Day 776: To the woman I would have to be for her

To the woman I would have to be for her

Remember when your hands were dirty
Carried the stray pieces of hearts
You weren’t mature enough to care for
How everything you touched dehydrated
Turned to stone
How you’re uneasiness crushed each statue girl you ever loved
How you were the bearer of dust
Of ruble
Of broken hearts
And empty sleeves
Do not forget the scars
How their brokenness entered your palms in shards
Stayed there
Left its mark
How every time you touch a glass girl now
You crack her with the diamonds crusted in your love lines

Because This will be the way you learn to love her stable
Steady
Her
Only
Think of her as anything but a bypass
A highway
A sunrise
Or sunset
Anything that makes you feel fast and short and beautiful
Call her something frequent
Something forever
But less heavy
Do not call her an ocean
You gave that name to someone else you love differently
Do not call her your shore
Do not call her your soul mate
That’s taken too
Call her beautiful
Even though it been said
It’s a name she understands
Something she can grasp
And it will not scare her to hear
But make sure you mean it every time
That you look at her like it’s a promise


When she learns to trust you with the shards of her mother tongue in private
Tell her you love her
Even if you’ve known for months
Until she is willing to say it in a language your blood can understand
Stay silent
Then, stop translating everything you say and give her the original transcripts
Ho’ike ia ia I na pu’u a na lua
Give her a name for every morning you wake up thinking of her smile
hoohokulani
For the way she seems to put stars in every single one of your skies
Haumea
For the ways she makes you wish you were more of a woman
Pele
For the way she can burn and inch of you with her gaze and her silence
Papa
for How see seems to have given life to everything around you
laieikawai
for How you’d travel all the islands to find her
Because you have heard of her beauty and you trust it
Take every moolelo you have ever read or heard and find a place for it on the breath between your bodies
Learn its purpose through her kiss
Because you know now that this kind of memory is embodied
And when you are sure
When you are steady
Finally
Call her hiiaka
Hold her in your chest
Make sure she is the one you will keep
Who will stay

When you run out of names
Of women
Of trees
Of roots
call her something heavier
Call her
Moana
For the bluest parts of you
The dark spots
The cracks you hope shell someday see
And Learn to love
Learn to not let fall you through you
Slide off her skin

When you re-introduce her to your father
Use the pronoun ku’u
Because it fits
Because ko’u is too serious
And ka’u doesn’t quite do it
Tell him that she is every moon you have carved on your skin
And you are every tide that follows
Tell him
That She is the morning you’ve been waiting to name
That most nights you are kept away just my the thought of your lips on her temple
and that somehow
you found every single one of your gods
in the melody of her breath
tell him that she is real
and that you are ready
that she is hiiaka
and you are hopoe
writing poems for every part of her body
about how you would burn under the weight of her mistakes
while planting songs in the form of yellow lehua trees
hoping
that the salt water between us
might grow something worthy
of her love

Day 775:

Pele piles here like a promise.
The blackness, significance
The lush of growth, contrast.
I am just bypass
a narrow road
This pavement is memory
Your lips, moving
i see you in my mirror smiling
i've got a crush on your timing
on the way you seem to appear
its something i cant quite describe
so i will stop trying
instead ill just say
last night i saw you on the horizon

Day 774: brb

"i've got a crush on potential"
there is another poem here
somewhere
wait here
ill be right back

DAY 773: something beautiful

The first thing you said when your back was flush with my chest
is that no one is allowed to fall in love
you laughed
and I felt your smile tremble across my collarbone
all i did was hold you tighter
trying to convince myself that being that rational was possible
that i could actually choose not to fall for anyone,
especially you
that i could use my lips to turn your body into a temple
without finding myself making home somewhere inside of you


in that moment
i promised i would learn to use these hands
to do nothing more than touch
definitely not to build
pillar after pillar
not even to imagine
the blueprints of what a future of ours could look like
like Saturday, Sunday, Monday afternoons spent gliding through these waters
how our days could be lit by the smiles and laughter of your loved ones
because I have already fallen for the way their happiness hovers around you like a halo
and am terrified that our home could be built
with the same palms i would use to hold you
in that moment
i was hallow
happy to be connected to something
someone
who seemed so alive
so happy
to just sit there in my arms
in silence
watch the waves do what they do best
crash
and rebuild


i wanted to leave the stickiness of it all behind
but somehow
everything about our days seemed to fall off your body
like silence
and im stuck holding handfuls of sand
like a promise
and yes,
maybe a handful
is enough for a bridge
from california to rhode island
but maybe a bridge would take us in the wrong direction

