my biggest fear

now that you’re home

is that you will derail the love i made for him

while you were gone.

you won’t have to go to any great length 

because just seeing you in passing 

chips away at any feeling

for anyone else.

i am scared because he deserves it and you do not

but i know that i’d toss out my merit and honor and good conscience 

to have my heart broken by you

every day

forever.

You are a short story. You start in the middle maybe, and you don’t have a long word count. A few pages. A short arc. A gimmick. Some terse resolution. You’re certainly not a novel. You don’t creep sweetly along — slowly, steadily, building to a climax, resolving in the end. I don’t take you on the subway and read you for months and months. I don’t lug you around in my bag — with your pages bent comfortably, your cover ripping off, your edges worn. He was a novel, but you are a short story, wedged between other short stories, maybe, in some kind of collection. Or on your own — a light, morning read. You are notable. You can be good. You are favorite territory to re-tread, with little to no time lost. You are easy. You make me feel like I am also a short story to you. It’s like we’re writing something small together — filling in the dialogue right where it should go, describing the people and the clothing and the setting. Making metaphors, twisting prose. Not predictable, and not a novel, but perfect in its own way. Strangely, in this short story, there are no first drafts. We are editing as we go. It’s minimalism. Every word counts. You are someone I can read over and over again, that I want to read to others, that I can recommend and not feel too uneasy about it. You can be longer, expanded, worked on — or not. You can become your own short story collection with bits and pieces of the same character followed through a single weaving timeline. You can stick around for a while. But in the end, you will never be a novel. I know this, because he was a novel. A sweeping force. A sturdy hardback. A familiar feeling in my hands. Someone you sit down with in a soft sofa chair and read for a long, long time. Something you can’t put down. A page turner, with detail and editing and work. You are more like: writing in the lines, in the margins, in the sides of notebooks. Swirls doodled in class. Jotted lines on napkins. You are spilling out of me, bursting. You are this pen and this paper taken out in the middle of a bar so I can quickly get it all down before I forget. You are a short story. Ending too soon and with no real wrap-up. And to you, I am a minor character. And why not? You’re the protagonist. If you were a novel, you’d be Murakami living his youth in Norwegian Wood and I am the manic pixie love interest, Midori — memorable and entertaining, but hardly central. A character actress. A blip in your fictitious world. I am your own lovely, little short story. My short story is about a young girl, too young, who wasn’t ready to read everything that was handed to her, everything she bought from miles of books in a dusty, old used book store, everything she unknowingly, naively checked out of the library. Like the author of a short story, you are more fascinated by the way I feel about you, than you are interested in reciprocating my feelings. You are researching me for your next project. You are writing characters from the outside, looking in. Because we are, after all, just a short story. A page. A paragraph. A typed word. We meander about, going nowhere. He was a novel, sure. But novels are long. Novels are complex. Novels are a long-term commitment. So instead, I picked you up. You became my short story, and we are as yet unpublished.

You are the only person to whom I have lied knowing full-well I’d carry the guilt of it later. You are a shadow my body casts on other boys. When you were in the bathroom, I read your journal. It was just minutes after you’d told me you loved me. And when you returned, I didn’t believe you. If you had asked me to marry you, I would have said yes despite all of the logistics and the circumstances the fact that we are just kids the fact that I wasn’t even ready to call you my boyfriend and the fact that I promised myself I’d never get married. And I still dream about you far too often and wake up with an insatiable sex drive and a deep, deep aching in my chest. I can never decide whether I’m happy or sad when I think about you. I was always so hungry at your house after school but too shy to ask for a snack. So I’d ask you for a favor and sneak handfulls of chex-mix while you were gone. I trusted you wholeheartedly, but still found reasons to be jealous. I just can’t fathom the idea of anyone else touching you, but it’s safe to say no one will want to because they say you were such a super guy until you started seeing me. I wish we went to more shows and danced around and made other folks stare I was always trying to force that. I was always trying to force everything. But our love already carried so much weight I always felt that just the littlest push could break it. And I was so worried about you that I became accustomed to walking on eggshells. I don’t care how much you love someone, that’s not love. And you really are just a big baby. I could never really get comfortable with my head on your chest so I lied about that too. And I didn’t like your sister. Not one bit. But I would have continued trying to like her. Because I loved you more than I could ever dislike anyone if that makes sense. I have a growing queue of things I know will make you laugh things I know you’d like and I don’t know where to put them. I had to stop seeing this one fellow because he smelled just like you and I couldn’t take it. It broke my heart. When people asked what happened with us I just say you finally realized you were too good for me. And I mean that. Not in a malicious way. Because maybe you didn’t consiously recognize that you deserved more, but you had to know somewhere deep down that you are a fucking angel and I’m just a little girl. I had no idea what I was doing with your heart when I took it so for that, I’m sorry. And remember when I said your gift was in the mail? It wasn’t. I was anticipating our end for weeks. I could feel it. And even though I know it had to happen I would have continued to ignore it. I guess that makes you the strong one. I miss you, but I can’t keep the promise I made to write to you while you’re gone. And I’m sorry I couldn’t keep my promise to see you before you left. You have to understand, I just wouldn’t have been able to handle it. You haunt my thoughts as it is. Fucking prick. I have reprimanded myself on multiple occasions for continuing to write poems about you. It’s just so fucking silly. I’m sorry for every white lie, every little fib, everything I kept to myself. I was trying to save us. I just didn’t know that we needed… individual saving. So thank you, I guess, for recognizing that and acting on it. Maybe in time I’ll be able to make sense of it.

