i sat at home
staring at a luminescent screen with a date and a time and your name
your name and a place to go and strangers so many strangers and me
i stared at the screen and i sat and the seconds turned to minutes and the minutes faded away into
too late
waited too long and my nerves ate me away until i was nothing but bitten down finger nails and regret
regret for this time regret for the past and the future and all the times i couldn't wouldn't go because i couldn't
couldn't find the strength to face the crowd to see someone who's name and words meant so much to my being to who i am now and to who i will be
what would i say how do you say hello to a person you love who has changed you and moved you and made you cry rivers and write mountains of words and remember how to feel
how
do you say hello
how do you face the chore of sweeping away your fears and folding away the doubt that you just aren't enough aren't strong enough aren't enough to say hello
how
how do i say thank you
thank you for being you for doing what you do and thank you for being strong and beautiful and so much of the person i wish i could emulate just for a minute so i could stand in front of you and say
hello, thank you

i think of you sometimes.
but not
in the way one would want to be thought of.
i think of the person i was then,
and the person i am now.
i think
of the ever growing crevasse between our lives.
how scared i was to make that leap,
to get out of the burning plane and head for safety.
i think of the small broken girl i was,
and you holding the hammer
smashing
my
pieces
smaller.
i think of the strength it took to leave
strength you convinced me i never had,
strength you robbed.
i look at the years gone past,
the growth.
a woman stands in the rubble,
a heart warmer, fuller, brighter,
more content than that girl could have hoped for.
i wonder if you're the same person...
the boy with malevolence in his eye and blood on his hands
are you still crushing souls?
are you still leaving decay where your love touches?
i hope not.
i hope you've grown, too.
i wish wonders for you,
that growth took seed and blossomed someone beautiful inside
where that dead thing once lived.

i read somewhere that ' what we find in a soulmate isn't something wild to tame, but something wild to run with. '
and oh, how we were running.
we were flying through life, so fast our feet barely touched ground before the next great leap,
so spritely we were dancing and bounding past fears and past monsters,
but sometimes i like to stop and admire the scenery around me,
sometimes i like to walk instead of run,
and sometimes, the scenery frightens me,
and sometimes,
i become timid and tame.
but you,
the scenery frightens you so, you won't stop at all.
you are a wild thing, wild and beautiful and i love you so for it,
but that wild thing doesn't like to slow down,
there are dark things hiding in those bushes for you and you like to run past them,
reality waits for those who stop running.
so why stop running?
wait here you said,
wait and be strong as i keep running wild,
when i come back i'll be grounded you said.
when i come back we will run again.
but there are dark things in those bushes for me, too.
there are dark creatures of doubt, there are creatures of sadness.
so much sadness.
i'm sitting waiting, wiggling my toes and running my hands through the dirt to feel the pulse of the earth,
reminding myself that sitting is beautiful,
reminding myself that waiting is beautiful, for is that naught what the trees and the grass do...
they wait for the sun, they wait to sleep under the moon and they wait for the rains.
but my rain has left me, and i'm drying up.
those creatures are creeping out of the darkness and into the light and they're whispering in my ear,
the sound of you whispering sweet nothings has been replaced with mounting fears...
you can't run wild forever, they say.
you are a creature meant for a slower pace.
you aren't meant to hold back that wild thing,
watch it run.
feel the rain on your face, but not on your soul,
i won't tame you, wild thing.
i can't run with you, either.
i don't know if i can do this,
i'm not strong like you asked,
and you won't lend me your strength.
and maybe thats those creatures talking,
or maybe it's the reality that found me when i stopped running when you ran off...
but i'm full of doubt,
and you're full of fire.

i have a mouth full of promises and dreams i want to spill.
a mouth full of reassurances, of love, of blocks to bring us higher.
of words we can use as ladders to climb to the stars with,
hope that we can build a ship upon and sail with,
where the sea monsters don't remember our names and the sirens lose their voices at the sight of us.
this mouth full i have is enough to fill the ocean's basins,
it's enough to drown cities and recourse the currents.
the ocean may have the pull of the tides,
but you have the pull of me. i rise and fall for you,
the sound of my heart akin to the sound of the waves rushing heedlessly over millions of rocks and grains of sands,
each artery and capillary of my heart beating to the sound of your name,
to the feel of your touch and your fingers that trace over my skin,
as others have traced over my skin before and as you have traced over others.
let's take these words and use them to lift us to places where the ghosts don't make me tremble,
where i'll give you my promises and we can light beacons with them against the darkness of our histories.
lost at sea with our ship and our beacons, the blanket of stars above us and the kisses of salty spray bestowed by the ocean to tuck ourselves in with,
"we might be lost, but we are lost together."

