I think I've finally made up my mind, but I come to find I haven't.
You didn't even let me explain, maybe to prevent pain and reverting back to all that turmoil.
You filled my mouth with words you found true, things to convince yourself that you already knew the story.
I tried to say what I had on the tip of my tongue, using the breath from my lungs to speak up.
But you already had an idea of how everything was, and I didn't get to fully explain because of that.
You'd interrupt and tell me that I was wrong, that you knew all along that it wasn't you.
And from your point of view, I can see why you feel that you were a new, short term fling.

You were more than a rebound, more than another guy I'd found to make up for someone else's absence though.
You were more than second best, to that I wish I could attest and make you believe me though.
You were the most fun I'd had in awhile, always providing me with a smile and a sense of adventure that summer.

Soon after you left my life for a bit, with good reason, and I took that as a hit and left yours too.
Then you recently returned, and you're not the only one who yearned for the past.
But you won't believe me when I say that I still wanted you, that my feelings are prevalent and true and here and frankly won't go away.

We can blame circumstances or timing,  we can blame deceit and lying to ourselves and one another.
I'm still here, I still feel and though that's clear to me you don't see it.
Live with that facade and false reality, when in actuality that's furthest from the truth.

We can't so we won't begin again to pursue, I'll pretend what you "know" is true.
I'll let it be, you'll move on and see you're okay.
I'll watch you walk away, and whatever chances of us fade as well.
That's what is best, or so it seems; just leave it alone and let it rest until it's over.
Let it go, and deal with the fact that you'll never know.

I can wait for someday-
I do not ache for companionship and everlasting love,
Nor am I prospectively naming my future children.
I am not picking the linens for my home that could be beachside or suburban, city dwelling or atop a mountain.
I do not know precisely how I will sustain myself,
Or when I will retire.
I do not lose my days to planning too far ahead
So much so that I lose sight of today.
I can wait for someday
Because some days all I need is the day I have before me.
Someday will come, and I will look back
And be sure that waiting around for someday was not the way to live out the moments until then.

When your heart is broken and on the floor,
Don't forget.
I will be there to pick it up, no matter how many times I have to.

Life has those little bumps that seem impossible to get over.
They will start as mountains, and end as grains of sand,
Because I'm going to be there to make the best of it.

When your smile is upside down,
Never forget.
I will be there to turn it right side up, no matter how much you fuss.

When you can't talk to anyone and life seems hopeless,
I swear to you I will be there with open arms and ears,
No matter how long it will take.

When you're regretting something that changed you in big ways, just know
I'm here to tell you that everything will be okay,
And that the sun will come out, no matter how down you are.

When you're not sure where to step next,
Don't look anywhere but right by your side
Because I will be there guiding you no matter how many times we stumble.

When the fun gets out of hand and your future is looking dim,
Please don't sink to the ground.
But if you do, I will be there holding you up. You remember that.

When you can sit out or dance,
All I can hope is that you dance.

Never forget how special you are,
And how different life would be if you weren't here.

When your faith is running low, please just come to me.
I will be here waiting to restore what was lost.
Life isn't fair, and that is why you have me.

It's the way you genuinely laugh at my minute misfortunes.
It's the way you dance to your odd music, carelessly.
It's the way you looked at me.
It's the way you dedicate yourself to a task to a point where nothing else exists.
It's the way you let me talk, talk some more, and keep talking until I'm done. No interruptions.
It's the way you were honest with me.
It's the way you were patient and persistent.
It's the way you impulsively decided we should go swimming.
It's the way you would lead, the way you would always go first.
It's the way you forgave me.
It's the way you tolerated who I am, and how you still do so.
It's the way you get really cranky at 2 am.
It's the way you get even crankier when I tell you things you don't want to hear.
It's the way you would listen with the intent to respond with something meaningful.
It's the way you would indulge my interests without complaints.
It's the way you continue to be my friend.
It's the way you say good bye.
It's the way your eyes don't have a definitive color.
It's the way you look when you first wake up. It makes me laugh.
It's the way you REALLY enjoy TV.
It's the way you love your family.
It's the way you dress and present yourself.
It's the way you listen to peculiar music.
It's the way you make long drives fun, and mildly dangerous.
It's the way you were sure that you liked me, no questions about it. You liked me and that was that.
It's the way you look in the rain.
It's the way you don't understand that I think the world of you.
It is the way you are, and I like that.

Put on the show,
Paint the mask and wear it with pride,
As if hiding reality was something to boast.

**** in, zip it all tight
The same way you do your lips
When you'd rather unravel and cry.

Paint the smile,
Stamp it across your face-
Make believe for everyone else.

Put on the façade,
The one that fools the masses.
Yet I know to look beyond your face-

Your eyes are sea storm blue
And sting with tears
Because you let them fill for so long,

And you shut up about your problems
And your insecurities
And your fears

Because the fear of honesty
And reality and being geuine
Kept you from the ultimate release.

Paint on your mask,
Don't let your true face show
For the world to see.

God forbid they know,
God forbid you tell the truth,
God forbid you admit you're unhappy.

Pinks and blues color the sky,
The sun has removed itself for the night,
And the breeze rolls on,
Alleviating the August heat.

