Over and over again it happens:
Work piling up into massive
vertical structures, threatening to
topple over and smother me.
You'd think I'd have learned by now,
but I have not.

and if i stop, i'll miss the little things:
shaving my legs when i know you're coming over and
not drinking coffee because you don't like the taste of it on my tongue.

i'll miss
running out to your car with my shoes in my hand,
the very last goodnight kiss that's always sweetest.

i'll miss lying to my parents about traffic
and weather
when we were right around the curve of the road,
stealing kisses.

i'll miss
when you don't shave because you know i like your scruffy boy-stubble
when you touch my face without speaking
when your actions
are louder
than words.

i'll miss
your sweetness
i'll miss
your puckish sincerity
i'll miss
you.

i'll miss your hands
your tongue
and your lips on my cheek.

i'll miss you kissing each one of my fingers.

i'll miss our secret handshakes,
our inside jokes,
our petty fights.

i'll miss our song.
i'll miss our arguments about the beatles' breakup,
our railings against religious institutions
our speaking of souls.

and so what i'm proposing,
from me to you,
girl to boy and
heart to heart,
is that you don't stop loving me,
and i
won't stop loving
you.

well you say you want it all but
you don't have what it takes to come and get it,
and frankly,
you're not him.

he knows
that i dance in the rain
and he knows what i love
in terms of books,
baked goods,
and warm-weather clothing.
he holds my hands when they're frozen to the bone and he
presses little kisses into my ear when no one's looking, he
teases me to within an inch of my life and
loves me like you wouldn't believe.

and frankly, you can't give me that
because frankly, you're not him.

he knows every nook of my self and
every cranny of my heart
and i didn't have to tell him -
and you only find one person like that your whole life.

and frankly,
it isn't you.

so i'm sorry -
but he loved me first
and i picked him first
and there's something about the stitching of our souls
that you simply cannot undo.

i don't know how to love
two people -
i don't know how
to choose.

the fact is that right now i'm yours,
but i watched him playing today, feeling the music with every part of his soul,
and my heart has never beat that way before.

my breath has never been more taken.

i have a weakness, you see
for people who make beautiful things,
and i could feel the strikes of his drums in my blood -
i could feel it through the floor
straight into my body,
until i couldn't tell you where my heart stopped
and the drumbeats started.

my friends promised me that it's only a phase,
and that you are who i want, truly
because you are who i have
and they're probably right,
but right now there's a part of my heart
that is pumping my blood with drumbeats,
and right now there is a part of my heart
that isn't yours.

Somehow I scrounge through these jumbled words in my notebooks and I piece together this puzzle.
When connected it forms some idea of who I am - my brain... my heart...
it personifies my existence, so to speak.
Although, like all puzzles even when put together as a whole to form a landscape or object,
the cracks from the pieces are still present...
Now, from afar people wouldn't notice these cracks -
these blemishes in the photo,
but like a collage when up close, it becomes more evident -
the imperfections become more radiant or profound...
The glue so to speak for this picture of words - this illustration of life would be -
it is those cracks, those blemishes that make a puzzle - a puzzle... and a person - a person.  
Each individual, as everyone knows, has different life experiences, different scars to form different pieces to make up their own unique puzzle.
One piece may be interpreted through skills or hobbies and another with goals.
Each and every second of a persons' life could ultimately be a piece of a puzzle.

Passed the past,
Looking ahead beyond time -
One precocious step.

Images captioned by darkness,

My eyes closed...
Invasive thoughts -
Somber mind,
Silhouette of those lips...

Your taste on my toungue -
Our love entangled,
Us; Together...