you don't need to trace your hands
over the hairline fractures of their bones
to know their body was once betrayed.
you don't need to hold their wrist tighter
just to feel the pulse of a reassembled heart.
their past is not an imperfection,
and they are not in need of saving.
remain mindful that they are a person—
no more or less whole than any other—
and they are not condemned to a life
within the confines of their past.
so fall in love with their eyes,
their heart, their words—
their present.

–w.b.h. // a letter for broken lovers

knees faltering and feet failing
my steps betray me
strides carry me no further away
stationary, subjugated, gasp for air
keep running to nowhere

won't you come to fill up
the other side of this bed—
slip into my arms
as I slip off to sleep.
let me love you here now in this moment;
let us love a love to outlive eternity

when there are shouting matches in my chest
your deafening whispers of i love you
are the only thing to drown out the doubts

i want you so far
i want you so much closer

these ghosts are still present in light—
i'm tired of the same old fears;
i fear that you will fear me—
they will haunt us past the night

i want to push you away
i want to pull you nearer

the voices in my head
they may tell me i'm not enough
but yours sounds so much sweeter

4:39am
I dream of you almost every night

6:05am
i desire, above all else, to be at your side.

5:40am:
I love her and I never want to love another.

4:39am
don't carry this pain alone

6:59am
please don't tire of me

4:27am
she had it worse than I ever did.

4:29am
how dare I complain about my past?

5:08am
sleep will not change this kind of tired

4:39am
I will stand in the middle of your storms and scream "I love you" until it drowns out the thunder.

4:19am
Every day I'll choose you, and I hope you choose me too.

3:29am
it will be okay in time

I am left with the only way
I ever knew how to truly say
“I love you” - a poem to you.
but this isn’t like the weightless love
interwoven in my words before;
my chest is heavy and
my ribs are creaking
as this leaden heart
sinks me deeper towards drowning.
We could not save each other,
so now we will ascend to the surface
by our individual strength.
I still want desperately to share
my first gasps of breath with you.

and I hope when you look
across the water
you see me still, if you care to look,
and you know that I was never gone –
that I’ll never leave.

*-w.b.h. // first thoughts in the morning

one day i'll write about something new,
something that isn't about a "me" or "you"

but everytime I come back to write
it's about a new laugh that makes me smile;
it's something new if only for a little while
til the phrases you inspire become trite.

until that time I write and think,
until my thoughts are my greatest foe
and I reap the withered blooms of anxieties I sow.
as you grow in my imagination I shrink.
I can picture our lives forever entwined
yet I cannot effect a reality from my mind
so further and further in these spirals I sink.

We used to daydream of life together in a tiny glass house stretching out from the shore. The future seemed less threatening that way. We always knew that when we'd turn twenty-three, we'd live in our iridescent sanctuary by the sea. We'd awake each morning to the tired yellow sun reflecting off white and blue crested waves. By then we'd learn that making our walls translucent let in more good than bad; we'd no longer fear being seen. But we never stopped to worry, and maybe we should have; there are many storms to be had by the sea.

But still I hope you will find someone with whom to share crystalline walls. Our glass never shattered—it dissolved in salt and sand until all that remained was a memory of times we never shared.

We never promised each other forever.

Fingers intertwine,
all hills and valleys,
weaving together to form
the most intricate of landscapes.
The valleys, they quiver,
and the hills, they shake—
unsure of their own design.
And she is there.
She is the horizon.
She is all there is to see—
that distant enigma
that never seems to grow closer.
She is, in herself, sufficient.
She is crude, yet refined;
rebellious, yet conforming.
Dark and light coexist in her.
She is a myriad of contradictions.
She is whoever she desires to be
at any given moment.

-w.b.h.

she is sunrises
and sunsets;
she is music
and melodies;
she is poetry in coffeeshops
and our sweaty palms clasped together
in the car on backroads at night.
she is shy laughter
and movie marathons.
she is the reason
I can't stop writing.
she is all of these things,
but she is not mine.

*–w.b.h. // i never learned how to define you

the last lines of
the last poem in
the first book by
your favorite poet
repeat the phrase
you are going to miss people
and i never quite took it to heart,
but now that i have,
it seems like there was no interlude—
i've already moved onto the final line
of that final poem:
and you are going to be okay

–*w.b.h. // mornings of nostalgia

she inspires masterpieces
and orchestrates symphonies.
how is it that she
is both oil and canvas?
torn sketchpads and
rough drafts spattered in red ink,
these run through her veins.
she is not imperfect—
only revising.