Though a bit high,
You can find me basking in the last of the light
So I can view all the houses, cars and lawns
As I read on my rooftop; nothing beats

These waning summer nights that
Are fleeting quickly. Nothing beats reading
On my roof, enjoying the solitary act
Of simply reading a book.

I'm doing more than reading up here at
Sunset; no, I'm understanding that this is just leading
Me to the notion that happiness has one fact-
Happiness rests in the little things, you just have to look.

I can't be my grandmother in that I fix people because I need repairs myself;
My own holes and tears can't be fixed by the hands of anyone else, nor can mine repair theirs.

I can't be my grandmother in that I need someone else to make me whole;
The holes I spoke of need not be filled by another,
Can't be filled by another because it won't fill me up no matter how much that person's love for me spills over.

I can't be my grandmother in that I fear abandonment;
I do not reside in the dark corners of "do not leave me" and "please stay".
Go, if you wish. Stay, if you please. I need not to will you either way, why should I anyway?

I can't be my grandmother in that I love any **** person who offers a sliver of their own,
Because slivers of the moon are almost too thin to see,
Slices of affection so thin I can't grasp
And thinness in love will thin out my own veins until I don't feel the blood pumping in the first place.

I can't be my grandmother in that I make the same mistake over and over again,
Try to love the unloveable and fix the damaged souls and talk on the phone to men who don't care at hours when I should be asleep and fear being alone and needing someone else so much I forget how to need myself.

Despite all of my "can't be's" though, it all sure as hell runs in the family.

I didn't see us coming-
I didn't see us falling asleep side by side
And waking up to fingertips rolling
Down my spine like the chills do
When your lips find the crook of my neck.

I didn't see you putting it all
On the line so I could try to love you
Once more and do it well;
I didn't see you ever being selfless enough
To open back up to me.

I didn't see me writing poem after poem,
Stanza after stanza about you and
The way you make me feel so safe and
Comfortable, as if we were just supposed
to be, be here together.

Just like us, I don't have to force any lines or words;
They flow, they come to me easily
And I have to write about you
Because that's what I do about people
I feel for, for people that occupy my mind.

I didn't see myself wearing your sweaters to bed.
I didn't see myself wanting to be yours
So badly that it took some liquid courage
To muster up the strength in my muscles
To walk to you and kiss you on that summer night.

I didn't see you for who you really were
Until now, now that I've seen you bare and in my bed,
And in my every **** thought because that's
What happens when you don't see it coming;
It hits you like a ******* train,

And it's the best kind of hit
When you're smacked in the face with the fact that
Someone out there loves you in all the places
You couldn't love yourself, in all of the crevices
Of your body and soul.

It smacks you in the face and then you realize
That it's perfect. He's perfect.
And the only thing I could see coming
Was the fact that I'm leaving,
And losing all of this will hit just as hard, just as deep.

I didn't see us coming,
Not even if you gave me binoculars and a map
So I could have found us out there on the horizon;
Just as the sun sets on the horizon,
We will set too.

I didn't see you being a sunrise
To illuminate my cloudy skies.
I didn't see you being a sunset
That leaves me left alone
In the darkness once again.

I just didn't see us going out like that.

Ignoring problems fuels them,
Makes them stronger.
They'll return again,
They'll remain longer.

Ignoring problems nurtures them,
Makes them harder to solve.
Stop storing them away in your heart's den,
There they will evolve.

Ignoring problems creates more
Of what you're trying to overlook
Because pretending they don't exist, to ignore
Won't let you off the hook.

I should've known better-
Answering those texts really just meant
I was answering a call to getting my heart broken all over again.

I shouldn't be so insecure or meek-
Yet here I am crying in the garage with your stupid sweatshirt,
All because I know I feel galaxies for you and maybe I'm just one star in your sky.

I shouldn't feed into whatever we have going-
It's going to eat me alive and no exaggeration,
I feel like you'll swallow my heart whole.

I shouldn't have let you into my bloodstream,
I shouldn't have let you sleep in my bed,
I shouldn't have kissed you so hard.

I shouldn't give you the upper hand,
I shouldn't want to be in your arms,
I shouldn't let you into my head.

I shouldn't write this poem when it boils down to it-
It solidifies that you have something over me,
And it makes me feel miserably powerless.

You should know better-
Someday you get to walk away with a novel about yourself
Because writers only write about people they care about.

I always knew
I would be left with ink-stained hands
And a heart stained by loving you.

You should know
That loving you
Is something I should forget how to do.

I'm afraid that I'm pouring out all I have for people and like rain you can't return it to a cloud.

I'm afraid someday I'll meet someone who would pour out every last drop and I'll be dry and scarce and unable to see that that person is who I should have waited for.

I'm afraid I'm sometimes pouring over my edges for people who aren't catching anything I spill out, and when I find someone who will I'll be too empty to reciprocate.

I'll be a drought and he'll be a monsoon, and I'm really afraid that no matter how much pouring he may bring, it won't ease the fissures in my dried up foundations where my heart used to be a full, unpredictable ocean sometimes thrashing just to feel and instead would be the sun-cracked desert floor.

I'm afraid all of this pouring will leave me dry and someday someone will wonder if I ever even poured out my soul to anyone to begin with.

It feels so good to pour you out of my heart like a tipping pitcher-
At first, droplets. Then the entire wave.

I started small, dropping drips of you into my subconscious or even the bottom wells of where I care for people.

