I saw you on the subway earlier today
You asked me how I’ve been, and I almost told you
I almost told you how just about every night
I curl up in that old sweater you left in the back corner of my closet
With your favorite book (the one I’ve never liked), on your side of the bed
And how I would sit there for hours reading
and rereading your favorite parts
I almost told you how the paint on my walls is beginning to look a lot like the color of your eyes
(Even though your eyes are about 3 shades lighter)
And I almost told you how I broke down last Saturday
How I shredded every single picture of us
As if it got rid of the memories
And how I tore apart every love letter you’d ever written me
(After I read them over and over and over and over)
I almost told you how how I smashed your favorite mug against the floor of my kitchen
And how the crack in the tile almost looked like your crooked smile
And how I can no longer bring myself to look in the mirror because all I see
Is your faded compliments that litter my cheeks
And I almost told you how the frayed edges of the carpet in my living room
Are beginning to look a lot like that piece of hair that stuck out right against your forehead
And how that stain by my bed from that time you got mad at me and spilled the wine
No longer reminded me of that fight we had
But of the same deep red color that matted your lips
When I used to stain them with my red plum lipstick
And when I saw you on the subway earlier today
You asked me how I’ve been, and I almost told you
Almost

Sometimes I get nervous to look at the sky in case he's looking back at me
Oh how frightening it'd be to look him in the eye
I've done it only once before: Louisiana, 2005
He called me Katrina
And oh my, what a fuss he made
And believe me when I say
There's nothing like a hurricane to put you in your place

I'm sorry I forgot to let you go but my heart feels a little bit like a clenched fist when I think about you leaving; your memory will never be beautiful.  I miss the way you always smell a little bit like I always thought home should. I miss the way you laugh like a torrential downpour. Every time I look in the mirror I can't help but tilt my head a little to the right because thats what you do when you tell me I'm beautiful. I'm sorry I forgot to let you go. I miss you in the same way that you miss Summer in August, in a way that burns a whole lot hotter than a memory. I miss the way I used to burn in your arms, but when you hold me now we feel a little more like smoke and embers. You always hated how the sand slips so quickly through your fingers no matter how tightly you held on and I'm sorry I forgot to let you go but my memory will never be beautiful.

Away from her is when you feel her the most.
You do not know how this is true, but when we are confused, the only thing left to do is find a way to understand.
So you looked for her; in drainpipes, in places that shined too brightly from the insides, in quiet dinners, in all the street corners that smelled like the flowers sitting on her front porch, and in the end, you feel so much smaller compared to how heavy the world has always been, even from it's beginning.
How could anyone grow while living on a place that does not realize how vital change is?
From the moment you came to being, from the moment you experienced so much light and hands and whispers and beauty for the first time that all you could do was cry as hard as possible, the wind has been pushing against your feet, trying to sing in all the places that cannot hear.
We see the still surface of a lake, or the deep **** of the ocean, and we know it is ok to jump in, and we know we can not be in it forever, and I believe you to be my favorite body of water.
We know that all the things that had a beginning, no matter their importance, no matter their size, nor their texture, all have an ending.
If there was no ending, life would have nothing else to offer.
I am writing this to you with my Mother's favorite pen, I hope you can feel the gentleness in everything you read from now on.
The world is a constant apology, when we tried to learn about our nature, we confused giving and trusting, and we never realized it. A year later I'm learning about true forgiveness, the type that doesn't ask for anything, the type you had when you were still a child.
You were singing to me and I was peeling apples and I realized that the only thing we really end up missing the most is ourselves.

I've never felt a woman's hands on my body. Sometimes I think about the way your palms could create canyons along my spine and  make my bones ache. Sometimes I think about the way your hair could fall through my fingers and the way my hands would fall to your hips. I'd hold you harder than I held my breath waiting for that moment. I'd leave fingerprints on every inch of your soul you've been to ashamed to hold onto. Sometimes I think about your lips and how they could spill every word you never dared breathe above a whisper into the creases of my smile. I've never felt a woman's hands on my body, but my god, if i did...

It's been raining for months and I can't turn the faucet off – which reminds me: the sea is yours if you want it, and you don't have to be afraid of a little rainwater anymore. When you walk to your car with your shoes off and most of your sanity folded in your jeans, when your feet slap against puddles and you are remembering that you left your jacket on the doorknob, don't ever wonder if I will awaken suddenly, crying because you never stayed long enough for me to write that song to the beat of your hesitant pulse. Your car, evidently can take you farther than my hands can, but no road leading to your house and no street lamp mocking you silently knows that I hang pearls on the threads of your sanity and my stairs groan loudest when you are trying to leave quietly. If you turn around now – if you run back and tell me that you want to be sky to me and nothing else, then I will let you, as long as you promise to bleed the next eighty thousand sunrises; I will stop mentioning you to forests and looking for you in satellites and in smoldering coals, if you promise to murmur my name when the horizon is stretching and prostrating itself across the late evening. I will tell you where the sun goes when the Atlantic swallows her whole, if you tell me about the streams of cirrus clouds backing up your bloodstream. And I never ask you to search for the wildfires under my shirt again, if you give me all of the starlight under yours.

You have to fight for everything, even yourself.
Nothing was ever built for weak people.
But you are precious.
You are all the things I never believed in but happened anyway.
You are all the last thoughts of the last moments of someone's life. All I ask is that you always find your way home like you lose everything except for this.
Remember that wind is a language, like everything else, and every time you meet a new person you are discovering how to believe in people. And where we live, there is a lot of wind.
So in effect, I believe War is another way of saying I love something so much that I can't stop breaking whatever makes it sad.
And where we live, there is a lot of war.  
And courage is the form we take when we become someone else's second chance.
Remember that Earth is cold, that the world is a scary place to live, but ask yourself what the world is made of.
We all bleed the same amount, and we forget that if you ask for freedom then you have already lost it.
That sometimes running and leaving and going does not always take you somewhere else, and that in order to keep things, sometimes we have to lose them.