I woke up this morning surrounded by your red curling hair the small strands damp against your neck the curve of your shoulders making me shudder the pulse in your throat making me weak the press of your flesh smooth and hot and sweet against my flushed skin to turn you over to make all of that mine to bury myself in to die in the line of freckles above your flesh to drown in the smell that drifts up to me from the curls below your belly where my hand drifts and struggles to touch needing to be home

my feet hurt from walking the smell of bland food and latex in my nostrils the whir in my head the fear of mistakes my head aching and screaming for sleep the heat bearing down my skin closing in on itself the blank stares the loneliness the stress all of it piling up and taking me over and I walk out finally and I sit down finally and I see your face and your hand reaching for mine and I know the reason I know why I get up before day I know the reason for each of my heartbeats

wanted to throw you down the instant we were alone surround myself immerse myself in you like a movie scene couldn't wait one more minute to crush into you couldn't wait to steal a few precious moments away but you didn't feel the need you felt daily life weighing on you instead and my fear is that it will swallow us whole and we will lose the blaze that ignited us and set us across the sky that I will write a paragraph about your incomparable beauty and you will read it and say nothing that we become ordinary

a thousand lights flicker across your face the breeze teases your hair into billowing perfection I remember imagining you just like this last year sitting in my perfect world missing the other piece of me I saw this image of you shining and leading me after you wherever it might take me and here you are beautiful and perfect and utterly breathtaking I can't watch the fireworks I am not dazzled by bright lights and exploding colors and booming noise the crowds the music all is overshadowed by you small and boring and plain in the presence of your beauty

I can't do it alone I can't hold myself and rock myself and tell myself it will be ok I can't ask myself to talk to myself and tell me everything weighing on my heart and I can't hear myself I can't kiss away my own tears or stroke my own hair I can't give myself hope or tell myself that I'm loved and wanted here and there I can't do any of this and you can't either so I am here all alone begging you with my eyes trying desperately to hide my helplessness by taking care of you

you have not lost anything you act as though I've withdrawn my love for you and you still have it you still have my undying adoration you still have my arms around you whenever you need them you're still my baby my love and yes, my princess the only things lost were my complete trust and faith in pure love but I still believe in true love I just had to learn the hard way that no one is perfect and everything you ache for and everything you mourn for is still right here in my eyes and my heart

sometimes I'm sitting and it pierces me what if you miss her what if she gave you something I didn't why did everything happen behind my back and how foolish I was to love you both how foolish I am to mourn her friendship how sorry I am that you had to run from me and from us and those memories flood me and I see what my eyes were blind to and yet I want you to run your hands over me and convince me it wasn't real I want you to tell me it was a bad dream

yesterday you leaned over me let your red curls caress my face put your smooth skin against mine and made magick yesterday you held me as I fell asleep breathing hard you stroked my back and carried groceries when I couldn't breathe yesterday you pushed me down in passion and filled me yesterday you let me pull your hips back against mine and fill you yesterday you cried with love for me and yesterday we merged into one yesterday we sought each other out in each commercial yesterday you made me forget you said I love you to someone else

I don't know how to look into your eyes and say I am happy here I am trying to do everything right trying to think of ways to ease my heartache digging my nails into my skin trying to shut up about the lack of trees the stifling buildings and the crushing weight of the city I don't know what hope there is if I believe I am staying here forever I am afraid I will suffocate in this stale place but there is one thing I know for sure: I would rather suffocate than live another day without you