i don't recall trembling this much the last time.
there were no questions, no hesitations.
no wonderment of reciprocation.
you jumped with both feet pointed downwards;
your chin held sky ward not knowing what shit beneath you was hurdling it's way closer at breakneck speeds of danger and destruction.
this time i feel the teetering,
the distinct taste of fear that wraps its self around all words and thoughts.
it crams those three words down my throat with its metallic foot,
too scared to fly past my lips and straight to where i want them to be; to you.
sometimes i feel you beside me in this place,
on this edge, too fearful to take one step forward
but too blissfully happy to take a fraction of a step backward.
you never really realize how badly someone fucked your wings until you're ready to fly.
and then the extent of the damage becomes blindingly clear.
those broken pieces still a little too mangled to trust wholeheartedly in the treacherous game of flight;
of love.
but yet i know with all of me,
every last fucked up, fractured, splintered piece of me,
i want to fly with you,
to love with you.

hello, old friend.
i've come to pay you a visit,
to brush the dust off that you've collected in your solitary internet corner.
you haven't missed much,
and i'm sorry for staying away so long.
i've been scribbling my words onto paper,
which in the end,
usually,
ends up in a ball tossed into the neglectful corner of my bedroom.
there's been a couple gems of insight,
of words i am particularly proud of...
but not too many.
mostly my words stay inside my mind,
bouncing and rebounding ideas that are nonstop ricocheting and causing my thoughts to be chaos.
but love is chaos,
at least for my knees and my backflipping stomach.

everyday i can feel it growing,
expanding,
exponentially.
i can't find the courage to say it,
not with my tongue.
but i try to say it to you,
with my fingers tracing your skin,
with every laugh you bring out of me,
with every smile that cracks across my face,
with my eyes as they find yours,
and my legs as i knot them around yours.
this love i feel can't hide much longer,
i'm waiting for the courage to say it,
but i feel it will escape me unexpectedly,
it might just burst through my lips,
like a giggle,
like an earthquake,
caused solely,
and perfectly,
by you.

/

i see the night sky in your eyes,
i see the stars on your skin.
i trace constellations with my fingers,
i trace your body with my eyes in the night.
i've never been one to try to count the stars,
but if i could,
i would kiss them unto you.
every
last
one.

the smoke you inhale must stay inside you,
for when you touch me
i can feel the embers of my soul flame,
and burn so brightly.
your fingers leave not finger prints,
but scorch marks.
light me up
and breathe you in.

“When I say, ‘I love you,’ it’s not because I want you or because I can’t have you. It has nothing to do with me. I love what you are, what you do, how you try. I’ve seen your kindness and your strength. I’ve seen the best and the worst of you. And I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are. You’re a heck of a person.”

god damn.
how are you real.
how is this real?
i get to call you mine,
and even better
i get to be yours.
all yours.
all of me.
my heart, my body,
my stupid smile i can't wipe off my fucking face.
all yours.
for now, anyways.
{the pessimist in me says}
but for once i'm the giggling optimist,
with bright eyes and a heart bubbling and bursting at the seams.
i still feel like this isn't really happening,
like it's some sort of hallucination i've just placed myself into.
i'll keep reminding myself its not,
that those brown eyes of yours really shine like that,
for me,
and i'm not daydreaming.
it's real.
god damn.

you caught me,
pen in hand.
curled in your blankets, surrounded by your presence,
stealing away in a moment of solitude to write my heart to you.
you caught me,
with words of you spilling onto a page.
you caught me but i didn't feel arrested.
no bubbling panic, no sheepish words of evasion.
we both shared a look, and we knew.
we smiled, and you left.
you've read those words now,
and tomorrow we share words.
words about words, and words for words.
my tongue will betray me,
and your eyes will steal the words from my lips,
i will be dismantled and disarmed,
stripped of my greatest weapon,
i will try to string my thoughts into coherent babble.
our dance of evasion and pretend will end,
and we will stand together in the awkward silence between changing songs.
will you catch me,
for the next song?
will you catch me before my fear gets the better of me,
and sends me running?
i want to be caught by you.

i don’t expect much,

and i don’t ask for guarantees.

mostly because i fear both, 

i fear what they mean and what they entail

and i fear the weight they carry.

i won’t ask for guarantees,

although the thought of doing so is slowly

ever so slowly,

creeping into my mind,

and edging it’s way closer off my tongue.

i won’t ask,

in a destructively selfish way..

i fear asking for a guarantee of some sort might push you away.

and selfishly, 

destructively so,

i can’t let you go,

and i can’t ask you to stay 

because i’m too scared

you might say no. 

