Half-written poems made up her life. Fragments of concessions to feelings. All of them, deconstructions of moments that when combined, create a facet of clarity.

“I woke up in a bittersweet desperation/falling into the sun/that staticky feeling/hum of faint memories/I dreamt of you last night and it felt like torture/everyone’s reality is based on their own circumstances/With me, it will never be easy/I have a worn-down longing for a love that never was/breathe deeply for four seconds/I hope we find our way/We can’t be afraid of losing each other/something inside me felt indifferent/On the verge of collapse/I bury my feelings for you, only to dig them up later/I fall deeper and deeper/You are cruel/a million crushing breaths/We only wanted desire and knew nothing of devotion/the inability to control drives you/7 am alarm goes off wildly/buckling under pressure/My habit of looking back/always devastating/Just a reckless moment, filling me to the brim/So lovely, so tenuous/Yes, I’m a *******/how soul-shaking it would be”

Somehow, the incomplete feels more whole.

All of him ***** her in like a pressed bruise—
that initial drop of pain from stomach to toe,
then the blossoming ache of violet tenderness
threatening to feel good on the verge of torture.

I dreamt a morbid dream of my grandmother on her deathbed.

In my dream, she held my hand and said,

"I can only tell you about the happy moments in these 75 years. When it is all said and done, the only bolt in life is a love so voluminous that it overwhelms you."

I woke up, sharply, with a poignant pang in my chest.

Compatibility is a beautiful thing
when it exists. To feel someone on
a molecular level—their breathing
exhaled in sync with your thoughts,
their imprint inside the space of
your narrow veins. Your nuclei
wrapped in familiar second skins,
circling each other like binary stars.

a snow-capped Massachusetts morning,
the morning you awakened and turned over
from your side of the bed to hold me,
to tell me you had a dream,
your voice part gravel, part wonder,
a dream about our daughter—
the one we haven’t had—
how she was half me, half you,
how you saw her and it felt like
the proudest moment of your life

I hope she reads this one day
and feels the awestruck feeling
of love between us, for her—
our past, our present, our future
unfolding tenderly, slowly on
a snow-capped Massachusetts morning

in between
where I’ve been
and where I want to be
the skeleton of our love lies

floating along the river
of my own aching
facing a starless sky
a beautiful nothing

Dreams of you
like a spectacular
adrenaline rush
crashing into me
at high speeds—
both breathtaking
and fear-inducing.

reveling in this feeling—
the butterflies unfurling
touches of light wings
against the heart

fluttering that overlaps,
an intricate gossamer veil,
too vulnerable, lovely
in its meaning

there's nothing to say
except that it's just sad
when love turns into
brittle resentment

no one grows up
thinking they would
experience the worst
and then they do