MIDNIGHT

I hope you remember me
in the midnights of yourself,
in the ten half moons that
cupped my face and confessed
your love for me on the
last Sunday of April.

How unpleasant it has been,
to only be seen by you when
the Sun has set and Nyx has
stained your vision with her poison.

Even at our best, it was always
with the help of another woman
that you saw my worth,
however temporarily.

I am beautiful too,
you know,
in the vulnerable streams of
daylight, the muted mixture of
sunshine particles and
exhaled pixie dust.

I am magic—
a witch, a deity, and a minx,
yanking oceans with the
center of my own gravity,
undoing the shackles you have
clasped around my ankles
just because I can. 

i wonder

i wonder, how often do you think of me?

is it every time you breathe and my mouth is not there to inhale a small sliver of your soul?

or is it every time you look up and your gaze is not met with my eyelashes brushing gently against your cheek?

or maybe it is every time your lips curl up into a smile and there is no one there to laugh at your crooked teeth.

or perhaps it is every time you furrow your brow in frustration and i am not there to smoothen your forehead with a kiss.

i wonder, do you even notice that i am no longer there?

or if when you breathe now, your lungs flutter with sighs of relief.

or if when you look up, all you see is clarity where mist once clouded your judgment -- your every thought.

or if when every time you smile, it is of release and of the realization that this is what you've always wanted -- to be alone.

or if when you furrow your brow, it is in genuine confusion as to why it took you so long to get here.

i wonder, how often do you regret the life i so terribly miss?

Replies of Chloride

It makes me wonder

With every bitter word you say to me now

If the love I poured into your soul

Still burns on your tongue

With the pungent aftertaste 

Of defeat and loss and deliberate departure

And if

With every word I say back to you

Snide remarks made of useless blades

Dulled by the numbing pain of goodbye

The hairs still stand on the back of your neck

Like the first time I ever told you I loved you

Or if we’ve gotten rid of it all

and bleached each other out

stains of Love on our white satin solitude

Immune to the harshness of our voices

Raw with anger and the unspoken truth

That this wasn’t how it was supposed to end.

It's All Fun and Games

Your NFL team won tonight, and I couldn’t help but smile and congratulate you in my head. Smile about your adamant belief that if you wear their jersey five minutes before the end of the game, you’ll help them win. Smile about how hard you kissed me when they did. Smile about how when I asked you why you root for them when you’ve never even been to Colorado, you replied that as a little kid, you liked the colors of their uniforms: a vibrant orange and a navy blue. And it just stuck. Now you’re theirs forever.

I’ll let you in on a secret: I’m jealous of them.

Because somehow, falling asleep in each other’s arms every Sunday night turned out to be a ritual far too difficult and complicated to follow. Somehow, kissing me with other eyes watching became too strange. Somehow, even though you swore that the color of my boring brown eyes is your favorite, you’ve decided that you’re tired of looking into them. Somehow, it’s easier to commit to a bunch of burly men who have no idea you exist than to a girl who has forgotten what it’s like to exist without you.

Remember When?

Booze, buzz, and sticky floors

You love me but I love you more

Dressed up like the adults we pretend to be,

But we’re just children, you and me.

Darkened room and tortured heat

The last thing I want is to admit defeat 

You say you can’t, so I say I will

That’s what you do for love, yourself you kill

Tiny buttons and silver doors

Who would’ve known what was in store?
I loved you most, that I know

Because it were you, you wouldn’t have let me go.

We had so much more of us ahead,

At least the next four is what you said.

But then you realized that we weren’t that strong,

That a love like this couldn’t last that long

We built a life we thought we’d live together

Silly us, to even think of believing in forever

Now we know to take a closer look

Reality: It never happens like it does in the books.

You were my prince, I thought you knew

But even that was never good enough for you.

You never stopped to think or even second guess

What would become of such a mess.

I thought I lost my lifelong friend,

But you were just a lesson to be learned—a generous lend

And now I’m just left to pretend 

That you are more than just a “Remember when?”

