You miss him. Yes, you do. Even though you shake your head and reassure your best friend laying on your bed that he’s not worth your time, you do. You miss him. And he wasn’t ever yours, that’s the catch. You miss the small grins, the surprised laughs, the crinkle his eyes made when he smiled at you. and through all of the pain that the world has thrown at you, all you want to do is talk to him. Lay under his 4 blankets and 6 pillows with him. Become him. Crawl underneath his skin and live there. he is so close to your heart, this insignificant boy. So close and yet you’ve never touched him like he was. The only time you brushed a finger against his you memorized the sensation. Your friend casually mentioned she saw his at the store. Bed bath and Beyond. Getting bedding with his brother. How can you explain the ache your heart felt at those words? The blind pain behind your ribcage at the thought of him? How your mind ran over and over the shy way he would meet your eyes? The way he nearly teared up talking to you about his old friends made your heart cave in on itself and all you wanted to do was hold him. He was yours, in that moment. In the office with the pool outside dark and nearly empty, all that existed was you two in that room nearly overflowing with ‘what-ifs’. Each conversation laced with secret meaning. And you will probably never see him again. And you act like it doesn’t hurt, because he was never yours in the first place, obviously. But in a way, he was. In a way he belonged to you, in those moments in the office. He was yours and you loved him, just a little bit. And you fall in love fast, you know you do. You create infatuations from shy smiles and you know you should forget it ever happened. But somehow you find yourself running a finger along the spines of your memories. Memories of him and his curly hair and the smile he gave you when you clapped excitedly or pointed towards the sunset or caught his eye from the pool. Because you miss him. And today is the first day of an existence without him. The panic that sentence induces almost makes you wild with recklessness. What if you text him? What if you tell him you want to see him before you leave? Will it hurt more? Will it be worth it? What if he doesn’t feel the same? How can you know? How can anyone ever know?

i find it so heartbreaking
that there are a few times in someone’s life
when you meet someone that you know
could be your favorite thing.
that there is a bright red bud
of possibility within your meeting
and sometimes it works
but other times,
too often in my opinion,
something is not quite right-
just a bit off-
and you walk away knowing all too well
the what-if’s, the almost’s, the could-be’s.
what a terrible thing.

“where does it hurt” he asked me one morning
“in my stomach” i said. (sometimes i traced over memories so often i carved holes into them)
“where does it hurt?” he asked again, days later.
“in my heart” i said once again. (the doctor said there’s no medical term for heartbreak and i said what about pain or torment or please-god-make-it-stop)
“where does it hurt” he asked, before he could finish i blurted out, “in my head”. (some dandelion fluff had gotten stuck when the pretty boy from work had smiled at me and his eyes crinkled)
“where does it hurt” he asked when i had come home one day, exhaustion leaking into every crack in my surface.
“everywhere” i said. everywhere.

“is it lovely where you live?”
the man at the bus stop is talking to me today
a change from the polite silence we usually grant each other with
i think for a moment
“yes. yes i suppose it is”
“and do you laugh often?”
i smile at the question
“i would like to think so”
his face, worn and browned like old leather, looked at me curiously
“and yet?”
i turn to him completely
before, we had been sitting side by side on the bench, facing forward as we watched the cars
take off down the road
but now i turned to face him
“i don’t understand”
my voice seemed somehow strangled.
he smiled,
“you are unknowable”
i blinked.
“yes. yes i suppose i am”

all i’m saying is that
i cut myself washing dishes this morning
and i watched the blood form a raindrop
slowly slowly slowly
it dripped onto the cutting board and stayed put,
a shiny, red as a rose, drop of blood.
and all i’m saying is that
i watched it fall
and i cocked my head at that one, tiny drop of blood
how small
how fragile
one poke and it would dissipate
how metallic it would taste,
that one small drop of blood.
it would burn my tongue, i think.
all i’m saying is that
sometimes i feel like that drop of blood
that fell so far from its home
all i’m saying is that the sun is shining outside and i am watching this speck of blood and wishing desperately that it would rain
and the water sloshing around in my brain would leak
down down down
and the sun would come out inside of my head
it would leak through my eyes and
onto the sidewalk
and into the river two blocks down
all i’m saying is that i think
i would like to be a spot of sun
rather than a spot of blood

Don't speak harshly,
Your words will form swords in me

Touch my cheek; speak gently,
And they will form worlds in me