5 months pass, I’ve now found my way, moving on was fighting a fire
Memories made, months of bliss, now lighting a funeral pyre
A skip in time, the horizon behind. Now I have found someone better
Tells me the truth, I can’t believe lies. The fear has no cause to fetter

In this new realm, joy I now seek, my darkest days into bright nights
A soulmate and purpose, a plan of attack, on life I now set my sights
Occasional glances, ones over my shoulder, have lessened and now gone slack
My head hits the pillow, my mind all but quiet. The memories come flooding back

A place almost familiar, it takes me an instant, something’s not quite in place
Looking around, remembering where, that’s when I see her face
Effortless beauty, a touch so gentle, Her smile made seraphim cry
She walks up to me, look down, holding hands, look up, lock eyes.

The memory vivid, queue music, we dance. Rhythmically stepping on a star
The late nights, the middays. the first kiss, the last. Knowing how much would scar.
All flooding back, I know what happens, wishing this dream would last forever
A piece of myself, a fragmented soul. My heart now starts to grow heavier.

Bolting awake, a tornado of thoughts, I’m crying and I don’t know why
Pulling myself out of a slumber, my head in my hands while staring into the sky
10 years have passed, I have moved on and gotten on with life
In bed next to me, somebody stirs, Not her but the one I call wife.

I can’t quite explain it, the feeling she gave, all of my cards on the table
I always bet big, waiting for love, but everyone knows of this fable
A dream, nothing more, I couldn’t resist, I had to fly close to the sun
Accomplished my goals, beating this game, still feeling it hadn’t been won.

Conscious and aware, I look to my side, the woman repairing me still
Deserving of love, taking a chance, helping me climb up this hill
My hope and my anchor when mind starts to wander, she wakes and sees tears in my eyes
She grabs me, pulls close. Smells of lilacs and honey. The look on her face, so alive.

Smooth and gentle, whispering to me, Telling me everything’s okay
“You know who you are… You know that I love you” saving my psyche from fray
Always the words, listens and tries, never fathoming leaving her side.
She was the one. My dawn after night. In her everything I confide.

He came and left just  
as fast as seasons change,
In 2 years and 4 days,
There’s no way the hole of what’s left of us can ever be refilled
It’s something better left as dead.

With the way it ended, in time, it can mend, but,
There’s so little and so much left unsaid and unsalvaged, left for the dust,
Leaving Time as the beast to consume the remnants left of us

Our Simple hi’s
And slight glances,
Big smiles and small laughs,
Pictures best left archived and buried in boxes for memory,
Letters that’ll stay with the sender,
poetry that's better left in the vault,
And numbers that are best as blocked.

Thoughts of when we were oui
And dark cheeks turned pink through turn of phrase,
Initials in the palms of the hands that held hearts

Soured by the immaturity, and insecurities,
Lies and outside secrets.
Bodies best left in closets, knives better hidden under beds
And thoughts of what could’ve been,
And why did things end the way it did,
And maybe, we really were better off as friends,
Lies to each other that it’s just right but the wrong time,
If we try again, this time will be right…

But I think it's best for both of us,
That whatever this is,
Is best left as dead.

I almost made it through today without thinking about you.
But then I smelled something like your hair —

dusk in early May,
like lilacs giving up,
and July the rest of the time —
like someone’s still grilling down the block
even though the party ended hours ago.

Like a memory that keeps overstaying its welcome.
(Like I’d forgotten how to forget you.)

(Anyway,
I started googling “what’s the opposite of nostalgia”
but halfway through I forgot
what I was looking for.)

Got $9 boba with a friend I haven’t seen in years.
There was too much ice,
the grass jelly kept clogging the straw.

I told her I was fine.
(I wasn’t.)

I teethed each tapioca like a guillotine
to feel something smash.

(I kept biting the ice too —
felt like breaking tiny bones in my mouth
and pretending they weren’t mine.)

(She kept talking about her new boyfriend —
I think his name was Ben or Matt or Disappointment.
He was younger than us
but just as dumb.)

Anyway, I saw our old dance professor at the grocery store.
He asked about you.

(I lied.)
I said you were doing great,
(but I was lying to keep you in a cage
of things I never wanted to admit to myself.)

He looked at me like he knew I was just rearranging wreckage
from a storm we used to dance in.
(Get it?)