Eventually the drops became consistent, streaming into a stream of "I'm okay without you" and "I don't need you to love me".

The wave sloshed out of the pitcher when I decided I was happier holding myself above your love, the wave washed over any notion that maybe your love would somehow replace the lacking love I had for myself.

I poured you out and let the emptiness just be for once, and now I have an open spot where my own self love and support can become a sea that I can sail endlessly.

I used to think keeping your love within the walls of my pitcher heart would keep you 'round but really you ended up tipping me over the edge and I spilled out myself, made a mess and had to pick up my tear-soaked soul.

I had to look at why I would ever pour out all I am for someone like you, who could only pour out so much. I am full to the brim with love and I create a sea of it for people who don't know how to swim.

Pouring you out of my heart took time and patience, though I can see clearly you're on dry land now and I'd rather you rest easy as opposed to drowning in what someone else might be able to tread.

So I'm filling my heart back up and so far it feels pretty full. The pitcher doesn't leak now that I've patched up where you left cracks and dents. I've sealed the leaks with all you couldn't be-

My own self love, meandering the record store alone, buying myself the sunflowers and dark chocolate, putting on the dress because I want to look beautiful, holding my own hand when I feel lonesome, and telling myself that losing you only means my heart is open and vast like the sea.

My heart once poured out for you and like a cloud you can't return the rain, but I don't want to return what I poured out anyway. It was meant for you.

I'm a girl with a pitcher heart gathering what it is I'd like to pour out for someone else when the time is right. Instead of feeling like he's drowning in my monsoon love, he might think I'm the lemonade and pool on a hot summer day- refreshing, quenching, sweet and worth diving into.

So though you tipped me over, spilled me completely, you just left me empty enough to learn how to fill myself back up. Pouring you out of my heart felt so good when I came to see that you're a shallow swimmer who is afraid of depth,

And I simply figured my love for you was too deep to dive into.

I just want to slow it down with you,
So when our minds collide, I can think it through-
Slo-mo us forming a connection in hearts and mind,
Confirming I've found what I want to find-

The shoulder to lean on,
The curvature of your body at dawn,
The assurance and accountability,
Your attention, to the best of your ability.

I want to slow it down with you
When you're simply spacing out, haven't a clue
That the cosmos and stars don't have anything compared
The amount of time I think we should have shared

Together, finding the inner cogs and ticks
Of our beating hearts, what does the trick
To make our spinning minds revolve around
The everlasting could be of us, a continuing yell into a canyon's echo sound.

I want to slow if down for us
So we can look past superficial and lust.
I want to slow it down when I'm within your embrace
Because I'm not looking for a chase.

I want to slow it down so I know time passing doesn't mean we will,
Or your time here will fall ill.
I want to slow it down for once and hear the clock's gears tick, pass and go;
I want to slow it down with you so maybe, with patience and time, something between us and grow

Like the forests with towering evergreens
With trunks increasing in age and rings-
I want to slow it down with you,
In every moment, in everything we do.

Thinly spread like ice sheets in the arctic sea; look through and see the deep depths of ocean water blue, tap tap tap and leave a crack.

Spreading thin and far, encompassing a continent with the chill of realizing spreading thin the way I do leaves me tiptoeing across, tripping on a crack and breaking all the way through.

Chills down my spine, hypothermia creeps in quick and I grapple for solid groud but thin ice can't hold me now, nor did it ever.

Vast and thin left me falling in and now I can't swim, ice blue depths **** me in and all the lights grow dim.

I meant it when I said you'd break my heart.
It's already chipping and fraying.
How could it not when you know it's already so?
How could it not when the fray began to unravel before you even tied the last knot?

I meant it when I said I've outgrown home.
My bed feels small, the stars don't shine like they do
Far away from here,
Where no one knows my name.

And I can't help but think that ending us is only
The beginning of me.
It's the start of cutting my ties to anything
Serious and real here.

I promise cutting you loose isn't going to hurt
More than a pin *****.
I am not the one to rip your heart out;
I'll just bruise it slightly.

How could we get started when the end was in sight?
Why did we think it wouldn't hurt?
Why does my bed feel small?
Why do the stars not shine?

You're all I have left here.
I'm done looking for someone to kiss me beneath the stars.
I'm done wanting someone to love me so badly it hurts.
It hurts knowing you won't.

You're all that's really keeping me around.
I'd be gone tomorrow if I could.
I'd slip out my back door
And sleep on the plane as I fly away.

Why does my bed feel small?
Why does my heart yearn for cities?
I realized a guy would never make me feel infinite,
But letting myself go out on my own would.

I used to believe love would fill me up,
That it would pour over my edges onto the floor.
I used to think a commitment and lips on mine
Would somehow make me forget what freedom tastes like.

Freedom tastes nothing like your lips.
It feels like cold city air coming out of them.
It tastes like blood in my mouth
Because I had a sample of freedom and now I want more.

I'm here for now;
This is my home.
But you cant fill me up the way freedom would.
You can't be that for me.

Home is where my heart is.
It is not with you.
I forgot it in a city where no one knows my name.
I forgot it when I realized I didn't need you to say my name anymore

My bed feels small.
Your lips don't taste like freedom.
The stars don't shine as much
Because I'm ready to give them a run for their money.

I wanted you to care so badly about me that I forgot to care about myself.