Ke'ala
i said it before
but i find myself having to repeat myself these days
please dont mistake me for a promise
you know
more than anyone
sometimes i say things because they are beautiful
and because i wish them to be true
sometimes they arent
sometimes
a love poem
is everything you want
but not even a hint of what you need
and everyday i spend writing them
is another day ill spend alone in my car singing along with sara bareilles

beautiful,
listen closely
because i can only ever say this once
'run in the opposite direction'
i care for you enough to say
there is nothing inside of me that will bring you comfort
i am only a siren
a mermaid
flinging my poetry into the distance
no matter how honest
you are coming too close for your own protection
because when you feel near enough to taste i cant help but say these things
to ask you
to remember the songs we sang into the ocean
"Na pua riki te vaka of ru..."
remember the way the tones bounced off the water
turned to mist and disappeared
how the way i would hold you
would bounce off your body
turn to mist
and disappear
or the songs we flung into the airbags
"in the morning it comes, heaven sent a hurricane.. not a trace of the sun but i don't even run from rain"
how the words fell to the steel under our feet
rattled
and then silenced
how the way i said goodbye
fell to the street
rattled
and silenced
how you were completely out of sight before i allowed my engine to roar
leaving me
alone on your street
until i could convince myself that you were already gone
that i had to leave


now
there is silence all around me
and i've spent last couple of nights singing hoping you too would memorize the way your body moved under me
how my lips
turned you into a tide- crashing and rebuilding
how your breath bent me backwards
how the sounds you called silly slipping out of you
was the closest i'd felt to heaven beyond climax in too long to recount
how finding that heaven without traveling through its eruption seemed poetic
how recounting these stories
alone
on the same couch that i found you smiling into me
seems pathetic
how no matter how true these words are
they will give you a false impression


do not forget
you are not the only love poem i've ever written
somehow i have developed a reputation for doing just this
its starting to make sense
why every single one of our friends warmed you and not me
maybe
I wasn’t there’s to warm
Maybe when I left this ocean
I sacrificed my right to be anything but a tsunami in my return
or maybe
there is something about their silence in my direction that means something


maybe its a lesson in growing
that they believe i cannot be changed
and maybe they are right
but maybe i think you could change me
today i think that’s it
but growing up means admitting that its possible that
thats just something beautiful
that i wish
were true

Day 772: for halsey (better late than never)

i told you i wasnt what i didnt want to be
cuz someone
somewhere once told me
that its all about positive thinking
but i was honest
when i said i wasnt ready
that i could hold your hand
but wouldnt be able to hold you steady
my lips
know no magic
my heart
beats more like a tide than any part of my body
sometimes im here
sometimes im gone
it has something to do with the moon
but i havent figured out my pattern yet
so i extend my arms looking for the touch of a beautiful woman
tell her secrets
i think should be true
and trust her not to be broken
trust her body to bear the weight of my inability to stay
trust her to not make me a monster
to let me leave when there is no more ground under me
so many promises i made in my head
i'll never learn how to keep

know,
there are poems still hidden under my skin
laced with all the words i never knew how to say
that growing up was something i should have started years ago
but instead
you got caught in the crossfire of my growing pains
im sorry for the silence
for the distance
and the kisses i had laced with disaster
you deserved better

so the next time
someone calls me a heart breaker
i wont deny it
wont make any promises
just say
its true
i've left a few girls shattered in my wake
my body still carries their signature somewhere in its DNA
its something i've tried to forget
but every once and i while
i read a poem
that i know is written to me
or someone like me
and i remember
what it feels like to be on the other end of this silence
waiting for someone to set the world ablaze
with their speech

