A brief, but passionate inhale.
Who would have thought,
of the autumn in her eyes?

A sweet, delicate voice.
A beautiful sound to detect.
And never forget.
And never regret*.

The stud of a nose
Her own clothes and eloquent verbose
An unheard of strength
That she shrugs off like dirt.

And she knows of Dad.
Because she has been there too.
Not just for the smell of *****,
Or for the pain of just one bruise,
But for the depth behind
A clenched fist
and the struggle for eye contact.

It was 6 AM.
In the autumn.
And things just happen.
But see,
it wasn't just a thing.
It couldn't be.
The way I held your hair
And hid it safely behind your ear.
And accepted the kiss
That my fear could not initiate myself.

It was the blue,
And the blonde.
The black of the beanie,
And the spots of the sweater.
It was the look
and the smile
and the inhale.

And then
it was the stars.
And the stone wall.
And the Boston skyline.
It was the teasing.
and the alcohol
and the spot by the river.
And it was autumn in her eyes.

It was heaven in the trembling of my knees,
and in that kick in the shin,
and in the brownie brittle,
and in the passionate kiss in the room upstairs.
It was hell in the uncertainty.

And as the time will pass,
We will attract or repel.
Naturally.
And where this ambiguity chills me to the bone,
I find autumn in her eyes.

Listen to the sound of the clock.
Does it beat the same for you?
Days are passing by and I
Would pay handsomely to miss the view.

The winter soon approaches
And the leaves even depart.
And who's to say for sure
If we really hold them in our heart?

Listen to the sound of your heart.
I don't understand all of the commotion
Perhaps a kiss, a touch, and unrequited feeling.
The logic just never seems to dictate that senseless emotion.

Because who's to say that love
can overcome all of the fear?
When nothing in this world besides confusion
is set in stone and crystal clear?

Listen to the sound of your head.
Does it puncture your mind with sorrow?
Even when the torches light the way for me,
I can't seem to illuminate tomorrow.

Who first decided there was a purpose?
A poor idealist who failed?
I suppose he hoped for better days.
For lovers and dreams that never bailed.

I grow tired of dreaming.
Because life is just too pragmatic.
I'm older and just that more beaten down.
It's just becoming so traumatic.

There's such a delicacy about all of it.
What to say. How to feel.
How do you feel?
As if the price of honesty was well worth the reward.

The weight of it all
will almost always pause us,
and freeze us in picture frames.
It will capture the shattering fragments of glass
before you have the slightest chance to react.

And how do we reflect on the past,
or predict the future,
when it just seems so out of our control?
It's as if we've been thrown into a violent gust
without any wings,
or at least ones we can trust.

But you are to my left,
and you are to my right.
And we are all around you.
So no matter how futile our attempts
to blow each other in the right direction are,
The love behind the action
will never steer you too far.

You.
Where can I possibly begin?
My perception of you
Between an innocent first day
And a battle-scarred, war-torn last,
Has indescribably transformed.
Just as a chameleon does
Under the same circumstances of fear and doubt.

You.
You were there, ready for work.
Smelling of popcorn and lip-gloss.
Ignorant of what was ready to walk through that door
And ruin your life.

You.
You were there for months.
Friendly and shy all at once.
Laughing at my jokes
While guarding your heart with a strict severity.
And that profound underlying insecurity.
Awaiting the fall.

You.
You were there on that Autumn evening.
In the passenger seat of mom's Ford Explorer.
Your hair blowing in the frigid breeze.
It was there-
It was that evening.
Under the stars and lights of the Ferris wheel.
That my lips met yours.
I was awkward, I was scared;
I was elated.
You were mine.

You.
You donned that blue dress for Homecoming.
My hand could have wrapped around your waist
Again and again and again.
This was eternity.
This was love, as I spoke to you that night.
My hand grazing against yours,
My body pushed upon yours,
My heart on his knees for yours.

You.
You lit up 2011.
It was a year of illumination.
The year of rhythm, harmony, and bliss.
Every meal
Every date
Every touch of your skin.
Lit up my life like I never could have imagined.

You.
You were so smart.
Westfield, Roger Williams, Bridgewater.
The former was your favorite.
And you were gone.
But we still remained.
The idea of separation seemed impossible.

You.
You struggled so desperately.
To fit in, to grow up, to grow strong.
But you leaned on me like a fencepost.
Because I was there.
And I loved you so profoundly
That the thought of your unhappiness
Made my very being collapse.

You.
You continued to isolate yourself.
You continued to drown yourself.
Again and again.
And I was there.
And suddenly,
my friends weren't.
Nor was my family,
nor were my hobbies,
nor was my identity.
And suddenly,
I was an empty container.
Serving to please you.
Every call.
Every game.
Every night spent alone.
Every tear.
Every wish for my life back.
For you.

You.
You demanded my presence.
Or, by your standards,
I did not regard you as anything more than a body.
By your standards,
I did not love you.
By your standards,
I did not care.

You.
You were there for my first day on campus.
Ready to criticize.
Ready to consume me.
Ready to tell me why I was not what you wanted anymore.
But
"I was in there"
God knows that I hoped I was.

You.
You dragged me through this year.
Time I could have spent connecting.
And laughing.
And making memories of the sun and moon.
But this was it.

You.
You begged me not to leave.
Because what would you be?
Without me attached to your sleeve?

You.
You always had a reason.
Why it always "made sense"
And so what did logic dictate?
My wings refused to lift me.
And I stayed.
Like a hopeless fool,
I stayed.
And we were on for year four.

You.
You took a room for two
And made it your own.
You took a passion,
a hobby,
a life,
And made it your own.
You ensured the final draining of my soul.

You.
You knew I was getting worse.
You knew I was no longer there.
You knew nothing lied behind the blank stare.
Nothing could prepare you
For a trainwreck of a partner.

You.
You turned my emotions into a background noise.
When I cried, the couch became my best friend.
When I could not feel, you made me do.
When I could not do, you made me do.
When I could not go on, you made me do.
Because you had felt so unfulfilled
For so ******* long
Because of the corpse lying next to you at night.

You.
You didn't know.
Just as ignorant as I was.
This was love.
This wasn't love.
This was what it was supposed to be.
So we thought.
And so one day,

I.
I knew.
I left.
Teary eyed, achy, and broken.
The last ounce of life drained out of me,
Feeling like an aging man.
Feeling like the **** under my shoe.
Feeling
Such an amazing relief.

I.
I now can say you are gone.
And I have moved on.
And my life is forever changed.
No matter how many souls I encounter,
No matter how many ghosts may haunt me,
No matter how much love I may receive,
You will be there.
Because I can never know if I was right.
Because I can never know why
I made the choices I did.
And I'm so sorry, my dear.
I'm so terribly sorry
That I could not separate
The love I wished to give
From the love I couldn't possibly feel.