How is it that you still continue to care less, and continuing to care for you is something I can't even help?

Pack up your things,
Pack up your dreams,
Pack up your courage,
We're ready to leave.

We are ready to leave the comfort
Of our homes and routines;
We are ready to leave behind
All that steals our time, fleeing the feinds.

We are ready to explore
And walk out on our own
Into the great world,
To places unknown.

We are ready to only leave
Our foot prints where we walked,
We are ready to only carry memories
Of those with whom we have talked.

New places, new experiences;
That's all we crave
New voices, new faces;
To leave behind the familiar ones mean you have to be brave.

Pack up your bags,
Leave behind your doubts.
Embrace the unknown with open arms,
Walk with confidence and curiosity down your new route.

Pack up your life.
Store it under your bed, leave it behind,
Because once you get out in the world,
You'll realize there is so much more to find.

I am the kind of girl
To graze your lips,
Watch them slightly curl
As your hands hold my hips.

Soft kisses around your neck,
So soft they are opaque and iridescent.
My kisses turn you to a wreck,
And you'll never forget it-

The way I laughed in your arms
And swayed under the stars,
The way I set fire, set off the alarm
Enclosing your heart behind bars.

You'll never lose the time
Of rain dancing, you stayed to listen
As I stole you heart, it was a crime
To take an unsuspecting victim.

I robbed you of your stature,
Because I kissed you without the intent
That I would provide utter rapture;
Instead I left you damaged and bent.

I am the kind of girl
To hurricane into your lungs,
Steal your breath with a whirl.

You are the kind of boy
Who deserves the world-
One full of reciprocation and joy.

As things are going swimmingly, there's always something that must go wrong.
Something that halts me, stops me, catapults me into the mindset that maybe what I had going wasn't so great; it wasn't great enough to avoid tribulations and issues that cause me to second guess and hesitate to move forward.

As things hit rough waters, there's always something that keeps me afloat.

And how can the one thing keeping me afloat within my life be so terrific and profound yet scary and daunting and silencing?

You are like a buoy tied to an anchor, you keep me afloat but you still bob below the surface and this roller coaster is all over the place and it's taking me everywhere I didn't even think I could handle going.

I need you, I don't want you, I have you, I miss you, I seek you, I crave you, I lie to you, I lie next to you, I hold you, I push you away. Our relationship is a paradox.

And I only have myself to blame for that I suppose.

When we watch TV
And your hand is placed
On my knee,
Drawing lazy circles

With your finger tips,
I'm looking over at you and
Examining the outline of your lips,
The way they part when you exhale

And the way they're thin
And small and especially divine
When they crack into a grin.
I'd rather they find mine.

I like looking at you
When you aren't looking at me
Because I've always thought your profile
Is so very lovely.

I enjoy the way you look
When you're focused on the TV-
You're natural, comfortable, at ease
And as captivating as you'll ever be.

I write poems for boys who don't even respond to my texts.

I rip my heart in half for people who see a pathway and walk through like it was meant for them to tread and leave their footprints.

I open my mouth to pour out affection and you keep yours in a thin line that does not even budge when I tell you I just want to be with you.

I lose sleep over someone who rolls over the thought of me naked but not the thought of how I look when I'm contemplating or surprised or even belligerently, stupidly angry.

I put trust in you and you boomerang it back, dented and fraying while you tuck yours into your back pocket and save it for someone else.

I carve out time for someone who carves out time within the free time and spare seconds rather than simply making time in the first place.

I write poems about boys who can't even respond to my texts but read them anyway so I'll read my poems and you read my texts and one day maybe you'll wake up with a hollow feeling in your heart and it'll feel that way because by then I'll have stopped writing you, texting and trusting and yearning for your fingertips to trace my lips and your thoughts to coincide with mine and have you want to be inside my head so much it burns and maybe in between my sheets even more.

I spent too much on the ticket,
Spent more than I should on a fare.
I spent too long en route,
Too long on a plane in the air.

I touched down and felt my temples pulse,
My body stiff from sitting for so long-
I didn't know if this would be worth it,
Nor did I know if I'd been wrong.

Was this worth the effort?
Was this worth the time?
My questions had answers
When I finally saw your eyes shine-

In an airport terminal,
Across the way from me.
The tickets didn't matter,
Nor did my sore body.

The distance disappeared,
Your hands found my frame-
You're holding me and you whisper,
*"I'm so glad you came."

And I close my eyes
Memories run violently
Horses in panic

Beating their hooves down
Into charred soil from a fire
Run to safe havens

My eyes open now
I feel panic and wild flames
And then I will run

Towards what I want most
While inferno licks my heels
Telling me I'm wrong

Running to defeat
Repetition isn't new
I always need you

Admitting to that
Sends fires to burn away
Killing memories

My eyes close again
Thoughts and dreams of us are gone
No longer bonded

And maybe that is
What scares me the most here, now
You're no longer here

A ghost of the past
But can't haunt my sleep, my dreams
Your presence is dead

I worry that I'll
Forget you all together
Because we are through

You are out of sight
I don't have to close my eyes
You are out of mind

And I am afraid
Losing you all together
Do I care or not?

Therapists suggest deep breaths
When those memories come rolling
Into my thoughts like trains
Hitting cement walls-

Destroying it, nothing left
But my deep ******* breaths; they aren't controlling
The fact that my brain
Won't forget those long gone calls.

