Like how the sunlight

you carried with you would hide

away from my oncoming rain.

or how when we would fight

our words would rise up like giant waves

to crash down on our heads to

drown out all affection.

how sometimes your fingers

would tug at my limbs so hard

it seemed as if you were trying to pull me apart.

and how sweet your blood

tasted in my mouth.

I miss you all wrong.

Last night I was sad, but now the sun is up.

Last night I was lonely,

Last night I was sick with worry,

Last night I was convinced the sky was falling in on my head.

But now the sun is up.

“His love would have fulfilled my life.

Don’t laugh at me: that love is probably the only good thing I’ve ever done.”

• It was never your fault, and I hate myself for wanting to blame you.

• you gave the best hugs and the hardest hits, I miss them both.

• you were never as heartless as you pretended to be, and that is a good thing.

• your devotion to your family made me wish I could be strong enough for a love like that.

• you have always had a way of calming the skittish animal under my skin.

• Not even my ghosts miss you anymore.

• I wish more than anything that I had wanted you to stay.

• We would have been perfect together, but we both knew that I couldn’t stay.

• you have always been so much better than the best of me.

• I never meant to hurt you, but it happened anyway.

• I have always loved you and will always love you, if you believe in nothing else, believe that.

I hated him for saying that to me. For the longest time I was bitter, wondering who he thought he was and why in the world he thought I cared what he thinks of me. And I tucked it away in my mind and like a splinter it would dig in at unexpected moments and began to infect all of my surrounding thoughts. Was I really that horrible?

The easy answer would have been no, I would have forgotten all about him and his remark.
But the honest answer was yes, I was that horrible. I would lash out with my words at anything that moved, I would switch from pleasant to ugly at the drop of a hat.

It took me a couple years to clean out the infection my way of thinking had developed. And it took me even longer to overcome the unpleasantness that would rear up at odd moments of the day.
It’s been over six years since I have seen the boy whose passing remark changed my life, and I just wish I would run into him again and show him that he was right.
I don’t want to toot my own horn but I’m really fucking easy to love now. And I hear from strangers every day at work how easy it is to be with me and that I charmed them in seconds.
Smiling comes easier now, so does laughing, and so does meeting new people and making friends.
And I’ve found that life is easier now too.

Reason to leave

• I’ve lost myself in people before, it doesn’t end pretty

Reason to stay

• You look so beautiful while you’re sleeping

there is little that I love more than sunshine and sky.

My family, of course, has it’s own place in my heart that nothing and no one have ever come close to.

But I will not stay here with my family as long as I am able to follow the call of the bright blue sky.

My veins are roads and railways on the map of my skin,

a suitcase heart thumps in my chest.

It is filled with the Arizona skyline and still frames of the people whose names will forever be etched on the back of my eyelids.

Lists I run through at night before sleep, a prayer that I will never forget and never give up on.

My suitcase heart will carry me far,

and I will carry you far.

Like when you curl into me and you wrapped your arms around me with no intention of letting me go.

And as you speak of your passions with a fire burning from your heart to your eyes, heating the skin of your fingers as you run them through my tangled hair.

Or when you talk of travel and how you can take your work anywhere and you’re not rooted to one spot, as your eyes are begging me to give you a chance. To take you along, to not leave you behind.

And especially when you spend all night kissing me over and over, content to just be near to me, breathing in my exhales.

Most of the time I can’t wait to leave, but not when you are so near wishing I could stay.

just shattered pieces of the same bright sun.

Trying to figure out which way to run,

and we can’t do this alone.

(you never really were alone)

You and me were good, but now we’ve gone bad.

I don’t take for granted the good that was here,

At one time, baby you erased my fears.

But as the clouds they kept coming, there was no room for the sun to come in.

And frankly I can’t stand the darkness.

To stay would be torture, like wearing a shoe that you’ve outgrown.

I don’t want to be uncomfortable.

So please I’m begging you, don’t ask me to stay,

save your breath there’s nothing left to say.

To say.

There’s nothing, nothing left to say.

I don’t wish to say goodbye, but if I stay I KNOW I’ll die.

You and me were good but now we’ve gone bad.

You and me, we’ve gone bad.