—w.b.h.

you took my words.
well, borrowed and never returned.
well, i gave them and never asked for them back.
well, i gave them and don't want them back.
well, they were never mine.
well, they were your words all along.

i would never have wrote them
if not for you
but this isn't anger or bitterness --
it is trying to disprove this nagging thought
that you were the only reason i could write;
that i can no longer write if not about you
and this is failing
at
proving
me
wrong.

(I) still feel you in all of our favorite songs,
and I (still) reread the poems we shared,
and maybe I'm just a sucker for the pain,
but I don't want this aching to go away
because this pain is better
than the alternative of forgetting our (love).

I'm still holding onto (you) with the hand
(I never) used to push you away.
This can't be the end of our story -
you (gave) me too much to say.

Until I can know what happens next,
I'll keep going through made (up)
scenarios in my head (on) if
(you) could ever love me again.

Please let this be the white space
on the last page
before the next chapter.

*-w.b.h. // second day

I do not know
if things will be okay,
but I know
that things will go on,
and that's enough
to keep going.

*—w.b.h.

under midnight stars and autumn leaves,
with conflicted heart and goosebumped skin,
I witnessed you talk and laugh and smile,
and I knew that always
i would love you once upon a dream

unless you've felt like a ghost
condemned to haunt its own body,
unless you've ever prescribed
self-destruction as self-medication,
unless vulnerability means only telling
half your story because that's enough
to get everyone to stop asking,
unless being told "you're just like your dad"
is your greatest fear,

don't tell me you understand.

*–w.b.h.

Roses
Are sprouting
From the crevices
Of the
Skeleton’s
Cold, bony body.

The wings
Which flutter
From the butterflies
Dance round
Enclosed by
Its thin, fragile ribs.

Weeping
From strangers
Stifles evening air.
The bones
Laid hidden
For some twenty years.

They cry
For woman
Unknown to us all.
Disguised
To us all
In her final rest.

Dare not
The police
To disturb her corpse.
Detached,
At the edge
Of the crowd I stand.

There is
Death in this
Damp sanctuary,
Haven
Of beauty
It is no longer.

Death is
So ghastly,
Decay so putrid.
Yet the
Atrophy
Remains so lovely.

I left,
Unabashed,
With silent musing.
It was
There I thought
That hope still remains.

Life was
Still gleaming
From Death’s rotted cage
Leaving
Strands of dreams
For those still living.

every night
I repeat these words
and hope against hope
that you might
know a night
in which fear
is not the first emotion
you feel
upon waking.

*–wbh // sweet dreams, beautiful (pt. 1)

every night
I repeat these words
and selfishly hope
that maybe tonight
you will dream of me,
and not him.

*–wbh // sweet dreams, beautiful (pt. 2)

I have found little things to hate
about each square inch of my body.
if you were to tear me apart,
and keep only the good parts,
all that would be left is
the piece of heart
that I gave to you.

*–w.b.h.

it's 3:39am
and who am I to tell?
this used to be our time,
when we'd awake
from restless slumbers
and record the very first thoughts
the occurred to us.
but who will listen to them now?

this used to be the time
when I could tell you
I love you
because loving you was always
the primary thought in my mind.

but what do I do now,
when the love I feel
is just as pervasive -
I see you in everything
and I hear you in the music -
but I can't tell you
and I'm the one to blame?

instead, we communicate
through gilded verse.
I'm waiting for you to say something;
I'm waiting for you to go first.

as i lay beneath the midnight stars
for each speck of light i discern
i conjure another reason why i love you so
until the tiny lights fade
and the sun greets my weary eyes.
this practice i repeat night by night
til i may turn and awake
one morning and each morning forevermore
to the sight of you
to rejuvenate these tired eyes.

autumn makes hearts heavy
and the cold air makes more than just your bones ache.
it pervades your chest with inescapable nostalgia
for times you never had.
it is more than regret —
times are ending that you never knew began.
but there are beginnings in these endings.
as these colors explode and fade away,
so too do you.