So I panic, I revert, I concave
Into myself and shake and the
Anxiety encompasses my every fiber
Within my being.

Talking about it doesn't make me brave.
Talking about it makes me accept the shove
Into remembering. I become a diver
Unstilling the waves, no longer am I fleeing.

If I'm remembering, I am losing.
If I am conscious, I am at a loss for peace.
If I am ignoring, I am causing my heart's bruisings-
This is the part of me I control least.

Progress is slow, and if I am not patient or kind to myself in the process of progressing, I will cease to make any.

Progress appears more and more over time. If I don't give it time, I will have squandered any chances of moving forward.

Fully clothed, I dove in head first
Sure you would follow
No need to look back was my thoughtful curse
Emerging, though, my heart grew cold and and hollow

You never even grazed the broken waves
Unstilled by my dive
Holding my breath while my soul caves
Seeing that you chose not to arrive

Caught in your once loving current
I chose to tread
My heart to you I once lent
Now drowns until pronounced dead

Begging for calmer seas
Only got me so far out into your waves
Getting cut and hurt by your violent reefs
Yet my heart yearns to stay

I could've swam your ocean forever
Held my breath and gone below
Calmly content underwater together
Running out of breath was unknown

I want to swim more
But your waves still thrash
So I will stay ashore
While your calm water continues to thrash

If you're going to kiss me,
Do it with ease.
Lightly place your lips upon
Me as you please.

If you're going to wrap me up
In your arms and hold my frame,
Envelope me whole,
Using your comforting hold to stake claim.

If you're going to wipe away my tears
With your index fingers and palms,
Flick them away and whisper to me
Sweet nothings, in efforts to keep me calm.

If you're going to sleep by my side,
Trace circles along my spine
Until I fall asleep in peace,
Feeling safe and sublime.

If you're going to say you love me,
Even when I'm a mess,
Mean it with every breath you use
To prove you love me best.

If you're going to laugh at me
When I dance barefoot in the streets,
By all means, just join me please;
Dance to the sounds of my heart beats.

If you're going to make me fall so hard
Because you do all of the things I require,
Be sure to stay for awhile
Because you lit my heart up into a passionate fire.

Rather it's not a matter of if,
But a question of what you fail to do;
You endure all and remain my rock-
I would not survive if not for you.

This dream isn't feeling sweet
I remember 7 and I thought 17 would be freeing,
I remember dreaming at 13 and thinking love and age would be so sweet,
Though back then I didn't know
That youth can't be beat.

We're reeling through the midnight streets
I used to lie to my mom
So I could stay out late and roam around
Someday no one will ask where I am going,
If I'm coming home or staying out on the town.

And I've never felt more alone
I outgrew people and times in life
Like coats and pants and shoes.
I outgrew my home and myself,
And I never knew I was something I could lose.

Feels so scary getting old*
Every day is an inch closer to
A world in which I have only seen for so long.
School taught me to divide and write,
But it didn't tell me how to stay strong

When I'm 20 and lonely,
When I'm in love and aching,
When I'm trying to replace the youth
That I so easily found myself mistaking

For a span of life to run through
As if it were a field.
I miss 7 like I used to dream of 17.
I ache for the youth that was real.

It's disheartening
When apologies carry
So little weight that

They nearly get lost
Within the so incoherent
Buzz your voice now makes-

All the things you have
To say are so severely
Lacking truth, merit.

"I don't believe your
Apologies anymore."
You used to tell me.

I understand now,
The weight those words carry hit
The cement with an

Echo that screams with
A resounding statement; *"I
Don't believe yours either."

She'll flinch at your hands moving from her waist to her lower back, back up to her neck and cheeks because it's been some time since she's been caressed by hands that are wandering to remember old terrain.

Try to decipher the goosebumps on her arms and thighs like Braille with your fingertips. What do you read? "I missed you"? "Don't go again"? "Stay"?

Maybe she won't meet your gaze immediately. It's oddly scary to look someone in the eye when you've seen them go dull from too much heartache. Instead, close your eyes and lean in. She'll close hers too, and you can feel the sadness melt away when your lips are almost close enough to hers.

She'll gasp ever so slightly when you finally kiss her. It'll feel like electricity in your lips and she'll be dizzy from anticipating this moment for so long. Her lips have lingered on coffee mugs and beer bottles, but haven't been warmed by another pair since you left. Reignite them with your own.

Hold her close and kiss what you can. She's timid but so lifted by the fact that you're here in her embrace. If she holds you too tightly, allow her this once. She's trying to make sure this isn't another one of her far fetched dreams that wake her in the morning.

She may be rough and kiss too hard, too fast. It won't always be like this, but she isn't sure if she'll be afforded the opportunity to feel your kiss again. She's feeding a hunger that's been growing since you said good bye.

If she clings to your frame when you say good night, whisper softly into her ear about how you'll be back. Come back, and kiss her again. Kiss her until you forget what day it is and how long it had been since you last kissed her. Kiss her good night but not good bye because there's a difference between the two and trust me, she knows. She knows the difference because you've kissed good bye before, and a good night would simply constitute to finding you once again.

