You never answered my question*         2:51 AM

2:51 AM                           What is your question?

Are you happy?                                       2:53 AM

2:54 AM                                                          I am,

Good                                                     ­     2:55 AM

it has been one hundred and forty one days since I've seen you
since the day I decided to break all the rules
          the day that wasn't even supposed
     to happen
but I happened to find myself standing in your basement
staring at you for the first time in what felt like centuries but was only weeks
shaking like the ground had begun to quake beneath my feet
hoping
like a fool
that the desperate look in my eye
                                           or my trembling lips
               or the urgency in my voice
would be enough
to pull you back out from this person you've become
like a twisted form of reincarnation
that I do not even believe in

one hundred and forty one days later
and now
you only use me for ***
there are prettier ways of saying it
but there's nothing pretty about this
so I can't decide which is worse
the fact that you are using me for ***
or the fact that I am letting you
because it's been so long since anyone
has felt this close to me
since I've seen these beads of sweat condensating on your brow
the look in your eye
when you lose control
when you reach for my hand in hopes to
bring you back to this moment you
have lost yourself in
  you lost yourself in me
and see
a long time ago I lost myself in you
except the difference is
I'm not forming search parties
you can keep the pieces because I don't want them back

one hundred and forty one days later
I would much rather believe
that eventually
we can share them
again

you are both my Friday night and Saturday morning. when most people read that sentence they likely picture the two of us in the same bed, falling asleep together and then waking the next morning tangled up in each others arms like weeds that refuse to stop growing. they are wrong. what I mean by this is that I am up until four in the morning with this ache in my chest that wears your name. what I mean is that I woke up to sports center on my television and for the smallest fraction of a second it felt like waking up in your bedroom. what I mean is that it has been 165 days, 3,960 hours, 237,600 minutes, 14,256,000 seconds since I've seen the sun, smelled the roses, brewed the coffee, made the bed, held your heart, lost my breath. I have been empty for this five month 13 day eternity.

south carolina and ohio and the blurred lines of love and something else. something worse. dangerous. all this talk of coming home. you imagine she means your heart instead of your house. she is held captive by the bounds of her past. all romance and regret. pink wine never tasted good anyway. then again nothing tastes quite like her smile. you could get drunk on her drink of choice every single night and still wake up each morning with a hangover from hell and an empty heart and aching hands. you have got to stop punching those walls. what is it with you. you and hurting things that only exist to protect you. tell us about that night you got so drunk you swore you were speaking to god. tell us how he listened. how you spoke about her candy eyes and her gum drop lips and golden skin. to look at her was to gaze upon the heavens. he understands. you analogize love making to walking into a church and getting to know each and every pew by name. he takes no offense to this. you ask him if south carolina is better for having her in its bounds. you can't quite explain it but ohio feels a lot less like home now that she's gone. you feel like a drifter. she says there are white sand beaches and sunsets you can't even imagine and entire neighborhoods swallowed up by trees. you want to tell her this broken heart of yours is beginning to ache again. as if it ever stopped. you and god share a laugh at this one. you think no one is listening but you are wrong. all this talk of being in love. she says you are in love with the idea of love but she is wrong and she knows it. so what. the million dollar question. what does it all mean and why. god, why. why her, why this, why here, why now, why. but he only shakes his head. in this he says that the answers are nestled in all the moments you mumble his name. when she is moaning yours, when you are scared, when you are happy, when you are relieved. how every moment with her feels like a culmination of each of these. you understand. you do.

"do you ever feel like maybe we're taking this whole life thing too seriously? Because I do. If I had the choice I'd be out somewhere west, living in a tree house with a dog and possibly a garden of some sort... I don't know, it seems like a crazy thought but I've always felt like this whole experience of life should be less cliche than it is. People take **** way too seriously and I just can't conform to it"

I laughed. Not a mocking "what are you even saying right now?" kind of laugh, but I couldn't help but be blown away by such a crazy thought. The moment was fitting; our backs leaning against the wooden fence that enclosed my yard, heads tilted up towards a sky decorated in bright yellow stars. It was nearly 3 am and the world was asleep around us. All there was to be heard was our breathing amid the silence and I could feel the heat from the smoke of my cigarette grazing against my fingertips.

