My vent on love

If I sat with silence

and I mean, truly sat,

it wouldn’t take long

for my mind to commit adultery

betraying the stillness,

without guilt,

as my mind lusted after you,

your voice,

rising like smoke,

hovering over valleys,

searching for somewhere to land,

aching for a place

to call home.

If I were to call you

baby

would that name

still pull you close?

Did it ever?

I’m exhausted

from the unanswered questions,

from wanting the truth,

from the unknown,

from the missing that grows,

instead of subsiding,

from believing that life began when we met

and doesn’t actually go on without you.

I wonder why it feels so right

to assign forever to your name

when we don’t even have

right now.

We only exist in the past,

and shared a sliver of happiness

I can't let go of.

I've convinced myself that

you're fine with the way things are,

that to look on the bright side,

I would need a rear-view mirror.

I pride myself in being stoic,

but I’ve been told

I wear my heartache on my sleeve.

I wish I could tell you everything,

and knowing you,

you'd share one tenth of that,

but I bury my words inside,

to the depths of coffins,

the way I shoved all of your stuff in a box

labeled love of my life

in black Sharpie.

Darling,

I'm weary,

sleep has taken after you,

always near but never mine,

ghosts,

elusive notions,

things I need

yet things I don’t receive in full.

My subconscious is tied to you

and I know there exists a part of you

that knows we’re linked

but you prefer things

cut and dried

so then come back for my heart

or did you forget

you hung it upside down

on the day you left,

suspending it with clothespins

to rot in the sun.

The blood drains to my head

and leaks you into my dreams.

The way your skin felt

makes my mind feel a little blurry,

but I could still draw you from memory

to the point where I could feign that I’m an artist

like how I fake being a writer

and that my words actually touch you

in places that my fingers should.

I hunger for you,

I cannot survive off hope alone,

the carrots you feed me

are a recipe for indigestion

when they're in dangled form.

It probably won’t change anything,

but I guess I should tell you

that I dread the mornings,

another day without you,

and my instinct is still to reach for you

but my limbs hit the edges of the mattress

and I fall apart when I don’t feel you.

I think I must be

the first person in history

to make a snow angel

while being sad.

Being able to stretch out

really isn’t all it's cracked up to be,

how I’d trade it in a heartbeat

to be smothered by you

to go back to loving you in cramped spaces

watching you slowly chip away at your defenses,

seeing you struggle but still try to open yourself,

your silent courage,

to thinking that it could be I

who made you

believe in love again.

I wish when I opened my eyes

I was still a victim to your beauty

instead of seeing you

as teardrops on my pillowcase.

I wish you’d come home

and open that door

to a hot meal

and gratuitous affection

for life.