Smile- it captures my lips
As my mind makes revolutions
Close my eyes as my thoughts flip
Until I find the ending conclusions

I've lain on my bed
Watching minutes go by
11:00, 12:00, 1:00 am is what I've read
Time is a bird, ready to fly

I smile because it conveys
All that I am feeling
Even all the breaking and pains
I experience while my mind's reeling

I don't do it to feel close to you
Or because it's a physical need
Those days are overdue
A hunger I no longer have to feed

I don't have a dependency
On what I don't obtain
Although I'm never fully free
I feel no open wounds or pain

It more resembles a scar
Simply there
But never too far
To lose it's tempting glare

The glare that sometimes becomes blinding
Not my sight, nor my judgement
But my heart, causing unwinding
Making my thoughts and heart distant

Recomposing myself took practice
Falling down and regaining balance
Becoming less and less
Resistant to you absence

You see me breathe and walk
You see me as another face
You see me speak and talk
You see I've fallen from your grace

I see you put one foot in front of the other
I see you've moved on
I see you were eager
To not carry me along

And I'm okay with it all
It's why smiles embrace my lips
And it causes tears to fall
From the corners of my eyes, to my cheeks' tips

Happiness*- it eludes my soul
I can see it inhabits you too
And when it gets cold
I remember- but you haven't a clue

Don't build a home in the rib cage of others is what my mother told me when I found myself wishing my bed was "ours" and home was more so his arms.

Don't nest in the heart of anyone for hearts are fickle, fate is unpredictable and alas, people always change.

Don't place all of your eggs in the basket of your lover- when they hatch and attach, they may be so comfortable that you never leave and never learn to fly.

My mother begged me to not lose myself in swimming his veins, the web of his mind and the sheets when the bed was ours. Some days I wish I would've listened, but finding a home in the heart of someone else taught me this-

Hearts are as fragile as the nests you build in them.

Your wings flapped too hard and created hurricanes when you lost control, and chipped away at your rib cage nest.

You picked and probed with your beak to no end, and left holes and tears in your heart home.

It's not fair that your own heart was so full to the brim with demons and doubts that you unloaded them like your belongings when you first moved in, left scattered around, left out for the mess you were.

Your fragile heart left marks upon your home and the foundations flew away like you should have when your rib cage nest and your heart home grew too small and let you fall. It took falling to learn how to fly but by then it's a little too late.

Do not make a home in the hearts of others, my mother told me.

Someday you'll have to fly away without your heart because the weight of it is too heavy from a lesson your mother tried to teach you, a lesson he taught you and a lesson you've come to preach-

Do not leave your heart in the rib cage nest of another, for it'll nest so deeply that it cannot be reached.

I think every woman wants to be
Looked at like she's a piece of artwork,
Whether it be when she's first waking up,
Or when her body is scarcely covered by a sheet.

I think a woman is a piece of art
Worthy of a longing stare
From across a hall,
Or from her love across a bed.

Not to objectify,
But a woman's body is indeed lovely from
The curve of her spine
To the backs of her knees, to the way her hair falls.

I think every woman wants to be adored
By her love, man or woman,
Whether she's conscious of it
Or not.

Look at your love the way
You want to be looked at;
Like she's a piece of artwork
That doesn't sit in a museum,

But rather within your own reach,
Close enough to see her eyes light up,
Close enough to grasp her
Because unlike in museums,

She's a piece of art that you can finally look at and touch.

Your location on this globe
Ceases to keep you from pinpointing a spot my heart-
Even though you're far off elsewhere,
Your stake on the beating in my rib cage reinforces that we are never truly apart.

It's like age and the shorts from two summers ago,
The missed calls that are weeks old.
It's the pens I dropped behind my desk and all of the socks that never found their match.
It's the photos that I accidentally deleted and the fleeting moments I didn't make time to write about.
It's all transitory and fleeing,
Rushing by just like a breeze.
My life and the people are blurring together so quickly now that not even with glasses am I able to see
Who is there, what is staying and what will go.
I'm phasing through without stopping to hold a hand or smell the roses before
They're old and overgrown.

You leave me wanting to dance and cry and write endless stanzas about your arms and lose sleep because you're keeping me awake with your words and warm lips. You leave me hopeless but I feel itty bits of hope regardless because your eyes remind me that there is more than meets the eye; they're blue like me when you're gone but so forgiving when I come back. I want to tear you apart and inject you into my own open veins. I want to walk away yet I walk in a circle right back to you. You're going to build me up so I can fall so hard later on but the free fall might just be worth it. The rush of the fall makes my blood boil the same way your hands in my hair does. The rush of air from falling cools the back of my neck where the hairs stand up whenever you draw circles on my skin with your fingertips. Don't let me fight a battle worth letting rest instead. Don't let me fight for you if you know you'll end up putting your knife through my heart in ways that can't be fixed with needles and thread. You leave me wanting you and I can't have you leaving me until you have to. Don't let me fight for you unless you'll fight with me. Please don't fight how you feel, be vulnerable like me and fall again. We'll leave bruised and aching but the free fall feels like the breeze in summer and water rushing over your warm body. I'll wash over you while I'm here and cleanse your eyes when I leave. It feels like euphoria when you kiss me. Don't let me fight alone.

Keep your hands where I can see them-
Not at the small of my back where your fingertips could roll down my spine and ignite the open fuses in my heart.