" i pressed my nose up to the glass around your heart;
i shoulda known that i was weaker from the start. "

i don't know what to fucking write about you.
this is the third,
or forth,
hell;
maybe even the fifth or sixth time i've tried to spread out my feelings about you.
every time it's a white screen,
with a flashing black line telling me:
write. write. write.
but i can't,
can't,
can't.
again, i'm left with too many thoughts in my head,
i can't decipher one thought from another,
and certainly not long enough to know what to say.
so i'll leave it at this, i suppose.
you are something else entirely,
something that takes the very words out of a writers mouth,
stealing the phrases and sentences i want to string together.
you have left me speechless, breathless, and now wordless.
what am i without words, i don't know.
what am i with you, i don't know.

butterflies.
hello, strangers.

my mind is full and spilling over the edges.
there's a feeling i can't shake,
and i don't know what it is or why it's there.
it just is. there.
crawling over my skin,
tickling me with uneasiness.
" unpack that thought ", my love would say.
and i'm trying.
but i don't know where to start.
i can't pin point where this feeling is coming from,
from what, where, or most likely, who.

the list.

the ideal...

• book worm
• finds pleasure/solace/comfort in the ocean or being at the beach
• adventuring soul... likes to be outside, in the forest, exploring and investigating new sights. 
• likes what most people would call crappy weather - fog, mist, and torrential down pours. 
• won't mind when there's a storm and i grab them by the wrist to run with me outside
• is accepting of my quietness and is content in either being comfortably silent with me, or has a way of talking that engages me and gets me talking. 
• large and diverse selection of {good} music and is happy to exchange new finds, and old favorites. 
• dog person
• a sense of curiosity; to the people in his life and the world surrounding him
• is slow to anger and is careful in his jealousy 
• ease of smile 
• does not hesitate when a question or conflict arises; does not avoid or quit contact but is honest and straightforward with thoughts and feelings {not defensive and derisive}
• understands relationships are a bond between two people who are best friends, partners in crime, a duo, but also that each party needs some space to spend individually 
• is an artist in some way... a painter, a musician, a writer, a photographer, anything. 
• no ego, is careful not to be selfish when avoidable. 
• sex is fun; a chance to explore the other person with tenderness, and affection and mistakes can be made that are laughed off and tried again. things are talked about and questioned without judgement; a learning and exploratory experience. 
• eyes i can swim in
• feelings and thoughts can be exchanged sometimes just through body language and shared glances
• likes to cook together, or take turns cooking for one another
• enjoys well written, or well spoken, words. beautiful words. poetry, quotes, especially moving excerpts from novels.
• goofy and silly but also genuine and sincere
• physical displays of affection are tender, but not smothering. understands that i feel most connected when i can feel the presence of the other; any small form of touch. accepts it, revels and indulges in it. but never smothering. 
• observant of their own needs and moods, and also of others. 
• contagious laughter
• comfortable in his being and his skin
• brown eyes
• family is important and fundamental part of their life
• netflix, beer, pizza and sex are a good date night. 

the negotiable...

• well dressed 
• good grammar on social media platforms, as well as through phone and email contact, well versed well written..

you're a risk i'm willing to fuck. 

there's something about this city.
i feel connected to it,
to each blade of grass,
to every separate stone inlaying the streets,
to the trees that whisper hellos as i pass beneath their leaves.
i sense its moods and i revel in their differences.
i revel in the sun when it reflects off the windows of buildings,
when its rays bounce playfully on the crashing ocean waves.
the best relationship i've had -
{aside from my eternal love affair with the sea}
is the one with this collection of streets and dwellings.
sometimes,
i even feel that it senses my moods.
it always knowns when it needs to rain.
always.
although, it could rain more,
it always rains when i need it too.
and when it does, i lace my boots with haste,
and i run, laughing, outside to greet my love with an open soul.
i walk under her trees, her street lamps,
and the rain that playfully plops on my cheeks.
it lifts my spirits and gives me strength,
and i know with all my heart,
that no matter how far i travel,
no matter how far i roam,
i will always find myself back here,
with my toes in the sand; the ocean kissing my feet,
with my head tilted to the sky; the rain kissing my face.

i'm trying to be analytical.
to be unfeeling and full of ice,
logic, reason,
of distance.
i keep exploring the hole you left,
and i keep finding more space to it,
more depth, more openness.
it surprises me, the volume of it.
nothing i shovel in will close it,
nothing even comes close.
i stand in it, hoping that i myself can breach it,
to bring the edges together.
but i can't even see the edges, they keep escaping me.
and bringing other people into the hole just causes the edges to extend further.
no matter how logical i try to be -
am being -
at the end of the day i'm still crushed by the weight of your absence.
i can try to fight it, and pretend it's not there,
to distract myself with the company of others,
but i know, through logical analyzation,
that the only thing that will fill this hole,
is time.
or you.
but only one of those options is viable.