"You have no idea how much my wanderlust tears at me"* I brought the cigarette up to my lips and breathed deep till my lungs were filled and exhaled slowly. "I just want to get out of this town. Move to B.C, meet new people. Feel something different; something other than this desire for a new perspective. Its almost like..." I paused "I want to be happy but I don't know what makes me happy yet, if that makes any sense"

He quickly turned to me, the kitchen light from inside spilling on his face so I could see the constellations of freckles on his cheeks the queer smile on his lips.
"I make you happy" he said mockingly

I smirked,"you make me feel an emotion that doesn't even have a name yet, happiness isn't complicated enough to describe it"

"You're so in love with me, its cute"
I couldn't see his smile but I could hear it. Suddenly it felt as though a curtain had been removed and I was center stage with the leading roll in a play that everyone wanted to see. I couldn't mess up my lines because I was making them up as I go and they weren't directed towards anybody but him. He was sitting in the middle row, with his eyes on mine, listening.
So I spoke. I turned my heart upside down and spilled words out of my mouth till everything I said fit so perfectly it didn't require an explanation.

I said;
"I am not in love with you. I am not in love with you. I am not in love with you. I know I sound like a record on repeat but you're a song and I  don't want your lyrics stuck in my head.
I love the way you're not religious but look up at the stars as though you can finally believe in something. I love the way you're selfless and undefined; like sometimes you die just to revive as something better than you were before. I love the way the earth doesn't feel so big when I'm with you, or that this whole life thing feels more like a two person game that we're so good at winning. I love the way you talk about your dreams in a way that you want to make them more than just dreams. I love the way you talk about plans as though you're already pulling them out of your head and getting started. I love the way you perceive the day as an agenda that needs constant filling. I love the way you look when you're passionate and inspired, or the way you get goosebumps along the surface of your skin when you talk about summer. I've never wanted anything more than to lay outside with you at night and hear you speak so I can experience your mind. No I am not in love with you and no it's not cute. But your presence puts me at ease, almost like I could be on the other side of the world with you and never feel home sick. I told you before that there's no name for the emotion I feel when I'm with you, but whatever it is I never want to stop feeling it."

There's nothing I would rather be than the one you call home.

1997
the roots of my family tree
are shallow and malnourished,
breaking through the Earth's skin as a reminder
that it cannot always keep the ugly
hidden underneath.
my DNA is a life sentence for a crime
I never wanted to commit.

1999
my father called my brother a king
before he even left the womb.
a solar eclipse that has lasted years
because of my inability to escape his shadow;
though, I'm not sure I ever will.
the world will always be his stage,
and I, just a poorly constructed backdrop.

2005
my skin has turned
black and blue back into flesh.
I hope, one day,
my mind takes a lesson from my body
and learns how to forget you.

2011
they call him the all merciful god,
and I can't help but to laugh,
because the only thing he promised
to those who hurt me was forgiveness.
I prayed up until the day
god changed his phone number.
atheism is a learned behavior;
I only wonder when god stopped
believing in me.

2015
I live my life in reverse.
I drink coffee at midnight,
read the epilogues first,
go to bed in the morning.
I spent my childhood in this grave,
now it is time to dig myself out.

you had made this bed too quickly,
not realizing the sheets weren't fitted
and the blankets were tangled around our limbs.
you were so used to lying in it,
you didn't know how to be honest.

don't reach for me with hands
stained from the ink you used to rewrite your stories.
don't speak to me with words
that should have rotted out your teeth.
don't look at me with eyes
that I once saw my happiness in.

I will not play nice.
I will not worship
the storm that destroyed my home.

in the future,
my life will be so full of love,
you won't be able to look beyond it.
I hope it leaves you blind,
so you will never see the person I'll become
without you.

I've written a dozen poems about you, the curve of your lips when you smile, the glow in your eyes and the spark in your touch.
I've written even more poems about you leaving.
The pain of  being left lovelorn,
And the vast emptiness you left behind.
Now I want to write again.
But there just aren't any words left to say, the ink in my pen has run dry. Because now it doesn't hurt so much, my mind doesn't wander off to you as often as it used to and now you're just more of a dull ache in my chest as compared to the singeing fire you used to be. I don't write to you anymore.
This is farewell.

her heart is sweaty,
skin smells of anxiety
from all the lies she told
the boy that killed himself
with words hanging in his
brain.