i hate that i’m lying in bed
with a cup of tea
and can see myself in the future
in our bed
with a cup of tea
and you lying next to me

and i hate that i can see myself turning out the light
and laying my head to rest
on your chest

i hate that i can see us sitting at a little round kitchen table
next to the window
you in your black rimmed glasses
scrolling through your phone
me with my hair ******* and one knee draw up to my chest,
eating a bowl of oatmeal as the sun creeps its way
into the middle of the sky

i hate that i can see us side by side
brushing our teeth in a cramped bathroom
in front of a foggy mirror,
listening to music as we get ready for the day

i hate that i can see us walking out the front door,
i hate that i can see us kissing goodbye

because i’m lying in bed
with a cup of tea
thinking about all of this,
thinking about you

yet i’ve already kissed you
goodbye.

i want to dissolve into the sky
without a sound
without anyone noticing my empty space
in the most gentle and subtle way possible
i want to go away from here
i want to walk backwards and save myself
from what inevitability is ahead
i want to leave
i want you
to wish i’d stay

afternoon light shining in through the sheer curtains hanging over my bedroom window, on the most ordinary day of the week, your arms were around me and my head was on your chest as it slowly rose and fell, and you twitch as you’re falling asleep, and i never thought i could fall in love with the sound of someone snoring, but your sleepy inhales made my heart swell, and since then, the day has been a series of heavy exhales. i can feel the weight of you behind my ribs and in the corners of my mouth as i smile at the thought of kissing you, your laugh, the way your eyes look when they’re looking at me, the sound of your voice when you’re trying to get music to play in your car, how i feel when i can feel you next to me; i hope you don’t mind, but no matter what time or space is between us, you’ve written your name in the sand of my soul and no amount of wind or waves will ever be able to wash it away. the time we’ve spent together feels like seconds, but you will always exist in my memory as someone who held my hand as i walked into the sun.

It’s been three and a half months since we last spoke,
really spoke, not just guilty hellos
and scattered half-hearted pleas
And it’s not you, it’s never you
it’s me it’s me it’s me,
but you love
me
you love
me
you love
me

And my head has forgotten what it feels like,
but I know my heart is safe with you

Because you’ve never stopped chasing after me
and I’m tired of looking at my feet, telling myself
I’ll be okay without you, trying to navigate
through a thick forest at night,
pretending I don’t have matches at
my fingertips

You are the only thing
that has ever made me feel truly whole

I’m sorry I’ve kept my eyes shut so tight,
but I’m here now and I love you and I miss you

And I don’t want to keep living
like fragments of a person anymore

I’m Yours.

i’m always all too conscious
of moments hanging in the air
like watching helium balloons slowly
fall down the wall to cover the ground,
i keep stepping on them till they pop

like looking out the window once the suns starts to set
and you can’t see the light fading, but then you
blink and you’re sitting in a dark room

sitting next to you
with eyes closed and breath held
in a moment
that doesn’t feel real

like i’m looking down at the earth
while standing on the moon

and i know i’ll miss it once it’s gone,
but i can’t seem to figure out
how to freeze the hours that feel like seconds
passing by and

then it’s time
to leave and i held your hand
while you drove me home,
thinking about how real everything felt
with the lights blurring past on the interstate,
how i wanted the road to go on forever,
watching you rap stupid songs and
talk about how to feel grown up
without really growing up
and then suddenly

it was gone,
like it was never there

and i sat on my bed
wishing i could walk back into
the hands on the clock and
your hands on my face, but it
disappeared, floated up to the ceiling
carrying my heart with it

and all i have now are
memories that feel like dreams

to play back in my head
until time fades back into you.

are hands and knees that hit the floor
and crawl back towards what i’d sworn off before
weak, or brave
is it braver to run in the opposite direction
or to stay even when it stings
because when we’re in your car
i know what the crickets outside
are thinking, is it true
am i throwing white sheets over old reminders
written in dust, small whispers leading up
to an attic where all the hurt and confusion is stored
in cardboard boxes labelled DO NOT OPEN

right now i’m sitting on the stairs
with my back against the door
and i’m looking at your face, your face, your face
searching for something maybe i didn’t see before
and the words you wrote at two in the dark
made me miss you when i promised i didn’t,
and i want to stay, but when i try
to convince myself that you’re right,
that pushing you away is the easy way out,
that what we feel is a reason to keep each
other around,
i still find it hard to believe myself
when i tell myself
that i am being strong

i think we still exist
somewhere in the universe
behind the sun
where all of earth’s abandoned
soulmates go to rest
i think i can see us
when i look up at the sky
and squint directly into
the rays of light,
your brown eyes burning
into mine

i think we are together
in the time that trails behind
the present, dancing
in circles until the last stars
fizzle out

i think that our promises
seeped into the soil, like
february rain, our souls sown
together, tucked in
beneath the world

i think what we had is
somewhere just out of reach,
pulsing in the dim spaces
between heat lightning

and although, in this lifetime,
we became nothing but shadows,
monsters that linger on bedroom walls

we are there, we are alive,
and we are still in love.