There was something about the way
you clenched your fists and bit your tongue,
the way you pleaded non-guilty every night
I let my secrets pour out, but you had all of your
flood gates open and it was a sight to see.

I carved your initials into my sternum,
and cried every time I saw your face on the news,
lost and begging for sunlight when all I am is rain over the ocean.
They say the sea is just a reflection,
so how come all I can see in the rip tides are the love stories you wrote me 2 years ago?

I will never forget how we wanted the Rocky Mountains and a small wedding,
and I don't know about you
but I meant every syllable that slipped through my thirsty lips
until you replaced me with the need to feel like the old you;
the chase wasn't enough.

Xanax won't **** all of the pain,
only push it deeper inside of yourself
only push the few left who actually give a **** further away.
I can see the you that I love inside those glassy, cyan eyes
and you're beautiful, yes, but I can't save you if you keep
pulling the trigger on yourself in this exhausting game of roulette.

I didn't mean to write about you, and I'm sorry, but I always do.

She asked me if I missed him:

i miss him like the last train leaving from the station
with no money in my pocket,
just this long-winded poetry that has left its claws in me, in us.

he is everything i can't quite mold into metaphors
or syllables below the surface.
you were right when you said i was in over my head but i've been
checking these walls for a way out since the day i forgot how to feel
and he came to me like footholds carved in the cement.

i miss him like reading my favorite book for the very first time, i miss him like childhood and holidays and the longest day of summer, when the temperature rose like the fever i had broke when i was sick with butterflies and cheesy love songs.

Do I miss him?
The answer is yes.

She asked me if it was worth it:

i'm reminded of the passenger seat of your car
where you taught me it was okay to be  happy for no reason,
to be in love with the life you were given simply because there's things
like the smell of a memory and homemade pizza and the 20 questions game.

the way your eyes can tell stories
and your hands can plea bargain
and I knew from that day on that it takes true lovers to be silly.

If I could trade days of dreaming for seconds of spooning I would do in a hummingbird heartbeat because a day without you is like a year without rain, &
I'm living in a drought.
But the very moment your chest welcomes my shivering lungs, I can feel myself exhale, and the weeks of hydration suddenly become sacrificial.

Is it worth it?
The answer is yes.

It's not the way you are, dear.
It's the way my emotions reach their peak at 2 a.m.
when I'm alone with my blank canvas and endless list of fears
and you're going on the adventure I so desperately want to join you on.

It's the way my cobwebbed thoughts and overzealous daydreams intertwine
like my collarbones ache to be danced on,
while you're being the kind of free I've written about for years
and shedding your past of broken promises and disappointments.

It's the way I constantly grasp for a firm hold on a spark,
any kind of sweet nothings or a flick of an eye that tells me you want this
as bad as I do.
You're terrified of the future and I'm terrified of my past.

There's galaxies between our faults but inches between our lips
for a weekend, and it's the happy ending I crave
but it's only salt on my wounds when you have to pack your bag
with work clothes and every stumbled over "I love you."

This X marks the spot of where I used to feel okay
and your birth mark has lipstick stains from my rituals of
fixing this but they're fading every day I don't get to
bury my face in your sweatshirt and wrap myself in you.

This is my failed attempt at getting used to being attached but alone
At being at my most vulnerable state
And being in love with someone who will never understand.

Tell me, then, why isn't this working if opposites attract?

When you’re on the train to forgiving and forgetting,
take an atlas.
There’s buried treasure and 80% of the ocean is pure, untouched.
Mark the places you've seen
and circle the ones you felt,
because that’s where I want you to take me when the stars align
and you know it’s okay to be yourself again.

Don’t rush, though, dear. *You have so much to do.

“are you happy?”
and all I can do is grind my bones and pinch the pale skin of my wrists and say,
“what kind of person would I be if I wasn’t”
But if I allowed myself to be real
I would tell them it hurts more than it should
because I’m far too invested
in this tangled mess of a romance novel
to ever be happy again.

I became a different person
the day I was tricked into letting myself
become vulnerable enough to be
revised and rewritten,
and you would never guess
that I used to be head over heels in love
with change and spontaneity
until I gave myself to the first boy to call me
beautiful.

Don’t let the idea of isolation
frighten you away from self exploration.

Don’t believe what they tell you
about needing someone to lean on
because I can scrawl the truth
on your eyelids deep enough
for you to see the reality of trust,
and you can’t rely on anyone
to make you a better person.

*Being content isn’t enough and if you’re not infatuated with who you are than change what you’re doing, not who you’re doing, cause they’ll tell you whatever makes you stop crying long enough to take everything you have.

That’s because I didn’t know preparation was required,
but it was an adventure if I’ve ever been on one,
exploring a brilliant mind corrupted with
lust
and want
and desire
and anger,
and if it wasn’t for the honor I felt being the
first to conquer your algae free heart,
I would have ran the other way
the first time you told me you loved me.
It was 11:34
and my stomach wanted nothing to do with my dinner
and my mouth wanted nothing to do with my brain.
How can you blame me for being terrified
to do anything but spit it right back?
I’m not saying I never loved you,
and I’m not saying you didn't teach me anything,
I’m saying the height requirements
were a few inches too tall
but you didn't care to
measure me up
before strapping me down
and telling me to put my hands up
when my instincts desperately wanted to
hang on for dear life.
I want to be in control again,
but I’m not even sure
what it feels like to be in charge
and I’m a little scared to be my own god
and not wear a rosary around my neck,
not having to kneel every time
you want to be worshipped and touched.
I would be a hell bound liar
if I said I didn't like it,
but I’m so ashamed of that
and being judged is something
the real God is supposed to do.

Who is that again?

as if the bruises of my self conscious's grip weren't enough of a reminder of my
harsh imperfections,
their icy stares and startling bluntness ring a brutality in my eyes that can only be absorbed
by those foolish enough to cross over into the unmapped, untouched.
it is there where I finally feel my lungs expand and my lips moisten from knowing that I am
NOT
defined by a flaw or a handful of them, placed intricately along the paper thin lining that means
nothing in the end.
but in an instant you wrangle me back into a place where the spots matter and I don't.