Day 771: like the movies

i didnt want the sun to come up this morning
because i know what the new day would mean
so i told you
sometimes
we can only see the light but nothing spectacular
maybe we wont watch your last day begin like the curtains been called
i wonder
how much of this will be remembered
knowing that my love is the kind found in bodies
not in oceans

so please do not mistake me for a promise
as much as i may want to be
know that my kiss
is nothing more
than a black hold where ill hold your taste
along with the secrets that slip out of you lips like laughter
like the smile i can feel forming in the way your back touches my chest
these are the moments i remember embodied
remind me
that love
in me
only stays for a day
or two
that as much as i want to just settle and stay
everything about me is a wave
coming and going
i wonder how empty the sea must feel
always being pulled away

you see sometimes
we are the broken, and sometimes we are the careless
sometimes my hands are empty
and cold waiting for your body
so i can warm myself into you
and sometimes
i am distance
i am silence
i am walking away
sometimes i am the crack crash and crumble of it all
but today
i do not leave
just start the car
say goodnight
i do not wrap my arms around you
because i do not want to remember letting go
knowing i will have to
knowing
that there will be no one here tomorrow
that staying
is not the problem
and going
will never bring me answers

Day 770: Gone

leave me here in the salt
teach me to settle
fall like sand
off your hands
legs
repel me into the distance
cuz all i want is to stall still and stick
held
motionless

Day 769: not fair. not mine.

this wont be fair
wont be easy to read
if you arent ready to be angry
you should probably
leave


tonight
the hands of a woman will hold you
but they are the wrong hands
your body
will no belong pressed between her
she will not kiss you the way she should
will not know all the secrets i left in the cracks in your skin
all the parts of myself you still carry there
heavy
like sin
like a lie
like promises
the parts of me you named forgotten

there will be no peace
no stillness
nothing about the way the air falls will hold you
not the way i did
the way i tried
night after night
to be more than enough to fill you
you will feel empty
and for a moment
you will mistake the two feelings
i know this
because i have turned myself over and inside out enough times to know the difference between the fuckery that is casual sex
and the secret worlds i tried to build with you under the sheets
this is the only promise i make

that my body
will never feel as safe as it did the first night i let you hold every part of me naked
and yours
will never feel as loved
no one will try and care as much as i did
not enough to be brought to tears by the fear of not being enough
because somehow
the one who would
will be the one you keep
you will let her hold you tight against her body
your back will arch at the sound of her breath
you will stay
wanting nothing more than to see her chest fall
eventually
her hair will fall to your sides
you will be there to witness the crumbling of a life
of her life
we will spend the next 15 years wondering why

but you sould take this as you leave
know that there were silences we could never overcome
and everything cracked in the hum of your distance
of your inability to still the waters raving in my chest
because all i ever needed
was you to sit on the other end of a phone line while i cried
no matter how inconvenient the time
listen to me shatter
pieces of me falling to my sides
it was in the moment of silence after the click of your phone line
when i stayed holding the phone up to my ear for a least 10 minutes after
that i knew for sure that i was yours
but you
would never be mine

Day 768: short

sometimes i can feel you touching through me
like a promise that will never be made
hold me tighter
you just linger
i have no power in that
your touch
not something i've practiced
but i can tell the ways you move already
how you cut through the water
i wonder
how long you will glide
here
through my mind
will you dissipate
in your goodbye

Day 767: poetry

"when everyone love you
and no one knows who you are
When you’re not sure if you even know yourself
How you have fallen in love
With people’s perception of you"

i am a body of so many women's expectations
somehow i've turned every scar into a crater worth marveling
every word is a song
i never wrote properly
tuned to the key of someone
falling falling falling
im 21
still havent learned to catch a love properly
i just lay out my hands and hope the cracked kettle settles

i've taken
every word thats ever been written in my direction
made a paper mache version of myself
called it beautiful
tell the pretty girls they can have a piece
for the price
love me right
for a couple nights
let me hold you like sunrise
and stay til im ready to leave you behind

i am the girl
everyone loves
nobody knows
not even myself
cracked promises
i made in a direction i dont remember
just waiting
hoping
someone
somewhere will hold me right