Keep your words in your throat-
Swallow them down the same way I swallowed the lump in my throat when I realized I was a trophy on your shelf, a prize that collected dust.

Keep your heart within your ribcage-
Don't offer it out in slivers of affection, in segmented allocations of desire and lust. Keep your ******* heart contained if you can't even keep it whole.

Keep to yourself, it's all I really ask-
I used to ask the opposite of you, though I came to see that you had a padlock on your heart I couldn't figure the combination to.

Please keep far away from me; don't check in and don't text, don't call and don't bother because I can't answer calls from the past nor can I keep my heart to myself when you can't keep to yourself.

I want my love to be thread,
And my intent to be a needle
To sew your broken parts up,
To make you whole again.

I want my words to be tape
To your ripped up hope.
I want my embrace to be your staple,
Reconstructing your being.

I want to find all of the pieces
You hid away in the back of your heart,
The dusty pieces in the corners of your soul,
And fit them together to make you whole.

I'd wrap you up with all my love,
All my effort and strength if it meant
That you would be all there,
If it meant you'd be okay.

I want to be all of these things,
But I am actually the stray string on your sweater
That you tugged at, and it left you unraveled,
Naked and bare and cold and open and raw.

I want my love to be a thread,
And my intent to be a needle.
I actually tied you up,
And pierced your heart in the end.

I'm sorry that I cannot demonstrate
How I love you
That circumstances had to create
A distance, a wall through

Us and what we had
And what could have been.
We faded like a fad,
Seemlessly disappearing, never to be seen again.

I'm sorry that I'm not sorry enough
To be with you.
I'm sorry I've hurt you, made it so rough
To to see me through.

I'm sure I could write letters and novels on your appeal,
Your beauty and your charisma.
I'm sure I could cover pages upon pages about how you look across a room, and how catching my gaze sometimes makes me lose my train of thought.
It's like a train running off the tracks, steam and engine and rotations over how something so dangerous could be so thrilling.
I could trace you with chalk on the sidewalk and outline all the reasons why I think my outline could fit like a puzzle piece next to yours.
I know I could dive deep into your dammed heart, find the cracks and leaks and patch them up best I can.
I know I could write pages and tell you, yet nothing my lips could say could match the way they'd feel against yours,
And I'm sure that the only way I could keep quiet about you is if you're the one closing my lips against yours.

Look at me like you look at the moon-
With wide eyes and awe
That erase woes and gloom.

Look up and find me in the sky,
Look at me despite all others
Shining up on the black canvas, up so high.

I don't need you to only see
The moon on the star-shining nights
When the stars be all they can be.

I just need you to feel for me
The way you feel when you look at the moon-

Feel wonder and ease,
Feel me as you please.

Feel a sense of home and safety,
Feel vast and even maybe

Feel small but feel humbled,
Feel like you have stumbled

Upon a beauty that has been seen before,
But one that you'll choose to forever adore.

I am not a North Star
To guide you home,

Though I can be your moon,
And I'll be wherever you choose to roam.

I'll waver between waning and full,
Between fully there and shadowed away.

Though even when it seems I am gone,
I promise to never stray

Too far from sight,
Nor too far from mind.

Look at me like you look at the moon-
Like your search is over, and you've found what you wanted to find.

I am watching people slip through my fingers
Like beads of sand on a beach.

I am watching memories wash away
Like waves roll in and out, leaving no remains.

I am watching common ground disappear
Like the sun sets over the sea.

I am watching things I love float away
Like a beach ball blown away, out of my reach.

I am watching passions I pursued subside
Like the sunshine at the end of the day wanes.

I am watching everything we had drown in an ocean of confusion and cowardice,
It all drowns until there is nothing left to see.

The ocean swallowed me whole,
And sent me back to shore,
Empty handed and empty inside,
Hollow to my core.

The ocean entangled me in seaweed
And entrapped me in love.
I panicked, cut myself free
And resurfaced above.

The ocean's salt burnt my wounds,
Reminded me that they were there.
The reminder that you're gone now,
And none of it is fair.

The early risers haven't awoken yet,
And the parties are just dying down.

When I'm at awake and alone at 4 am,
I drive around this town-

Through the quiet neighborhoods,
Sedentary stop lights,

Waiting for cars to change them
Through the wee hours of the night.

Driving along the dark streets
With nothing but my radio and my mind,

I find solitude and peace,
Something rather hard to find.

At 4 am, the hour of awake and alone,
I find myself driving amongst the others like me-

Unwilling to shut eyes,
And always willing to roam.

Petals fall, hues fade-
Dig a little deeper when looking for companionship
Because roots are where our truths lay.

To empathize and sympathize
Rather than criticize and publicize
Issues that cause fissures in his foundations
Keeping him upright and safe from tribulations
Is so much more rare.

To listen and disengage
From all else but whoever is speaking so he has the stage
Will help release him from the cage
Of hopelessness, loneliness, and ridicule;
Doing so shows you care.

To comfort and support and love
Will demolish all fears and rise above
What bogs him down so far into his heart and mind
That he feels he is lost, he can't find
His breath, choked by a lack of air.

To provide and subside
All of your own problems, to let them slide
Even if momentarily, for another human being;
In doing so, you are growing, learning and seeing
That love and compassion were meant to share.

I didn't know my heart strings could extend from the ribcage and attach to the corners of my lips.