(Oh, and by the way —
I still have your sweatshirt.)

It’s at the bottom of my laundry basket,
but I can’t wash it.

It smells like October
and a bad idea I refuse to stop romanticizing,
a wound I can’t stop picking at.
(I tried throwing it away once —
but it felt like pushing someone
out of a lifeboat.)

I almost wore it last week,
but I couldn’t —
like putting on a ghost
that still remembers my name.
like putting on a bruise
just to see if it still hurt.
(I think I wanted it to.)

Anyway, did you know
memories leave like party guests —

half of them forgetting to say goodbye,
the rest lingering in the kitchen,
picking at crumbs
like they might stay forever?

(I kept trying to swallow my gum
just to see if I could.)

I keep thinking about the time
I tried to make you laugh
by pretending my hand was a spider —

(I got tangled in my own fingers
and you called me impossible.)

(I set alarms for stupid times now —
4:13, 7:29, 10:04 —
like if I time it right,
I’ll wake up different.)

Anyway, I saw your name
carved into a bathroom stall in the city.

(Unless it wasn’t yours —
but what are the odds?
Pretty high, actually.)

I stared at it too long.
Some girl in a bucket hat walked in,
gave me a look
like I was unraveling in real time.

(I was.)

So I smiled at her
like I was chewing glass.
(I hope she’s having a great day.)

Oh, and I found your zippo lighter in my trunk last week —
matte silver, your uncle’s from ‘Nam.

I swore I’d lost it.
I keep the lighter in my cup holder now —
like a threat I don’t know how to make.

(I tinker with it at red lights —
like I’m trying to burn something down
but forgot what.)

(Sometimes I imagine flicking it open
and holding it to the sleeve of your sweatshirt —
just to see if I’d go through with it.)

I stopped going out for a while,
but last month I had three beers
and told some guy on a barstool
that I still dream about you —

(That’s not true.
I dream about losing my teeth,
then hiding them in my ears,
getting in very slow motion car crashes,
and realizing I’m too drunk
to perform the play I’m the lead in,
but I think they mean the same thing.)

I saw a crow yesterday.
Anyway, it reminded me of you.

(It perched outside my window
like it knew something —
kept tilting its head
like it had a secret
and didn’t care if I figured it out.)

I almost followed it,
like maybe it was waiting
to lead me somewhere
you never made it back from.
(Oh, and by the way —
I still love you.)

Anyway, how’s your heart?
(And why can’t I stop writing
like you might answer?)

(Anyway, I’ve started talking to myself in the car —
Sometimes I pretend I’m singing with you.)

It’s really fun.
It’s sad, but it’s fun.

I keep writing you into my poems
like I’m building you a place
to come home to.

I keep retelling the ending
like I’m trying to dig you out —
like if I say it soft enough this time,
you’ll remember how it’s supposed to go.
(Anyway, that might be the worst part:
I’ll never know if you hear me.)

Maybe I haven’t been healing,
maybe I’ve just been waiting.
Waiting for you to come back and tell me that I’m worth it.
But maybe I need to be the one to say it.

Anyway, I hope you’re okay.
(I mean that more than I mean anything else.)

we
          are
not
         the
same


        and i hope
we never are.

       you
worthless
     hopeless
undeserving
      awful
monster.

we
          are
not
         the
same.

All of the tears I poured,
Everyday lost in obsession,
Now look like just illusions,
That pulled me further,
From my wake up call.

I gave my all,
And it took so long
For me to finally realize,
What they did,
Can't get to me at all.

I once thought I was crazy
I doubted you were even real
I thought I was in a psych ward once
But reality has been revealed

I wasn't in a ****** bin
You and I had really met
And you did everything I thought
Now you claim that you regret

You beg for my forgiveness now
You say just one more try
But you made me think I was crazy
You made me wish to die

You lied and cheated and gaslit me
Till I was nothing but a shell
Then you left me for dead
You chose somebody else

It wasn't until I told you
That I had nothing left to give
I stopped giving you my time
And I remembered how to live

Now suddenly you need me back
News flash but I'm not blind
I finally see the truth for what it was
My whole world was realigned

You forced me to come to terms
With the full picture of us
And honestly I can not believe
I had ever gave a ****