i have a curious aptitude for

philosophy, linguistics,

the arts.

however i have no aptitude at all for the

thing i love most —

loving you. 

like the sundays when we lie

face to face 

and i can take in your exhales 

until my breath becomes short.

that is absolutely the only way

i know to show you

that my love is armored. 

solidsol:

blood on the bedsheets every time

but i’ll never move

my haven, my home, the place i love most

the place i hurt most

linear skin

tallying up my blues

when i am not scarred, i am naked 

and when i’m feeling fine,

my old friend says

“forget me not”

reminds me that he’s still sharp

helps me settle back into feeling

low and at home

solidsol:

my eyes tell stories

and you’re the best i’ve seen

so prove that you’re more than a figment,

a wishbone prayer.

i won’t hold my breath 

as my looking glass has deceived me,

time and time again

it’s love playing tricks on me

it’s lust crying wolf

prove that you’re there, fabled friend 

and i’ll give you the moon

(via solidsol)

Baby, I love your fire.

I’d take your fire

if it would not burn right through me.

blood on the bedsheets every time

but i’ll never move

my haven, my home, the place i love most

the place i hurt most

linear skin

tallying up my blues

when i am not scarred, i am naked 

and when i’m feeling fine,

my old friend says

“forget me not”

reminds me that he’s still sharp

helps me settle back into feeling

low and at home

take a walk in my bones

step inside, zip me up

see how i fit

your hands will be too big,

your legs too long,

your eyes too wide

see if you can take a step without stumblin’ 

and when you put a record on,

will you dance just like me?

when you’re blue

tear into your new & mangled skin

just as i do

but before you walk a mile in me

make sure i fit

how you unlocked me…

i’m still unsure 

you kissed every carving,

made pure my flesh

cleaned yourself on my washboard forearms 

and i hid my face 

was rough around the edges 

until my head met your alabaster chest 

What do you do with a clock
When you can’t tell time?
You guess the hour
You’re always late
He says “now or never”
But what time is it?

you rang my doorbell

knees under my chin, comfy in your passenger’s seat 

i liked track 1 and you knew all the words

you asked me what my folks were like

and told me all about yours

we didn’t know where we were going

so we drove around until our words were easy

your seat reclined 

i touched the back of your neck

you let me smoke in your car

but you made fun of my sweater

my match wouldn’t light

and i really hated track 2

you drove too fast

and you proved that we were alive

i wasn’t scared until you asked to kiss my lips

but you were too

You are the ghost I can see

But cannot possess as my own 

The ebbing visual memory

Have we met before?

A god in amnesia

Unaware of your might 

A fleeting thought 

One that I cannot place 

The tip of my tongue…

You are energy and mass

Dancing like children in fluid relation 

Every butterfly that my belly won’t suppress…

Is you. 

You are under covers…

Keepin’ my heart warm when it’s cold as hell

Keepin’ me in time

When my own rhythm falters.

when winter rolls around

i crave

low light and you

you were always too cold

and comfort was foreign 

and you were never okay

your smile was always too big for your face

and i only missed the scratch of you scruff 

when your chin beared none

your awkward lilt and your too big hands

i couldn’t help but laugh

but what i’d give to place my palm neatly in yours 

once more

when it’s cold

and i forget my coat 

Without you I am whole

But with you I am more

your bedroom eyes

paired with that deviant smirk

your quest is purity

but i will see to it that you fail

i am begging to know you

and you can’t hide 

I promise you that 

No feat is too great

No distance too far

Because your unfriendly air don’t fool me

and you will be mine