its coming up on a year
a year without you
longer than I had with you to begin with
and I can say I don't think of you often
in passing more than anything
and i feel little about it

I know one day it will be my wedding day
someday, as lace cinches my waist and vows hover in the air,
as i get ready you’ll cross my mind
not from longing, just a glitch in memory’s muscle
curiosity killed the cat but I’ve been dead all my life
so I’ll wonder where life has taken you
and I’ll be glad I don’t know for sure, glad you’re not at the end of the altar waiting for me
and maybe I’ll have the children I would never have been able to have with you
and they’ll like poetry, and I’ll think of you again
I’ll teach my boy to not act the way you did, the way I hope by then you don't either

I’ve come to accept that thinking of you will happen
you shaped me as a person and six months can hold a lot of weight, turns out
I’ve stopped worrying about subconscious meanings
I think of you not because you still hurt me, not because I’ve not moved on
I think of you the way i do about those mornings when I was seven and watched the tv all alone  just to let time pass
in the way i think about that one mean girl from middle school, or that pretty girl from high school
in the way i think about my grandpa, the memories few and blurry and probably half made up
in the way i think about my first job, a lesson of bitter taste followed by so much better
in the way i think about every other boy that came and hurt and went

in my writing anyone can tell i'm a fraud
just a painter trying their hand at a new form
composition swapped for sentence structure,
verses on pages where watercolors on canvases once laid

in your writing i can tell you're a fraud
you put words into your mouth, hope people believe them yours when they spill out
a performative emotional ventriloquist waiting for applause

i used to think writers romanticize and painters show,
after all you were my frame of reference when it came to poetry
but I’ve since learned you’re just not truly a writer

I put down the pencil and picked up the ink
and hey i'm not half bad but you’re not half good
i tried to speak your language not realizing you didn’t know it either
kept handing you words you could rewrite into warnings

come to think of it you never tried to speak mine,
never tried to translate me, never grabbed charcoal
and maybe it's for the better,
you would have smudged it around to cover up who i am
you mime meaning and call it understanding,
i was wrong in mistaking your performance for presence
maybe you being a **** writer wasn't all bad,  if it kept me from the monster you actually believed i am
maybe you being a **** writer is why i too fell in love with the version of me you crafted, she’s a little less ruined

the more i look back the more things i notice, more things to write about
like how your poems were never directed at me,
i was not the audience you were pandering too because you knew you already had me hooked,
no, instead you wrote to another public,
I was a character in your songs you could show off, let people pick and ****
made me into a myth, a tale parents tell their kids to scare them into sleep
you were my muse and the person i was trying to reach with my strokes
not realizing there was no heart to reach for

so i write now and you still don't paint,
if you did i think you’d be bad at it anyway
you’d hate cubism, seeing more than one perspective seems to fracture your mind
and you’d find a way to romanticize it all, put reality aside
you never were good at taking things at face value,
even worse at translating and encompassing things bigger than you
I was the stars but knowing you, you’d just paint a blank black sky, add your own galaxies to and call it a piece worth while

either way i still write, usually about you, always directed at you
i find new words and try to rewrite the story you told,
but if i ever show the public I’ll be sure to make it an illustrated book with all the imagery i know you can't paint

He picked up the fruit, mistook the shine for something familiar
Thought the crimson red meant safety
a comfort food he remembered from childhood

Hungry and eager, tongue sliding over lips
he popped it into his mouth
biting down hard
expecting raspberries’ familiar flood

But the sound of something breaking met him instead
A tooth chipped on the cherry pit
It was a cherry after all

Starvation had blurred his sight
He thought I was soft, sweetness of an old friend
But I was never raspberries
He just never looked long enough to know

The illusion shattered in his mouth
iron taste instead of tartness
He spat it out, blood and juices mingling
bone and pit, both broken, indistinguishable now

He walked away, changed but not beyond repair
red-stained hands already reaching for another low-hanging fruit
too desperate to clean before, too desperate to care,
too starved to seek fruit he might like more
The cherry lay behind, torn and spent
pit smashed, flesh split wide

In time, the earth will cover it
The water will nurture what remains
Years will pass, roots will sprout
The cherry blossom will rise strong again
And in the branches
more cherries will grow
sweeter than they ever were before

you told me once I was bright
insisted on it as I tried to tell you I wasn't, tried to show you
You said you'd hear none of it
I mistook your wish to not listen as a promise you saw, saw me
I know now, you never did
you were holding a candle, mistaking its glow for my own as its heat warped my reflection
the orange haze altered the way my skin looked, made the shadows retreat out of sight

