Do poets know
      that they're alive?
      not simply spectators
      set aside

Do writers know
      that they are heard?
      that they are more
      than written word

Do you ever feel
      that words you write today
      are all the things
      you cannot say?

The sky was clear that day
But I felt it anyway
The sun was shining
Ever bright
But still I knew
Something wasn't right

I couldn't stop
I couldn't hit the breaks
Blew past every sign
Down memory lane

All the places
All the streets
All the paths
I look for scraps
I try to find
Traces of you
Left behind
All the flowers bloomed in May
All have died and withered away

I fell in love with subtle things
And it's all those little things
That I can't live without
But now I'm trying to learn how
And when I hear your name
I try so hard to refrain
From going back down memory lane

I was never able to stop loving you
And sometimes when I least expect it
I remember that and it tears me apart
I cry myself to sleep thinking of what we could have been

You taught me what it meant to be loved
How it felt
You taught me how to fall in love
And what it meant to lose it

But you never broke my heart,
I was never able to sever that sense of longing
If the competition of who loved who more
Ever named a victor,
It would be me

Because I wrote poetry about you as a friend
As I fell in love with you and the way I denied it
How I tried to push the feelings aside  
To be your ally when you needed me to be
How I conceded and realized
I was only lying to myself

I wrote about you as I fell in love,
As I fell deep and hard
I wrote when we were together
I wrote about my longing
About my desire and adoration,
About how I fell deeper and deeper
I wrote about futures and dreams

I also wrote about when it all ended,
About all the tears I shed in secret
About the pain I'd felt for the first time,
Of losing something I cherished so deeply

I wrote about how I couldn't stop loving you
No matter how hard I tried
About pushing my feelings aside
And sacrificing them to be your devoted friend,
About how that tore me up inside

I wrote about how no matter how many years passed,
I couldn't make the feelings dissipate any less
I realized in every letter I wrote,
That I would never be able to stop loving you,
And that it would have to be okay,
Even if it felt like it never would

I love you,
Even today
And while I may never call you mine again,
I will always be yours

The first time taught me what love was not
That you can’t force yourself to feel what just isn’t there
And I know it wasn’t fair
That my love for him just wasn’t there
But I tried my best to open up
I tried to write songs and poetry from the heart
But the words wouldn’t flow
Just like my love for him, it couldn’t grow
And that’s how I knew
That I could never love him
Not in the way he wanted me to

And so we parted on good terms, or so I thought
But he was broken hearted and I was not
He lashed out and I couldn’t understand
Why he felt so strongly about the mutual end
He said things, did things that he probably regrets
He probably wished that we’d never met
And perhaps he wasn’t my first love
But he was the first that I tried

The second taught me what love was
What it meant to love, to be loved and to lose it all
He was poetry in the flesh
We always seemed to be
The right people at the wrong time
And I still wish our planets would just stay aligned
He made me feel alive, he made me feel alright
He called me pure, he called me perfect
He called me a queen, a goddess, a rose
We were silly, we were young
But he showed me a love that can’t be outdone
He said I stole his heart
But he was the thief that ran away with my art
My words and all my sentences
Now contain pieces of his essence

When it was over, I wished he’d broken my heart
I know I begged the stars and every deity of love
To keep him in my life even if I couldn’t stand where I wanted to
I wished it were like a band aid I could rip off
So the sting could make me relive the rush
So I could still see the scar of what once was
But he didn’t leave me ****** and broken, just empty and absent
I knew our love was just a blip of borrowed time,
But I felt forever in the way he said he loved me
I felt lifetimes go by in the moments he was mine
A crater of a feeling that I only felt from him
Lives deep down inside me like a bottomless ocean
He will always and forever be the one with all of my devotion

I’ve loved and I've learned
The lessons are there
Like the bridges I burned
And through all the heartbreaks and bad days
It puts a smile on my face to look back
On all the pieces of my past
Of how I learned what love was not
And all that it could be

Nothing scared me more
Than fearing I could no longer write
I loved you so much
That as you left my life, my heart and mind
You nearly took my words as you went

Words are ****** to a poet
When we run out it makes our blood shiver
Our hands tremble and our lips tremor
A muse becomes an addiction
I miss the high of loving you
I crave the way you made me feel
The cravings dig a hole inside me
Allowing the emptiness to win
It's like my bones are bleeding and my veins are freezing
As I sit with a pen in hand and a paper made of sand

I wish that emotions captured in a sentence or two
Could chase away the withdrawal of being away from you

You are too young for it all
Too young for this much pain
Too young for this much heartbreak
Too young to be chasing halos

The last time we spoke, you hugged me tight
And I felt it then, that hope still in you
That possibility, the light that hadn't gone out
You hugged me tight and I knew
There is still more for you to do

And so I'm begging you to open up your eyes,
Open them and keep them wide

You aren't tired so there's no need for you to sleep
It isn't time to throw in your towel
It isn't time for you to go
It isn't time for you to be chasing halos

When you were smaller I held you in my arms
So sweet, so small, so innocent
You would always smile like you looked up to me
And I knew I had to be good so that you would too
There is still time for you to be anything you dream

So I'm begging you, don't trade your youth for wings