I want to drive down quiet streets in
Oversized sweaters with our oversized dreams,
Standing through the sunroof and letting our
thoughts fly away on the wind.

I want to take a breath as I never have before,
Inhale deeply, getting high off of starlight.
And if you choose to leave, or if you choose to stay,
That is up to you, for it only means
More room for me.

More room to spread my wings and let life carry me away,
Room to experience every shade of grey;
Because we aren’t painting rainbows with our alabaster hearts,
Not hearts of gold nor silver tears.
We are only colored by where we start,
and I think I will start today.

Start with the streetlights passing overhead,
Let their orange glow change grey to red,
And remember that color pumps through my veins
Creating new artwork every day.

I want neon lights to stoke my restless soul,
Letting me live and breathe, letting me let go.
Purples and greens, everything in between,
painting a mural of oversized dreams.

I tilt my head back and close my eyes, smiling back at
Forsaken skies,
Breathing in and breathing out, forgetting what
I think about.
Because all I see is me and Me, driving down the quiet streets,
Standing through the sunroof with an oversized dream,
forgetting that life could forget about me.

seeing you is like the bittersweet taste of fruit that is not quite ripe.
the sound of your voice is like listening to a song i grew up with,
a cruel nostalgia that makes me think of a better time.

but touching you is like nothing else;
my hand on your arm, my fingers on your cheek.
i could breathe you in instead of oxygen,
live on the smoke that tangled with your breath,
wondering if i would ever get to taste
such sweet a breath as yours.

kissing you was nothing else and so much more.
even if you faded from my life,
i would still remember the salt on your tongue,
the words you whispered as you shifted closer,
canceling the space between us.
every day that passes
where even the words that touch our lips do not meet
is a day spent in the dark.

you see, foolishness is a lot like darkness,
and i was the biggest fool of all.
i waited.
i wondered.
i giggled and rolled my eyes, and i thought it was enough.
i was wrong, but there was still time.

i stood before that door, looking at the numbers,
wondering if you were sleeping behind their golden sheen.
my phone said 4 am but my mind said now or never.
i knocked.
three soft raps upon the door, a hundred beats away
from the pounding of my heart.
it sounds cliché, but the moment your lips said yes,
i would swallow that word
and i would never have to wait, never have to wonder.

seeing her was like plunging into a frozen lake in the dead of winter,
my tongue sluggish, my breath stolen by the cold.
her warm words burned as i backed away.

the room behind her was dark and i laughed because
whether it was you or i,
we were all fools in the end.

perhaps it is true what they say,
that it’s better to have loved and lost
than never to have loved at all.
but the cruelest trick
is never to have loved what it is you lost,
but to hold it close to your heart
in a way that whispers of love.

but time is cruel and works faster than even the sharpest thinkers
when love is involved.
love, lust, like, loath – i never liked the assumptions of poetry.
in the end they’re all the same,
in the end they all end with disdain,
because even if i loved you and you loved me,
we would both grow old and only one would see
how time is cruel and works faster than our eyes
and faster than our hearts.

say my four-letter word is Like and not yet Love,
that the distance is two mere letters
so easily swayed by your silver tongue.
if i haven’t the courage to bring I to U
and let U change to O,
then i will rely on the second closest word:
a word i know to be Luck.

Luck, my fickle friend;
they draw you in and whisper that you are safe,
leaving you at the hands of Time
and making you tick like a clock that unwinds.
but who spoke ill of my best friend Luck,
the one who watches and holds me up?
because Luck is always kind of kind,
as long as you work to make them chime.

and so, with the face of a shattered clock,
i tried to convince myself that i'd had enough
because Like and Love may have two letters between,
but U and I will always be separated by S and H and E.

so i left my Luck and changed from Like to Lust,
decided it was better if my heart took a break,
because nothing in your smile could compare to the stars,
and nothing in your touch could only be ours.
but blood stays warm and eyes still look,
so how could i rob them of the one thing you never took
from me, my lust, my like, and luck?

and yet, four letters still remain,
all the unspoken thoughts we never say –
but the things that we do,
well, they will always remain untrue.

there is still a word where I remain,
its venom laced into every refrain,
because that is what i am forced to do:
refrain, restrain, and never convey
these thoughts i wish you could hear.

so i smile at her and i smile at you,
and as my teeth dig into my lip
these four letters drip down my chin.
they're bitter and stale, but it’s a familiar taste.
there is no U, no S, no H nor E.
I is left with only L and A and R.