I had to think back hard
trying to remember when you began to alter reality’s way for your comfort
I think it was from the start
You brought the candle with you from day one
I see you carry it everywhere, erasing your own darkness with it even now
It makes sense, I saw the glow on your skin
i believed your praise so wholeheartedly
i assumed it was my own shine bouncing onto you
just as you said, insisted
with time of course, your eyes adjusted to the light so much so you could see me
the shadows zoning back in, everything too clear for your liking

and so naturally you moved the candle closer and closer and closer
Hoping its heat would keep changing and morphing that which you hate
would soften me, melt away the harsh edges I had spent years sharpening,
strip me down into something smooth, something pliable, someone you could claim to love
and each time it had less and less effect

It didn't hurt for a while if i’m honest,
sure, sometimes the heat made me sweat,
but I just assumed it was that warmth people talk about when they talk about love
there was not one butterfly in my stomach, just smoke in my lungs from where you were burning me,
lit me on fire in hopes whatever charred remains fit your fantasy
You expected me to be a Phoenix, raising pure from the ashes for your entertainment
as if that didn't mean I had to die first

And you know, it all makes it so much more hurtful to remember
when you walked away from the fire you started
sunglasses on claiming it was too bright for you
you took your stupid candle with you
always wanting to search for what you’re missing in someone else's flames

Here's what you don't know
In trying to light me up, you only managed to cast an even darker and bigger shadow,
behind my back where nobody sees, but I feel it's cold constantly
It almost makes me wish for the burn of the candle
tell me, is that not the cruelest part?

you grew up with stories
wine that tasted like iron
and bread from the bone
your romanization of cannibalism should be no shock
you could not only excuse it but worship it

love and hurt are both four letters
and they taught you to count not read
holy and pain look close enough blurred
so punch me with your lips
and hold me with your fists
blood pumps through the heart but pools warm in bruises
you hurt me because that’s how they said He loves

it confused me, the faith, the hymns, the god
all i believed in as a kid was the pain, the pop, the no power above
but i think i get it now
i am no believer, never been, but i kneel when you ask me to
not even god gets that kind of loyalty anymore
i let you hurt me because that’s how sheep love

i mistake resurrection for staying dead a little longer
sacrifice and slaughter feel just as ******
trust and surrender have the same control
devotion and worship bruise your knees the same way
obsession and hunger look the same in the dark
need and want feel like desire, if you look past the lack of spark
god and the men pretending to be him are violent

and maybe I understand communion now
forgiveness tastes sweeter coming from your lips
I’d risk everything just to bask longer in it
sin has never been so tempting
purity is just a concept, opiates dissolve in your holy water
and baby I’m willingly drowning in it
let it baptize me clean
so make me feel unworthy, make me think you cruel
make me test my faith it’s okay
I’ll i bite the apple, say the words, ask to be crucified
watch you lick the blood from my palms and call it divine retribution
take the punishment as proof you’re real, take the pardon as proof you’re kind

i became religious you became a god
a pedestal and an altar aren’t too far beyond
we became that which we couldn’t understand before,
we were not meant to be this

In my world
Your absence is an offensive crime
As my heart is under arrest
And only your presence can bail me out

stuck in an endless cycle of criticism
just to avoid the mere idea of being hurt
the idea of letting someone fully into my heart, just to take another piece of it away?
it's something my mind and heart cannot fathom yet again

is my judgement something that can be seen as egotistical?
funny how i hate myself so much, yet try to hold you to such a high standard
but i know love cannot be formed in this manner
love isn't about changing someone into what you want
but rather about accepting and loving them for who they are

my mind judges the immaturity you have, like any other teenage boy
or the way you aren't my ideal person, academically
yet i admire the way you talk about your passions
or how you kiss me until i feel okay again
maybe that's what matters more

Love scares me
You reveal parts of me that recklessly try to hide in plain sight
But you are so soft
Pure laughter from your lips
Your eyes forgive my mistakes so easily
I don’t know how to hide

Life is sweeter with you
Like the sweetness you taste from honey
In the warmest and richest way possible
Nourishment for the soul
Unlike the sweetness from plain sugar
Forcefully sweet and cold
An antidote rather than an elixir

Your words caress me
Like the wind blowing the washed clothes dry
Sunlight dripping in every thread woven
The faint scent of detergent smiling
Unlike the loud laundry dryers
Buzzing with wrath and fury
Demanding the water to vanish at once


I like your smile that brings your whole face together
Almost like how pizza is made complete with spread and toppings
It’s beautiful but satisfying  
Cherry on top of the cake
It makes my heart flutter and melt
Like cheese dripping out from yummy corn dogs
Messy but so so lovely

I love everything about the way it is with you
Head to toe
Limbs to fingers
Lips to chin

she kissed him under no roof,
no thoughts could spring to mind
no code, no written proof
she told him she’s undefined