Day 766: Bon Iver

i can listening to the same Bon Iver song on repeat
for hours
and not translate a single word
and yet
i know
th emelody is written for the 6 thousand some odd miles that straddle our bodies
that the reoccurring bass line
is making a mockery of my heartbeat
trying to keep me steady
the way your hands should
all i hear is the music begging me to answer my own questions
telling me to come back to a place i aint even ever been just so i can call it home the next time i hold you

the first time i hold you
will be to this song
all it asks is that you come back
thats all i want to remember
thats alli can manage at this point in the evening
just know in the morning ill still be here
and itll be a different kind

Day 765: Bronte

i take comfort in this fact
that our love story
no matter how intense
would have been short
and sweet
deep
and contained
i'd loved you like a 4 day get away
like relapse
like your dance
your hands spinning into mine
but i know
nothing about your rhythm would ever lead me home
nothing about your hands would cradle me pacific
you are night star born for New york city
san fransisco
las vegas
somewhere where the lights are bright
and never fade
i am blue tornado settling
i am the kind of woman who wants to sit before and after sitting
you cannot stay
and i will not let you
not here
take your dance to continent
ill keep playing the same three songs we memorized
if you listen
youll know
im always here

Day 764: you

take me to
wherever you are tonight
i dont care
if its waterfalls at sundown
or cliff diving by sunrise
i want to feel the same air you do agaisnt you back
let it lift me
ive been having trouble writing good poetry
i think my words need a break from your beauty
wow that was crony
hmmm
ill do better next time
this is what you call writing through it
when nothings coming out right and you just keep going anyways
cuz theres a girl
on the other end of all of this
reading reading reading
wondering if your smiling
wondering what holds you as you fall asleep
and shes worth
all the horrible corny lines
cuz sometimes
you strike gold
you find something worth keeping
even if its just one word
in a page of poetry

you.

Day 763: she asked me for a cat, i gave her thunder

i need a new word for the tsunami in my chest
for the tornado turning my stomach inside out
with the storm caught behind your goodbye
i know the sky aint falling
but the stars
on the nights i cannot sleep
seem to be crashing down
with every time you blink
every time i think
you might be leaving me behind

i've learned so many things about distance
but none of them seem to describe the way you hold every part of my body ransom in your absence
none of them seem to comfort me
none of them seem to make the sun spin any faster
everything about us is counting down
6 hours in your morning
6 in my evening
45 days til you are standing at an arms distance
til i can feel the depth of your laugh against the hallow chest
the stutter of you smile the way it traces craters on my vocal chords

show me where you keep your tears
ill show you how to make my body move
and bend for you
how every cell
can be rebuilt
to honor the castle in your collarbone
the sand storm behind your eyes
the song in your kiss
dance in your fingertips

this is my poem for the night
the evening
the part of my day
i spend alone
trying to rock myself to sleeep to the residue of our conversations
the smoke melting into the skyline
just a reminder that something was passing through
too fast to hold on
too poweful to even try pretending
that its absence
inst a propeller
tearing every bit of me to
confetti

you asked me to hold you
and i drempted a million nights into 8 ours of my arms tracing stories into your skin
you asked for the ocean
and i took a handful of my home and mailed it to you across the pacific
you asked for a cat
and i gave you a thousand thundering nights in my yes
a promise
that i will burn a candle into morning
trying to fulfill every request
yes
yes
yes
its true
i've got a broken heart
and two hands that havent been held properly in months
but theres 80% of me still left in my chest
its yours
if you want it

Day 762: puzzle

some nights
the silence between our bodies is suffocating
but others
its just the music i need to compose to
there is a moment
before you speak
when i can see ever part of your body composing poems to be sent to my lips
we fill this space with words we hope our chests wont miss
sing songs for the distance

in the moments we are parting
when the computer screen's recoil in the only movement i can see
i find myself pulling at the deepest parts of myself
i want to give you something other than these words
wished i could hold you with more than these poems
keep your hands busy with something other than the keyboard

so many times i've tried to show you
from here
that you are a lost piece to a puzzle i had given up on
a reminder of so much of myself that i had hidden
proved that its possible for someone to want me now and tomorrow
i wonder what could be ahead of us
wonder what we might leave behind
hope that neither of us forgets
what this bliss feels like
even in our distance
even when we couldnt feel any further away

Day 761: Haiku

find me collapsing/
you're dark blue hold me under/
teaching me to breathe

Day 760: Slamber party

the nostalgia we slipped somewhere under your rug
always comes to the surface
on nights light these
when we let the air hang thick upon our sleeves
this is the place we learned to breathe
learned to share stories like songs
learned to make our skins sing

you are a mother
we would never know to ask for
never know we would need
but we did
both
cried to every part of our pens bodies
for someone to find us whole
lead us to something solid

we are just pieces of a legacy you are still building
a promise
we intend to keep

Day 759: sunrise

burnt sunrise
send me your promise
kiss the tips of my skin with your wind
i am waiting for something to happen
for someone to change
for something inside of me to work again
make it happen
i am waiting
impatiently
always.