I curl up in the corner because you don't want me not like you used to not the way I want you not the way you did in the beginning when being in the bed meant we had to touch somehow when our eyes were drawn together when you would never have said don't snuggle with me no matter what the reason I curl up in the corner alone with my need as fresh as the first day I saw you as fresh as every aching night of the nine months I spent without you and you don't feel it

you're going to get sick of my constant need for attention and affection and reassurance my jealousy when you want to leave me to read or smoke a cigarette my insecurities that eat me alive my overwhelming fear of losing you my constant watch for signs that it's happening again my vigil for pain to come my distrust of your devotion to me my constant ripping need to be touching you it's too much for anyone it's too demanding too devouring I wonder when I drive you away with this starvation and cause my own fears to be realized finally

why do I have to be the one who has to want more need to express it more why am I the one who always ends up aching who is never satisfied who has to complain that I don't feel wanted and needed enough in return it hurts to know people have to remind you to do the little things from me because I struggle to understand why you do not do it in the first place like I do why you want to settle down without the fire and passion that should be there for much longer than this

I thought that was what was different about us I thought that was what was special about us that we weren't going to stop being in love we weren't going to stop doing those things that made every day magickal that made our hearts ache I don't want to end up like everyone else I wanted to be one of those rare couples who still hold hands and look at each other dreamily when they're 90 years old but nothing works out like that no one can have that and our movie has to end like all movies doesn't it

I wish I had a whole day to count the freckles on your chest with my tongue I wish I had a whole day to trace the curves of your jaw and memorize the shape of your lips I wish I had an hour to run my finger along your thigh to your knee an hour to press my ear against your heartbeat and watch the pulse jump in your throat I wish I had forever to inhale the scent of your hair to breathe the heat of your neck to soar the universe in the black of your eyes

my head is spinning your words replaying around and around couldn't get your tea couldn't take you to work couldn't do what needed to be done let everyone down at work wasn't sick enough to act so sick have to ask for rides have to pay so many bills need so much help need you to not yell at me need to be held didn't ask you how you were enough didn't hold you enough didn't care enough let my mind wander in and out of my own pain too long before it tore us apart and swept me away

I want time to go home and visit I want friends at work I want interesting classes at school I want to fall asleep every night in your arms or you in mine I want to travel I want to learn languages I want to sit under the moon with your hand in mine I want to hold my kitty again I want to have beautiful photos of us taken with flowers I want to have our own home and a beautiful baby and a piano I want to share every day with you like this is our last day

maybe it won't sound so cheesy here maybe you won't call it corny if I write it down on paper if I veil it in poetry if I glaze it over with pretty words and thoughts extravagant adjectives and beautiful phrases maybe if I swirl it into something deep and meaningful you'll look at it as more than just a sickeningly sweet trifle sometimes I feel so dumb around you sometimes I feel like an awkward teenager slapping my forehead after every conversation and it all comes out silly and corny and I simply mean I'm in heaven with you

you're talking to me your lips are moving and I see your tongue soft between your lips I lose myself in the crinkling of your eyes when you smile I see your hands and my mind struggles to find a way to make love to your hands to drown myself in the shallow dip of your throat and the line of your collarbone touching isn't enough staring isn't enough the beauty you think I created in a sepia image is the beauty I see everyday and I'm not supposed to be driven to distraction when perfection lures me every minute

reading poetry not meant for my eyes because I can't resist because I guess deep down I don't really trust that it was nothing to you I'm not even sure I believe you never kissed her you never said you wanted her you never gave her hope and reading the other side of the story is not helping but my stomach is clenching and rolling again for words I was never meant to read and I wonder if they're true after all why would she lie in private why would sing if it wasn't real what did you really do

curling up in the corner against a wall that will hold me convinced I can't convince you that I need you as much as you need me restless and resisting any comfort I turn away thinking about the year that haunts my memory and won't release me that year I escaped from for a place that burns away my past and makes me primal and now we might go back as much as I yearn to return I worry that my happiness won't be enough for you and my world won't open up to swallow you but spit you out

yes I want to hear you say it to her face yes I want to watch her eyes widen in realization yes I want you to devalue everything you told her yes I want her to read it from you yes I want to see her break crumble and lose any claim to your love when she loses all doubt yes I want to see her fall because of you yes I want to know what you were really feeling because I don't always feel like it was nothing and I can't really trust until I know and I don't

