words escape me for the perfect one:

"now listen here she said:

boy, when you know you'll know

and i know"

white t-shirt, the smell of your cologne floating to me as you shifted underneath me. my chin on your chest, looking up at you as your eyes were fixed on the ceiling. your right hand lifted from the bed, making an open palm, shifting into a fist with your pointer finger raised in the air. your lips were moving, soft voice telling me things that you had never told anyone before,

and it was like i explained to you earlier that night, with the record player singing in the distance and the rain hitting the window behind your head: we find words for things that we're not sure about. we overcompensate, make ourselves heard, make it sound beautiful.. and yet, the thing that is most beautiful and most sure defies all words. there are not enough words, not enough words that are not trite, at least, to describe the way it feels when your body was lying next to me after we talked for hours on hours, how your body felt--like the boundaries that made up our body were permeable, like when we laid next to each other, those boundaries did not exist. when your body comes closer to mine, i'm not aware of the skeleton that makes you separate from me; i'm only aware of the way your skin seems to melt into mine, the way your body becomes part of me as we fall together.

i know people have been hard on you in the past. i know people have wanted you to be anything other than you were. but to me, you are absolutely perfect just as the person you tell me you are, just as the person you believe you are. you are perfect as the shirtless child playing with superhero figurines. you are perfect as the socially awkward high school senior who wanted nothing more than to take a girl to prom. you are perfect as the person who walks into my apartment every night, arms so strong and so soft i have no doubt that every bit of me will always be protected by you, the person whose white button downs and slightly faded blue khakis make my body shiver in anticipation of your touch. your confidence, snarkiness, jokes paid at my (willing) expense; your smirk and the freckles that reside at the bridge of your nose, right next to your perfectly shaped almond eyes where my favorite exploding galaxies exist. 

when i see you, i see future. i see our home, next to a body of water, hardwood floors and built-in bookshelves. i see our record players, our record collection, our books--your leather-bound, gold-paged copy of the trials of susan b. anthony sitting on the coffetable, right on top of a copy of rad women from a to z--, our mementos from backpacking south america and train rides in europe. i see our dogs on the floor, sleeping quietly as otis redding plays in the background. a bottle of wine opened just before the sun goes down, and our closest friends and family sitting around a dinner table enjoying a meal we've prepared together. later on, i see us near christmas, christmas morning even... i see my doing as much as i can and your moving frantically around the kitchen. i see you stop, place your hand on my belly, and give me that look you give me when you're being serious--my full name and a plea to sit down. i see so much that sometimes it scares me, but it also enthralls me in ways that i am not sure i have ever felt or thought i could have the potential to feel.

the reality is this: when they said that someone would eventually walk into my life and make me realize why it could have never worked with anyone else, i didn't believe them. everyone has their flaws. but then you walked in, and i completely understood. for someone to understand these deepest desires of mine, to have these same needs and same wants as i do, to share them so openly--to see you smile when we realize that all of these strings come right back together--i never knew that that was possible. i never knew that i could have you, have this. 

everyone sees it. my mom, your coworkers, your brother, chelsea, my friends, your friends... they all know. now all we can do is wait for this beautiful story to unfold in front of us...

the beginning of something beautiful.

I sat down across from you, ordered a beer, made some ridiculous comment, fiddled with my keys, and nervously avoided your eyes.

You were avoiding mine, too, and my anxious mind kept wondering why, hoping for the best, but fearing the worst.

We made that waitress so damn mad because we couldn't shut up long enough to even look at the menu. Your eyes kept me nervously glancing away, those spirals of green, gold, and brown, what I would later call exploding galaxies... we kept laughing, eventually figured out what we wanted, drank beer. You mentioned Colin Kaepernick and Black Lives Matter and my knees went weak under the table, where you couldn't see. I could smell the mixture of your spearmint gum and cologne drifting across the table top once, twice, three times, and each time wished that we were anywhere but here, somewhere I could be wrapped up in you, that smell all over me...

In my car until 3 AM, listening to Brand New and Julia Nunes and Foo Fighters and all of the things that made us the same person when we were younger. I played Make Out to hint to you that that's exactly what I wanted to do. Eventually you caught the hint.

Under the stars, the top of my Jeep open, your lips latched on to mine, pulled close, that smell, those eyes connecting with me in all of the ways I had wanted so badly--

So pay attention now, I'm standing on your porch screaming out, and I won't leave until you come downstairs...

confusion & thoughts:

when you close your eyes at night

and you rise above your life

do you notice there, an empty space

where i wasn't by your side

because i always dream about you

every time i close my eyes

if i live to be one hundred

will i ever cross your mind?

i always make my wishes

for the same thing every time

if i live to be one hundred

will i ever cross your mind?