DAy 758: terrifying

there has been so much silence here lately
i find myself digging through the stillness
looking for something
or someone to move me
trying not to let myself just
fall into the next beautiful masterpiece

Day 757: recovery

Sometimes
the day after i write a poem like yesterday
i can do nothing to pick up the pieces that i gutted that never made it to the page
sort them out on my desk
and wonder
how all these ugly parts ended up in one place
one person
how after living my life
reflecting
and writing on it
i can continue to make the same mistakes
its like our ancestors always said
time is not linear
its a cycle
and i seem to live every bit of mine in circles

the process is simple
give my heart to a girl
push that love past its boiling point
then break
cool off too soon
find mys glass skin cracking from the change
rinse
repeat
see another masterpiece
let your pieces
dance to the rhythm she speaks
be ready to fall
hard
quick
and deep
do not be surprised when it doesn't work
when the kettle turns to hot
you start melting
burn til she cannot watch you burn any longer
add the cold water
crack under the pressure
rinse
repeat

Day 756: explosions in the sky

"I know that home/Is wherever she waits for me"
and time is the perfect promise
our lines seems to fit pressed against each other
like our bodies might
like our bodies dream
it makes me believe
we could write something magical together
and we'd be our only witness

its okay to say
that this silence fills the room like tear gas
cuz when youre gone
i can feel every bit of your absence like a song
i've forgotten the tune of
but the words are still there
there are always words there
i hum them to the rhythm of your slumber
the rhythm
i've imagined
and composed to the notes of past lovers
it does your tempo no justice
im sure
but its all i have
that and this poem
to show you
that even in the darkness of all of this
i still believe in hope
and in love
and in moving on
and in you
and your smile
and all the things it catches
how after too long of wanting to stay still
that everything about you makes me want to keep going
like reading your poetry
only makes me want to create more of my own

i've got hands that heal too, you know
and i know
no one in this world is completely whole
so let me be your second home
rest every insecurity you have in my bones
ill hold them like the only promise i know
like the only morning i've ever seen is the shine behind your eyes
teach me not to forget the last 3 years of my life
instead
to understand why every second was necessary
because it made me the me that you believe in waiting for

this is the first real poem i've written in months that that isnt dissected with numbers
it makes me believe
you are restoring my ability in constructing my own transitions
turning this moment into movement

so this is today's promise
that everytime you catch a part of my exhale in the gaps of your ribcage
ill be there
writing songs that help the air escape
just long enough for you to welcome me back into your body
that i will fold every clock
every sundyle
every calendar
into a paper crane
until i have enough to fly myself to you across the pacific
i'll write a sonata for every time zone
not just the six that straddle our distance
so that you will never feel
like the air between our bodies is any less poetic
no matter how tragic
and that this poem
will not mean half to the world as it does to us
that i will keep every line you've written me like a secret on the back of my tongue
there is no need for anyone to understand
but us

baby
its the consequence that makes us shine
its the crash and burn of it all
its the love you lost in the shadows
the baggage in the bags of my eyes
the shingles still clung to your toes
pieces of the rafters im sill pulling from my palms
its the promise that wont make anything but silence
its the phoenix folded into every kiss
i'll show you where shes hiding
we can burn in the temple of our yesterday
born ourselves a new
let the closing distance between our rhythms be our only reminder