This might be why it's so hard to smile and laugh when my heart feels like it's impaired and laden with tears and rips.

I have the inclination
To get up and just leave
Board a train at the station
And ride away.

I have the impulse
To leave at 4 am
Slyly shut my front door
And leave with stars above me, all of them.

No goodbyes to be said.
All I'll leave
Is my unmade bed
And my discontent for the ordinary

I'll board a train
Spend too much on a fare
Read books until I reach my destination
I'll go anywhere, I don't care.

I'll board a plane
Flying to some far away place
Because this current life is too plain
To keep me content.

The world is my oyster
I'll pick up and go as I please
Roam and meander until I'm weary
This travel will bring me ease.

So one night I won't return
I'll just be somewhere else
For foreign places cause me to yearn
For travel, bliss and happiness.

Let me go
Someday I'll come home
But not until I explore who I am and this world
All by myself, all alone.

Let me go
I'll return someday
There's so much you'll cease to know
If you never let me leave.

Last day of 2014 and I have the best feeling that 2015 will be something bigger and better than I can comprehend at this moment.

2014 kicked my ***, broke my heart and taught me to have a backbone. It taught me how to love and how to let love go, and how to let some love come back. It taught me that family isn't just blood; family is who, as corny as it may be, makes you feel at home. It taught me to hold others when they need it and to not be so ashamed of asking to be held back.

2014 taught me to be my own person, and how being my own allows me to be so much more for others too. This year showed me so much heartache and growth, pain and joy. I learned that friends can love beyond what you deserve and parents, no matter how frustrating, do just the same. I learned that the nights I didn't sleep were some of my favorite memories, and some were my favorite lessons.

I learned that the fine line of love is more like a river that you either clear or drown and the only way to stay afloat is to learn to swim. You have to jump in without hesitation. I learned that netflix really is my best friend and the people that binge watch with me are a close second. I learned that waiting for someone who meets my expectations is worth the wait rather than settling for second best, and that telling other people about their worth is worthwhile in itself. I learned that loving others is the only way I will make it out of this life alive with a sense that I did something right.

2014, in all honesty, was a year of love for me. I fell in love with a wonderful person who I learned infinitely from. I fell out of love with the same person and learned even more from that. I fell in love with my family, even if they are the people that hurt me the most. I fell in love with the way concerts and music makes me feel more than anything else. I fell in love with the friends I have because they love me back, in the most honest and unconditional way possible. I fell in love with the way it feels to love myself and above all else I fell in love with myself.

Throughout this year of tribulation I found the courage to love me and tell everyone about it, because self love is a treasure some dream of, some eye at, and one that only the bravest find.

Above all else I learned that love isn't defined in any song or movie or book. It's what you make of it. It's the phone calls to say hello to far away friends and the hug at your worst. It's the child kissing a mother, it's the big anniversary date and it's the spontaneous adventure with someone you care about. Love is flipping the penny to heads up so someone else has luck, and it's a wet kiss when you're too drunk to even make it back to bed. Love is a shout into a canyon where your own echo may be all you hear, and it's the hope that someone else's echo someday responds back. Love is unconditional positive regard and telling people to get their **** together when you know they need it. Love is this and so much more. Remember that love isn't cookie cut and neatly packaged; it's raw and real, and it comes in a variety of forms. Don't be blind to love because it doesn't fit your preset mentality of what love is supposed to be. This is how you lose beautiful people, by not recognizing their personal love.

2014 is ending and 2015 will begin; I hope you all make it something worth telling about. Find the love in the people you know and the things you do; love hard and love well. Let go of the love for people who don't love you back, but keep your eyes open for love because I swear to God it is everywhere. If you let yourself believe that it is not only abundant, but that you are also so entirely worthy of having it, I promise your 2015 will be more than you can comprehend too.

"Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?"

This isn't a pick up line though; I want to know how badly you bruised when your wings were clipped and you fell so fast you didn't even know you had fallen.

I know you thought he was your heaven, your above all else perfect, your safe haven but tell me,

Did he let your wingspan expand and be all it could?

Or did he pick at your feathers, one by one, until you were bare and unable to fly?

Did he tell you you couldn't fly without him?

What did he say that made you believe you didn't have the power to get up and sail along the skylines like before?

Do you feel caged in his heavy arms?

Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?

I think it hurt more when you fell in love with a boy that created a false sense of it, and made you believe that life without him hurts like hell.

I think you mistake the bruises he gave you for ones you think you'd have without him.

I think you're fearful of falling from his grace, his arms, your perception of heaven so much that it will plummet you into the depths of hell,

But I know better;

I think you could make it out alive.

Hell, I know you could if you would extend all you are beyond arms length, let yourself free fall into the unknown and remember to take up the space you deserve.

Open your eyes, open your heart and open your wings because the wind will carry you far, you'll see the world that you thought didn't exist without him, and you'll realize that the real hell is sewing up your heart and delivering it to someone who doesn't heed to the "CAUTION: FRAGILE" stamped on top.

I know it's going to hurt when you fall from your heaven,

But know it'll hurt less than contorting yourself into a smaller version of yourself so you can fit into his figure when you fall asleep together

I know it's going to hurt when you fall from your heaven,

But know it'll hurt less than giving him the clippers every time you feel the need to fly and watch the world and all you could be pass you by.