Confession I: I want to be with you, not just around you. I want to lie with you, gently tracing the thoughts from my head into yours. I want to follow where your limbs go, with my lips, like a map or the north star leading me to your most beautiful valleys and mountains. I would collaborate with your collarbone and back to mine, allowing a skin bridge, a focal point, to show how inherently beautiful you are.

Confession II: I want you out of my head, but not out of my life. I have teased myself into a conditioned state, a procedure that no one should ever live through.  I tripped over myself, and then over you, and I just want you the feel some electricity gathered at my fingertips, nose tips, please just kiss me. Kiss me like you would with your bent out of shape, looking for escape, lover. I could show you a thing or two about pleasure and how to love another woman just as much as you could love a man.

Confession III:  I hope to apologize in the kindest manner, see some of your exposure – I’m trying to lift composure out of ten thousand gallons of saltwater.  I know you have collected nothing but bitter – I just want to be sweet to you.

As he slept she noticed the way his lashes fluttered with each intake of breath.
The way his hair fell across his forehead.
He stirred, his baby blues searching her eyes.
"What are you looking at?" He mumbled at her as he pulled her close.
"Nothing..." She whispered into his chest.
As he nuzzled her neck as his breathing slowed as he fell back to sleep with her wrapped in his arms.
“I love you.” She said to his sleeping outline as she finally drifted off to sleep.

I have forgotten how happy this makes me
But I am grateful for it

Grateful for the mistakes
For the learning that comes from the ****** up things my mouth does
When all I wanted was for you to laugh

I am thankful for the laughter
And the overwhelming smile that I am normally self-conscious of
When the laughter makes me think how much I love you

Come sit with me in the middle distance
Between the times I want to remember forever
And the fast approaching future
That I don’t want to miss without you

It’s not gay when we hold hands in public
Unless we’re being gay about it

Look around
Who is staring?
They’re just jealous of the love

Thank you so much for getting me
When I feel no one else does
For understanding me so perfectly that
You can stop my stupidity mid-sentence
Just by saying my name

Say my name again like a double negative

Let my mouth slip a little further into absurdity

Thank you for the dancing
On dimly lit dance floors
Slick with sweat
And scuffed with heel-heart grace

I want to remember my awkwardness like a scar

Your smile is a scar reminding me of us
When I begin to tell these stories again

Like that time I broke into a car to steal him a pack of smokes

Or when we sat in her car after class til 2 am just talking
Just laughing

When I remind her how much I like kissing her
Especially when we’re drunk
Sloppy and passionate

When I pull my face from yours
And you smile so beautifully

When I slept on her couch because I didn’t want to go home that night
So I treated her to pho the next morning

When I held her after drinking
Under blankets she warmed in the dryer

Every time I tell them I love them
I mean it

When they taught me how to dance
When grace is something I never needed
To move like this feels good

The beer
And the tears
The laughter
The mornings after

I am grateful because of you
And because of you
I am full of greatness

Full of can-do-fire
And won’t-quit-cliché-heart
Full of first attempts with the goal to fail
Because I want to experience it all

With you

So thank you
For the laughter
And the dancing
And the awkward scar smiles
That reminds me how worthwhile living is

It is worthwhile
Because of you

My friends:
the fire hearted nomads;
the hard headed lunatics;
the kids with lion eyes.

We used to be the roots of a tree;
veins of an ox's heart.  
We used to be free,
but now we've fallen apart.

I said, you said, we said,
"This fire in my heart
is forever," but

naivety got the best of me.
Our fire died - and so - the tree.

The thumps of our ox's heart stopped beating.
Forever lost its meaning.

Your rose colored glasses make everything okay

Until the shades blend
and you're seeing red again

There will always be a point
where filters deliver their ***** backwash
and you're left with the mess the elephant made
in the corner of the room
and he's rubbing your nose in it

He's rubbing your nose in it

I know I am only beer goggle beautuful
A latex layer of desensitization
to try and make our crash last longer

And you see in hues
of rising shades of deadly
Miss my blushing
so you don't realize
how uncomfortable this is making me

But you're smelling roses
Feel the thorn's *****
but miss the blood on your hands

Wonder why the roses suddenly smell so coppery

Please let us learn how to peel back the layers

Flay me like a whale
on a boat-deck-cutting-board

Pull me out of my element
and peel back my skin
while I am still begging you not to

See me for who I am
while I am at my most vulnurable

writing poetry at 2 am
when I should be sleeping

A t-shirt over a lamp shade
because I am afraid to sleep alone in the dark

The door cracked so I can hear if my father falls again

Sometimes silence scares me
Sometimes it is all I want

Right now it is so quiet
There are no filters here

Your rose colored glasses make everything okay

Everything is not okay

Flay me

See me for who I am

without any filters

Then tell me you still love me