Day 755: goodbye

i understand the desire for those who have been torn apart to never speak
never cross paths again
block eachother on facebook
because the smiles seem to cut through skin

i worry every time i find my way to your page that ill see you glowing harder with bodies i've never met than with my own
its something that makes me wonder
how our bodies could grow out of silence
in conversation

i also realize that i do not want to have any power in hurting you
dont want to worry about writing poems for other women if i feel them
it doesnt mean i loved you any less hard any less genuine
any less real
doenst mean my heart is any less broken
just that there are parts that somehow still work
i sure as hell dont understand it
but
somehow i still find beauty in the smile of a woman
even if she isnt you
even if i cant see my ocean in her eyes
even if falling further for her feels like im disrespecting your memory
but you never died
and we
we were never promised
we were just a bypass
a road that helped us grow
taught us to love
taught us even more
that we can love again
i know all these things in reason
not yet in practice

but time is the perfect promise
and i gave you half of my college experience for it
and you gave me more
that i can express in one poem
thats why there are so many here written to the tune of your heartbeat
remember this
now that its all over
now that the dedication of my chapbook is a lie
remember how every lie
was once true somewhere
like we were
sometime
before
and that moving on
doenst make any of that
any less miraculous
any less powerful
any less perfect

Day 754: How to move on after 2 years 6 months and 4 days

1.
take a deep breath
memorize the way it stings against the acid in the back of your chest
take another
dont bother speaking
keep swallowing
take another
as many as you need until they start taking themselves
this rhythm is the closest you'll ever get to god
get to perfect

2.
let your heart beat as hard and loud as it wants
when it screams
listen
when its silent
play songs on your guitar
dont ever let the music stop
dont ever let your body stop

3.
print all the pictures
put them in a shoe box
make it fit
let the memory flow over
hide it
but never forget its there
let it collect dust
until your first daughter has her first broken heart
and then let her see that movement happens
that she will over come
that this too shall pass
even the realest of loves cannot build a masterpiece of oceans that arent meant to touch

4.
delete all the text messages
everything from 2009 til today
reliving the history will not allow you to keep your feet moving
it is time for a clean slate

5.
do not forget
never tell yourself that is the way out
she has given you more than enough to deserve to keep a part of your heart and memory
dont you dare try to be so selfish to take that away from her

6.
remember to eat
and sleep
even if nothing about your body wants to be whole
remembering that being weak physically will only slow the process

7.
tell all the people
with the eyes that wreak of pity
of "i told you so"'s and "itll get better's" to fuck off and go to hell
mean it
they need to hear it so they can learn that whatever they are doing will not help you through this
teach them to be better for their next friend who feels like this

8.
avoid your fathers eyes
his hands
he is where all the healing is
but you are not ready for that kind of confession
so wait
until the time is right
you will know

9.


10.
leave part of the poem open
you do not have all the answers
and thats okay
if you did
you wouldnt still be crying
when you have a better idea of how to heal
make a revision

11.
take a deep breath
keep your feet moving
you will get there
have faith

a request

if you read my blog.. you should comment every once and a while. sometimes this writing thing makes me feel so alone. itd be nice to know, theres someone out there

make a note if you like something. make a note if you didnt. just tell me you are here or where you are if you arent. please.

DAY 753: a walk to bring in the morning

the hum of the powerplant
is not something i remember from childhood
its sizzles above my head tonight
like its looking for a new catch
something to hold tight

i do however remember the size of the fence
how it was the only structure on Halloween we left untouched
tonight
i can hear the coper calling me from my block
i walk to meet its masterpiece
and find my hands tangled in the 10 foot high fence
looking through
wondering what a million volts does to heart that has already been restarted so many times it has it has forgotten how to scar
wonder if the energy would send me to fly
would show me something spectacular

there is a rhythm to this push and pull that resonates in my chest
reminds me to keep breathing
tomorrow i want to learn to be my own reminder
let pain run its course
but no longer be the reason i remember i am alive
there is so much more
worthy of my attention
so much more
has been waining
to be free