"and like i said, i do think you are uniquely poised to fuck up my world. and i don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. but it is definitely a thing."

NaPoWriMo Day 1

From NaPoWrimo: And now, our prompt (optional, as always). Today, I challenge you to write a lune. This is a sort of English-language haiku. While the haiku is a three-line poem with a 5-7-5 syllable count, the lune is a three-line poem with a 5-3-5 syllable count. There's also a variant based based on word-count, instead of syllable count, where the poem still has three lines, but the first line has five words, the second line has three words, and the third line has five words again. Either kind will do, and you can write a one-lune poem, or write a poem consisting of multiple stanzas of lunes. Happy writing!

Night Skies: 

your face in my mind:

a constant reminder

that almost everything is impossible.

Existential Graduate School Problems:

my capstone project

is a

waste of fucking time.

30 days of poems, day 1:

Prompt 1: Grab the closest book. Go to page 29. Write down 10 words that catch your eye. Use 7 of words in a poem. For extra credit, have 4 of them appear at the end of a line. (Words: Collapsible, horizon, flurry, voice, emptiness, bereaved, wildest, purest, dancing, rolling - taken from Mary Oliver's What Do We Know)

To see the stars --

A flurry,
January morning,
emptiness surrounds --

memories dancing across my pillow,
sliding down the wrinkled off-white fabric,
collapsing into a pile of nothingness in the folds.

Only snow could be this quiet.
A landscape of death,
mortality revisited --

And only in our wildest dreams
could we find this beautiful:
watching the bereaved,
in their purest voices,
continue across this
collapsible horizon.

distant memories

the last time we ever touched was exactly a year ago today.

super bowl sunday. you had been over at her house, came back because it was snowing or because you were tired or i'm not exactly sure why. we slept next to each other all through the night, cuddled tight. i had been in bowling green all weekend, had talked to mike the whole way home. then you walked in the sliding glass doors and everything seemed to fall on the floor - i was so helpless, so hopeless, so shattered.

i still remember what you told me after that night - that it felt like "everything was normal again." i never thought that that would be the end or that that would be the last time we'd ever touch. i didn't realize that'd be one of the last times i'd ever get to hold my sweet girl close.

cut to the end of the month, the snow, my trying to talk to you about things, your trip to new orleans which made me absolutely furious, the lies, the pain, my eventual acceptance. seeing where i am now - even since the last time we ever had breakfast together together at o'charley's - makes me wonder who in the world that girl was, hanging on to someone who gave so much less than what she deserved.

now a year later, in bed at jill and micah's after spending the night hanging with chris and tiffany for super bowl sunday. i am more centered than i ever have been, happier, and completely alone, which i love. and i just wonder - are you happy? is this what you wanted? are you in a place where you are happy with your choices? i've heard some things recently that would indicate not (though i wish people would refrain from spreading such news). i hope that this life is good to you and that you are healthy and happy and calm.

i had to -

i had to say goodbye. i had to close the door. i wish i could say i'm sorry, but i'm really not.

this coming in and out of my life, leaving messages that leave me dangling, hoping, wishing, lying to me about pertinent information, dodging information that you think i don't already know and haven't already known - it had to stop. we couldn't continue on torturing the past over and over again. it was an act of self-preservation and of protection of my sanity, something i desperately needed to be okay.

so was leaving you. i'm a firm believer in doing things because you want to, because you are so compelled to do them that you don't believe you could ever do anything else. that tunnel vision feeling in which you are so locked in to your desired thing that everything else looks like a blurred vision at best - this is what i'm talking about. and yet, in the last 3-4 weeks, you painted a picture for me of how you saw me. being with me wasn't something that you desired, that you wanted with all of your heart; being with me was a means to an end, a way to keep from facing your fears of not being alone. if i've learned anything over the last year, it's that love doesn't force. love doesn't control, and that's especially true when it comes to the goals and the dreams of those in a relationship. you told me that i'd risk everything if i thought you were worth so much, but when it came back around to it, i don't think that you would have risked that for me.

both of you, really, just on different sides of the coin - two completely different people, two completely different situations, but i see now that i'm growing and creating better boundaries through which i am able to grow and become who i am. i'm alone for the holidays, and that's tough because i dread coming home and i dread spending christmas by myself. at the same time, however, i'm also pleased, because that means i haven't settled for less than i deserve (and, in the same way, i haven't allowed you to settle for less than you deserve). i'm choosing to see this moment as moving toward a higher path, and, in doing so, am going to seek a great perhaps.

i reject the notion that women have to be in a relationship to have worth, or that i need someone close to me in order to live my fullest life. my goals, my dreams, and my ideas are worth more than being in a relationship to me. i value love, i value friendship, i value connection, but i'm tired of giving all of myself to someone who does not give all to me.