2:30 AM Thoughts

Someday, when all your dreams have come true and you've gotten everything you've ever wanted out of this life, I hope you remember that there was one you left behind, deliberately abandoned in the back alleyways of your mind, like an unfinished sentence or a half-eaten slice of bread. I hope you dig deep within the sandpits of your soul and uncover the entire existence we made together, like opening up a box of distance memories filled with half-ripped, faded photographs. I hope you remember everything we thought we'd be and the life we so naively built together when we were eighteen and didn't know any better. I hope your eyes fill with the same tears I cried every night for months on end, and your lungs cave in from the weight of the regret you've been trying so hard not to feel every day since that crisp November morning when you so wrongly decided which dreams were worth turning into reality.

Where You'll Find Us

You will find us in strange places and tight spaces.

You will find us in between your couch cushions

and behind cartons of freshly bought milk.

You will find us under piles of paper on your messy desk

and the coin compartment of your first self-bought car.

You will find us in the back corner of your medicine cabinet

and beneath the box of winter sweaters in your bedroom closet.

Like gum wrappers that were never thrown out

and spare change that was too heavy for your pocket.

Like a half eaten sandwich re-wrapped for later

and an unfinished cup of earl grey tea.

Like a crumpled up sticky note with a helpful reminder

and an old grocery list for a big family dinner.

This is where you’ll find us.

This is what we’ve become.

The Next Time Around

Maybe it’ll be better the next time around.

Because we’ll have grown into the people were were destined to be—- it’ll be so deeply rooted in our souls that even the strongest wind won’t be able to shake it.

And we’ll have grown into our skin and known what it’s like to fit into it perfectly, all on our own, without having to feel like we’re missing a limb whenever we’re apart.

And we’ll have known what it’s like to breathe without our lungs intertwined in our chests and our legs in the sheets and for the first time we will breathe fresh air that is not polluted by toxic love.

And we’ll have seen ourselves in the mirror for who we really are, and stared at reflections that are only ours, not yours and mine or mine and yours.

We’ll be whole, and we’ll be ready, and we’ll be better.

Because we must find peace as two before we can find peace as one.

At least that’s what I’d like to believe about the next time around. 

Everything He

I.

He was strong in the way that he carried me into his bedroom every night, like a bride and groom on their honeymoon

But he was weak in the way that he didn't know the weight of the words he had spoken much too soon

II.

He kissed me with the taste of forever on his lips and  "I love you" on the tip of his tongue

But he touched me in a way that he wouldn't ask me to stay if I ever decided to run

III.

I wanted so bad to live life knowing that I'd never have to live it without him again

But he wanted so bad to live life on his own, and that was our tragic “The End.”

We Still Have Time

We as humans have a funny little habit of telling ourselves and one another that we still have time. We still have time until we don't.  We still have time until the day we've been silently dreading for weeks on end finally wedges its way into the present. We still have time until we are in the very moment of departure. And then we freeze. Our minds go blank and our bodies go numb, as if the universe is refusing to let us comprehend the concept of one last goodbye. What do we say? What do we do? Are words enough? Is one last embrace enough? So we get sloppy, and we start babbling about things we've already talked about; dead end statements that can't possibly be added onto. Perhaps we do it to fill the awkward air between us as we desperately try to search for something meaningful to say—something that'll stick. Perhaps we do it as to not let the other person know how much the present moment is ripping us apart inside. We fight the urge to look each other in the eye because we know if we do we'd never want to look away. We ditch the thought of trying to memorize each other's features because that in and of itself indicates that we'll only ever exist in each other's minds from here on out—and that's just not right. We shut down. We become emotionless robots. We give careless one armed hugs as to not let the gravity of the situation drag us down with it—at least then we still have some bits of our deluded fantasies to hold onto, even when reality is forcefully tugging us in the opposite direction. We turn our backs to each other and call out standard farewells, none of which even mean anything, really. We turn our backs to the sound of each other's voices, the ones that have been the symphonies of our daily lives for so long, as they echoed down halls, filled up rooms, and seeped into the tender cracks of our hearts. We turn our backs to the only goodbye that will ever really stay with us, rejecting its importance in a useless act of protest. We turn our backs even though we are fully aware of the risk we are taking. This could be the last, and we're wasting it. We lock up our hearts with such ferociousness because we're too afraid of everything that's left to say—everything we still need to say. We convince ourselves that it's not the last time, because we know it can't be. We won't let it be. We convince ourselves that we still have time. Because we still have time, until we don't.