Day 752: Leave me broken

Today
i made a new playlist
named it leave me broken
it starts with a song by jacks mannequin called rescued
cuz i know anyone whose ever been here wants to know how to build themselves back
no one here wants to be saved
and the ones who do
dont deserve it
so im floating in between the bodies of two women im not sure ill ever love enough to defeat the distance

adele says she gave it all
tried her best
makes me wonder if ive even give half
maybe we just made plans
but never tried to keep them
wrote down the sacrifices that would come
eventually
just give it time
we will grow into this kind of obligation
responsibility
never thought love would ever be covered by these kinds of things

maybe its the way im held
or not held
maybe i never told you how i needed to be kept sturdy
maybe you never listened
maybe we'll never know either way
there are all these parts of us that were never perfect
and barely whole
barely noticeable until we are sinking
until the water is filling the cracks we never knew how to repair

this is a poem called fragment
called shuffle
called
short tempered
and short sided
this is a poem called distance
and oceans
called bodies and women
this is a poem called you
and me
and her
and everything else in our way that has nothing to do with hair shades, softness and beating hearts
this is the poem that came after all the complicated words were gone
and the meaning was left without description
this is a poem for the breath that separates the tears
the silence in the fade between songs
to the steps we never took to close the distance between our coasts

jenna
you will not know that i am gone
when i am
i know this because i have been gone so many times already
and havent noticed even a blink from your horizon
you will not feel me carried under
because its been done and you've still standing there leaving our love where it was born
i did not write any of this to say you are to blame
the right woman or man would have given you enough to carry the ocean on your back
maybe that isnt me
and maybe we are those first real loves that break
maybe we are the kind that crash and carry with us forever
like the look in my brother eye when i know he's wondering about a girl in san fransisco who he'll never hold again
and when i wonder
if hell ever fall as hard and true
sometimes i wonder
these things for us too

jenna
this is a poem
called sorry
called i need to come home
called i cannot be where you are
and cannot be with you if you are not here
this is a poem called growing old
and alone
called transition
and trying to be strong
this is a poem called failure
and lessons never learned
this is a poem called true love
and its broken
like us
like me
like silence
like the sea
like all the gravity that never learned to push us back
this is a poem called try again
even if its wrong
force the pieces in
because fear is too real to be ignored
and you're absence
is the ending
i never wanted to write
again

Day 751: goodnight- the rest

if i could
i would swallow the ocean
the continent
the walls
the others
everything standing between us
everything that keeps the right words from falling out of our mouths

This is my apology
for stealing your ink
leaving you dry
for wanting you to want me this way
because no one else seems to
for throwing words to you late at night like hawaii
and roomatess like we dont know what i mean
that theres something magical about it all
how a part of me fell in love when you said you wouldnt move to hawaii for me
but you would for yourself
part of it felt so safe
something about our laughter made me feel like everything about my life was upside down

when she didnt call and instead you stayed with me until your morning
it made me wonder how the distance could be so thick to make her so silent
and yet
still let you hold me from this space
it makes me wonder where i am to be in the morning
and how she will read this poem and cover it with everything she can
when just weeks ago
doing so would be impossible
how is it love changes this much
if we arent working
does it mean we are broken
does it mean i have to start over again

Day 750: goodnight

i know i am unstable
but my body is sturdy
rigid
hard in places you wouldnt expect
softer in the others
i can cradle your chest in mine til morning
i will break myself into being the perfect mold
for you
even when the arthritic in me is screaming
i will lay under you head
and hold you until morning
too afraid to move
after you fall asleep

if you told me my hands were soft
i woudlnt believe if
if you asked me to trace the lines on your body
id burn ever callouses from my body
just so you wouldnt feel a hit on its vibration on your skin when i lay my hands on you
i want nothing yo be left to chance

749: not love

safety
security
and lust
do not make love

Day 748: out

i let harmonies slip through me like
having parts of your kiss
still tucked under my tongue
doesn't slice my breath every time i make a sound
like legging go is something I've already done
when we know it isn't
when we know me running away is just the first step in me crawling back

its not that i think it wont get better
its that i worry it will
and then it'll get worse again
its the waves we love in
how the tide changes in our distance
in an instant
its that we've never be stable
rock like
never been able to hold each other across th ocean
when we know
these miles
may be a very big part of our lives
its that everytime we are a part i try to pull you into me and eventually you are further away than the milky way
its the walls and how quickly they can build
its the tone of your voice
its me wondering if you'll want to hold my hand
wondering if you've fallen in love with boston
or someone else in his place
its all of this
its every minute
its me
and its you
not knowing if the word us is still a part of our vocabulary
its growing up
and growing out