going to bed every night craving your skin your taste your breath fast in my ear needing your eyes and your hair falling over my arms your legs tangling with mine your lips running the length with me every night wishing you would lay me out in the dark and fill my senses with your touch and scent and sight fill me with you I look at you begging I fall asleep moaning under my breath sleeping next to you and unable to take my fill my hands tracing the empty air in a pale mimicry of what I desire

she hovers above me white and glowing in the light from the cities leaking into the room across her skin pale and smooth beneath red curls tumbling to the middle of her back I awaken from a dream and she is there ethereal suspended in front of me a mirage of beauty in the desert night moving softly beneath my hands fluttering sliding singing on my thighs until we fall forward into each other clinging gasping the night and holding it in one exalted moment when the air holds it's breath and the darkness clutches itself in awe of us

everyday we fight the chaos of everyday spitting and splitting against the bars of work and bills and details of accounts money takes us by the hand and leads us medicine and appointments and schedules and hours no time to sit and see each other no time to let the wind carry our kisses to the sky we battle the tidal wave of stresses and worries the avalanche of papers and checks and cards and yet somehow we still find time to say I love you twenty times to talk deeply somehow we still find time to find each other

I am sitting in a car boiling over like it was this morning mind racing with a hundred memories from the three months I played the fool and now I play the forgiver when inside I'm exploding with rage and my stomach is knocking against my skin like I just got kicked and I pray that this "moving on" process they promised will claim me anytime now it will run over my furious red perforated heart and make it whole again make me more than the idiot who believed in people the fool who saw what she wanted to see

I don't know how to reach out and connect to you I don't know if you'd rather just be left alone I'm undecided because every time I try to reach you I'm politely brushed off politely pushed away how can I force you if you want to be left alone if you're hot if you're sick if you want to do something else I refuse to make you feel guilty refuse to make you feel obligated I'm just left lying there staring at the ceiling wishing I could feel your want for me in hot waves like I used to

why do I do this to myself torture myself with those pictures with that evidence force myself to see those scenes in my head again and again like some kind of emotional cutting I split my mind on those memories I hear those words echoing over and over through my head stabbing through my heart until all I hear is my own head screaming and my own heart pounding with splintering rage and a wall building to keep myself from falling apart and sobs ripping through me crushing me with the weight of holding them in leaking one single tear

so easy to be so angry to hate a person I don't even know but it's true I hate you I hate your songs I hate your voice I hate your essence most of all I hate the way she speaks to you I hate your right to flirt harmlessly I'm sick with hate at the thought of you you are the nameless one who will bear the hatred I have for the one who molded my year into hatred the one who stole without ever knowing for the one who looked into my eyes while stomping out my heart

I step into the world that has bent out of shape the sun has become ugly the grass is sharp like glass the earth beneath me is a baked crust of sweat and pain and hurried feet escaping the scalding air Mother why have you abandoned me where are you why can't I feel your heartbeat I am trapped in boxes and ovens with fake air blowing in my face stinging my eyes you are gone you are smiling at me from a distance you are teaching me the value of trees water sky breeze ah my Goddess rescue me

yes I hate you with each click of the keys with black against white you cannot lie you cannot look into my eyes and see where the truth once burned against my heart where you leave holes inside my core where you erode my heart with your rust yes I hate you as I fall asleep with your ghostly fingers long and clenching around my throat so that my pulse beats in your hands and I'm yours I hate you for the unstoppable monster you are clinging to me shrouding me twisting my nights into black tortured dreams of distrust

a year gone by since I first laid eyes on you and what can I say except that you've affected every part of me you've taught me lessons in jealousy love deceit patience anguish sorrow mourning strength passion beauty sacrifice compromise forgiveness anger betrayal fear hatred I've cried I've laughed I've screamed raged sang and grown all in your name and I think you will find that after all of that I am not the same person you met one year ago I think you'll find that I am so much closer to who I'm meant to be. thank you.