto others, expecting them to experience even a sliver of the spark you gave me. But how does one possibly clasp the invisible between hands, much less the heart?

Scientists say that we live about 80 milliseconds in the past, but they do not know me - I have lived in the past for far longer, flourishing. As far back as days, months and years; I have hidden in my memories in order to stay alive, stay with you.

Even if it takes a lifetime, I will remain.

(A.H.Z)

I collect mountain ash from your remains
maybe the rising smoke is all I can bear;
but how this shallow water is neck deep
and if I close my eyes now only your
shadow devours me.

(A.H.Z)

how I’ve been reduced to
so little and almost nothing
wandering aimless, nameless
in a sea of so many where I
find myself alone yet again.

(A.H.Z)

I don’t know if you’ve ever felt a constant emptiness that lingers as you shake the sleep from your eyes as I have. I hardly get any sleep as it is, nowadays. How I think I think too much and altogether too little, only if I managed to string my words together better I wouldn’t be all loose ends and frayed knots. I’ve wrung my thoughts dry with the weight of my memories to watch the blood drain from my bones; knuckles white and brittle, hollow. They bloom red in my anger, concrete cracking under my skin, peeling in layers till I can’t distinguish my injuries from the chaos. I’m saying all this because I wish you would stay, would’ve stayed - tenses slip past me - but it’s too late now, has forever been too late.

I guess that this is my way of saying I still love you.

I did, I will, I do.

(A.H.Z)