And so I dig a shallow grave
for the fairytale castles
All of a love that never was,
laid softly in the earth

Our first glance was like lightning
Bright and instant, gone as fast as it came
But I knew then I'd be forever changed

Coffee dates and long dances
We were a whirlwind, falling like the rain
Outside my window on that car ride home

"Forever," our hearts whispered
We bound our eternal fates together
And at that altar, I made a promise

I'd cut through your darkest storms
Like the cutlery you got for Christmas
Two years ago, when your mother was there

And I’d remember it all
From the way every strand of your hair fell
Down to the light in your eyes on that day

"Til death do us part," we say…

But I wake, and you were an ideal

I have searched for a hundred years
Whittled to the bone, overgrown by silver ivy
But here, in my final resting place, you have been
And now your image lingers in my garden of respite

Why don't you stay awhile?
I'll carve your name into my burial shroud

I'll unravel our thread before it's even spun
my dreaming and my pining and my manifestations
they'll be smoke choking out our garden before it's even planted

words that can only be whispered
in dreams and midnight longings;
the melancholy lilt of a time fading
echoes into the silence, unbound

I only had the nerve to dream
and you, the will to shatter me

I find myself looking back
holiday lights blurring,
fading into falling stars

in sudden grief and desperation
words I cannot even bear to dress
in floral or elegant prose
escape from me, in a wailing breath

where have you gone?

my mother's wedding dress
cut through the middle,
a red ribbon slashed against skin
unwound, destroyed, unknown

I’ll always be in your rear view mirror
Even when I’ve left you in the dust

I walk a ghost among the mourners,
plucking stitch
after stitch
into my own burial shroud

—with a rose
tucked into the sleeve

as though one day,
a dedicated love might find itself here

The choir swells, wails, their song drowned
by your splinters of rapture in the night...
When you stand atop rubble and lingering flame
who will remain to laud your victory?

how do I have memories
of something I never had?
my daydreams are fanged,
years of pained flashbacks
that were never lived

you shape my waking hours
I try to pick a nice perfume
I make sure I leave early
I look around just to see you for a fleeting moment
and I smile when I do

I pace just to daydream of you
your hands on my hips, your lips on mine
I turn the lights off early
and as I drift off to sleep, I pretend I’m in your arms

I could scream it from the rooftops
(if it weren’t a secret)
you’re my muse, you’re my one wish
I want you, and only you