She is salty lipped ocean throat
Warm morning fog
Mixing with her overcast

I want to place my head on her treasure chest
Listen to her wet ruby cascade and thump
A metronome for people who dance lightly

She is a mildly ******* mermaid
Born with the deformity of legs

We were all born a little bit broken
I tell her

I know you’re a body of water I want to drown in
When home feels like it’s so much bigger than these four walls
But not much stronger than the skin I’m in

So here’s to jumping off cliffs
With the hope to land a little painfully
So evolution might give me the wings I was meant to be born with

She walks like a riptide
Often risks drowning in the off chance

Nature might be kind enough to understand
What it really means to have sea legs

This is for the soft shelled crab
Who was tired of the heaviness of home

For the mockingbirds who never studied music
So they copy sound
Sometimes really annoying sound
But they hear the beauty regardless

For the Dumbo Octopus
Who clearly watched too much classic Disney

The beluga whale who can crane its neck
When its sonar song of home is not enough
To know their kids are coming back to them

For the penguins
Who are fine being flightless
Because they’d much rather swim

They didn’t think it was stupid
When they wished they could be different

And she is the ocean
Hips sway like a high tide approaching
Hiding sirens’ secrets
Skeletons in her closet
Lovers who have lost
And drown in her pitch black

She wears the water like a second skin
Smiles like the wind is pressing back her cheeks

She chokes on sea water
Drowns a little
With the hope that this place might feel more like home

Sometimes home is the hardest place to get to
But there’s nothing wrong with going home

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

1
The hardest thing you will ever do
Is care for someone who has no interest
In caring for themselves

It is grocery shopping at 2am
Shortly after work
When this morning I realized
There is no food in the house

It is a week’s worth of food I can barely afford

2
Growing up there were 2 churches in my neighborhood
On Wednesdays
The one closest to the elementary school gave away bread
On Fridays
The one near my grandmother’s house gave out canned goods

It was always fun to see what arrived in the big brown boxes

It was like Christmas
Except if it was close to Christmas
Because the boxes were always a little more full than usual around then

3
She sits all day in a robe
Mismatched socks
A cigarette between permanently pursed lips

She is the closest thing to crazy cat lady
That I have seen in real life

Except
These are not cats

These are children
Still dumb enough to not see that something is wrong

4
He is an old man
Doing what old men do
Around the time of forgetfulness
And the time where your body stops doing what you tell it to

Like to not **** your pants

5
They are like houseplants
And goldfish purchased from the same market
Living things whose only interest is dying

Like sheep open mouthed at the beauty of the rain
Sheep sometimes drown in the rain

6
I feel like I’m drowning
In a shallow pond

The kind of drowning that takes effort
And humility

The kind where the gasps of air are enough
To fill me with hope for a little longer

It is water-logged hope
At the bottom of a drying well
When the mouth at the top
Look so much like laughing

7
I know
Airing out your ***** laundry in public
Doesn’t clean your clothes
As much as it lets everyone know how bad you can smell
Which reminds me
I have laundry to do in the morning

Here’s the bouquet you say you deserve

After all that you’ve been through
Here are some flowers

Symbolic of whatever
I couldn’t care less

It’s on the table next to the dinner that you said I never cook

Off center is a hallmark card about how I don’t love you enough
But should

We are stagnant like holy water
Which is stage three in the second half of a relationship  
according to Knapp’s Model

I did the math and researched the reasons why we don’t work anymore

Here is the math

Sometimes

I is less than or equal to U

Not that

I could or ever should be greater than U

|But I want our equality to not be a battle to maintain|

We don’t need each other anymore

I don’t need you like I don’t need teeth in my *******

And you don’t need me
Like an extra head on your shoulder hanging so heavy

So here are your flowers
Here is your dinner
Here is you apology letter to the both of us
For how long it took for me
To tell you to go

It’s simple math

It’s 20 minutes over dinner in silence
+3 bags I’ve packed for you
+1 20 minute drive to your friend’s house

It’s the remainder of me
When the fractions don’t fit
And I want to be whole

This is me becoming whole

The square root of dying to an over-exaggerator

Maybe you deserve flowers

I deserve to deal with life in whole numbers

I’ve fallen from your fractions
Been rounding out my edges
And I’m almost done

Now go

And leave me to the simple math of being alone

I picked up the pieces of my shattered heart
and put them into my jar of fireflies.

Only way now to keep my heart-spark alive
To live healthy in the glow

I've left the lid open
Living with the fear that this light might leave me

I have to remind myself some days that dust still rises
So I walk like an oil well to keep your memory alive

I watched them bury you
and realised my biggest fear come true

Heaven can't be real

And coffins only trap our dead
I need to let you go

When I die I want to be naked
wet
and covered in seeds

Heaven is the transfer of energy
into new life

I don't wanna be a goddamm tombstone garden
I wanna be a real garden
With ******* roses
and lillies

And weeds
Weeds are hard to ****
Make me something strong again

Give me a reason to keep on going
Help me kick my own dust

I wanna make life
even after my life

and

I want you back
I want you back

Because I miss you so much some days
I drive sixty in suburban neighborhoods
Prayin the fire finaly takes me
and
I can't do it

I know I will wake up in the morning
and you still won't be here

Sent you an e-mail the other day but purposely got the address wrong
I just wanted your name in my inbox

Someone already has your cell phone number
I called them and cried
because when they answered
they sounded exactly like you

They've asked me to stop texting
Saying I have the wrong number

Did you know all the people on tv sitcom laughtracks are dead?
It is ghosts reminding us to laugh

Remind my smile
Remind my dust
Remind my firefly glow
To get bigger

Remind me that you're not really gone
Not gone gone
Even if you're just plant food
It means something

It's why grass itches your bare skin
Reminds you it's alive

I don't want to itch like your nightmares anymore

Just know
I am picking up the pieces as best I can

And I ******* miss you