i.
you smile at me and the world melts away.
the floor falls beneath my feet;
i float in a void.
you look like you haven’t slept in a year but
your tired eyes light up for me;
your smile reaches your whole face, not just your lips.
you are beaming right at me like a spotlight.
some days the sun does shine but i don't feel it anymore;
i can only feel your warmth.

ii.
i dreamt that i was standing in the frame of an open, tall window,
staring down seven floors, looking at you.
you were shining back up at me, arms outstretched;
you were only illuminated by a streetlight and the stars.
i leaned out into the warm summer night’s air.
i expected to fall straight into your arms, but instead,
floated in the air, overlooking the city, and wishing you were next to me,
experiencing and savoring the sights the way i did.
i looked down and you were gone again,
and i woke up searching for you in my memory.

how vigorously you tear me apart, how sweetly you mold me back together. you don’t see me as i wish you would. i imagine you feel the same. i feel as if you always look at me from a distance. i am so small compared to the rest of the universe. i question whether i will ever be good enough. i once dreamt of a night spent alone in your room, enveloped in each other, absorbing all that we can of each other. i look up and hope you’re staring back but i just see the back of your head. the sky was grey that night.

when i first kissed you the whole universe around us ceased to exist. all i knew was you. all i felt was you, your hands running under my shirt, up my thighs, around my hips. all i tasted were your lips; all i smelled was your skin, that cheap cologne i couldn't get enough of. i didn't want it to happen this way. i didn't want to fall for someone who only loved the skin i was in. i want to shed my skin like a snake and emerge as a new person. i want to be unrecognized by you in a new beauty. i want you to be mesmerized by the new person i've become. i want another chance for you to fall for me, too. i want you to care. but i've stopped. i've stopped caring about the amount of times i go to your house, the amount of time we spend in your bed, the money on train tickets from my house to yours and back. i don't care if we're caught. i don't care if we're not. nothing matters because this doesn't matter.

i wish i could explain this in a way to make you understand my side of this story. i didn't plan to fall in love. it comes out of nowhere like an earthquake. it splits the land under you in two and sends you hurtling down the massive crevice. i didn't want to fall for someone i can't even bring home to my family. i hate the sneaking around and the lying, i hate deleting all of his messages and not taking pictures with him, i hate not holding his hand walking down the street but dear god, the way he feels, his hands around my waist and lips grazing mine, makes me forget my own name. his scent is ******* intoxicating and sends me tumbling even faster down the rift. i'm sorry i couldn't fall for someone else. maybe my heart is just too soft, and maybe this is a mistake, but he keeps me sane and he keeps me happy. i thought i was going to fall in love with a nice doctor or lawyer like my mother wanted, someone i could have a future with, but i've fallen for the one person who i have to keep a secret.

we woke up together, enveloped in each other and your bedsheets, to the sound of soft wind chimes in your bedroom window and cars driving past your home. your room smells like your cologne and the laundry detergent my mother used when i was young. you lazily half moaned, half murmured, "good morning, love," and you, with your dazed condition and morning breath, found my lips and met them with yours. you pulled me in closer and ran your fingers gently through my messy, tangled hair, and i inhaled your scent so deeply i could feel it softly settle in the bottoms of my lungs. the morning sun shined through your bedroom window and the shadows of the trees outside danced in the wind along your baby blue bedroom walls. you ran the tips of your fingers gently in sporadic loops along my shoulder blade and spine. we lay there and took it all in, took each other in, our legs intertwined and my head against your chest. for these few minutes i found myself wishing we could live infinitely in these small, precious moments, the ones we take for granted, the ones we only remember when the big picture is gone. i snuggled closer into your arms and we drifted back to sleep, heartbeats synced and bedsheets entangled in our legs.

i feel like a part of my life is missing without you by my side. when my heart felt like it was made of iron and when my mind was a tangled ball of yarn i went to you, you were my ******* muse and my inspiration to keep myself going and when we ended nothing ever felt right again, nothing sits right in my heart, i feel like the pieces are trying to fit together but there's always one part missing and that part is you. i always thought we had the purest form of friendship, it was past the point of being best friends, we were just the same person. we never had secrets, there wasn't really anything we couldn't tell each other. i ******* miss you. maybe this is what being in love is. i used to think people were supposed to make you grow as a person, not complete you, especially the people you fall in love with, but ****, losing you made me rethink that entire theory. i don't feel complete anymore. the most important person in my life left and i feel like my batteries have run dry. you left and it feels like parts of me are gone, dissolved away in the fluidity of your departure. this is love. the people you fall in love with complete you. you can find different people to complete you, but no two will ever fill in the same missing pieces. you knew exactly where i was sad and you healed me. you filled in the blanks where i couldn't myself. it's been a year and i haven't stopped feeling incomplete.