longing

i wish i could be in your bed tonight. 
i wish i could curl my hand, 
my body, 
my world,
against you tonight.
i wish i could press my lips to yours,
softly,
slowly, 
adoringly.
i wish we could pull up a show on your laptop, 
lay in your bed under the covers,
with our legs intertwined.
i wish i could stifle my laughter against your neck, 
your shoulder,
your chest,
wherever i could reach.

i wish you could come pick me up.
is it too late for you to come get me?
i want to go get a milkshake,
ride down 40 with the windows down,
into the city.
i want you to reach over the console and take my hand in yours,
bring it to your lips and kiss my knuckles so reverently
that my insides catch fire
so the only thing i can do to cool them off
is take a sip from the cup.

sweetest,
i wish nothing more than your company.
i wish for you tonight.
you're a text away, 
but i need you, here, close, tonight.

perhaps i'm in too deep,
perhaps i couldn't care less.

this is the way love's supposed to feel.

brown eyes

is this what they mean when they say "in love"?
let me break it down-
i've had girls and boys, 
some who i liked,
some who i loved.
but you-
oh, dearest.
there are not enough words;
correction,
there are no words
to describe you correctly.
i've tried, so i'll try again, 
but if you read this, 
know i could never find enough to say.

dearest,
you.
you're not like them.
you make my heart sing, 
make my heart beat quicker for you.
you make the clouds clear, 
the flowers blossom,
you take my pain out of my chest and brain
and turn it into a paper ball;
crumpled, tossed into the waste bin.
your smile lights up my darkest corners,
your voice turns on the air for my heat.
your touch ignites the flame within me, 
and your words put me to rest.
i've sliced myself into shreds
but you've helped put me together. 
if a bandage dare fell off, 
you'd put on a new one, better. 

when you are hurting, i wish i could hold you,
push back your hair and dry your tears.
i wish to hold your hand to affirm you'll get better, 
but you're just my friend, so i know better.
when you're hurting, 
oh, it hurts me too.
someone so divine as you 
deserves nothing but the best. 

so tell me, is this "love"?
is this what all the movies mean?
all the old people sat with their lovers, 
scolding me over dried sponge cake?

if this is the love they assume i've never had,
i don't understand how they could fight their lover.
i can not fathom anything that would 
dare
cause me to raise my voice, 
or, worse, strike her. 

she is my best friend.
she is my person.
she is my love.
she is my world.

and, despite all of the above,
we are separate entities,
floating through time and space, 
together.

june 30, 2019

pride month is coming to its close once more. i am a proud, loving, accepting member of this community, and each year those emotions grow stronger. this year, i finally went to my first pride. i was scheduled to march in the parade, but i got too anxious about that to try to. i still went to the festival part, though, and walked the streets with my two friends. we went to a taco shop and a bakery, both of which were very loving and accepting of the lgbtq+ community. this year felt remarkably different, though, and maybe it’s because i’m out, fully, now. but i feel like it is more because i understand more now. being proud and accepting is one thing, but being part of the community and proud and accepting while walking the rainbow painted streets with flags flying, drag queens getting ready and stopping your friend to correctly guess their zodiac sign, seeing people, YOUR people, people like you, holding hands and kissing in the streets or in front of the courthouse as though that is the norm…that is incredible. in this world we are brought up where straight is the only right way and there are only two genders, but when you don’t identify with heterosexuality OR a binary gender, you’re raised thinking that you’re wrong, that your mere existence isn’t right, isn’t supposed to even exist. there’s nothing wrong with being straight or cis, fuck, man, if you’re straight and cis, good for you. contrarily, there is absolutely nothing wrong with being anything and everything but straight and cis. we are all just people. we need to love and accept each other. please.

so as this pride month comes to a close, i just wish for one thing: acceptance. the picture attached isn’t even from my pride going, it is from tonight when i wiped off my makeup that i did for a photo. but that wash cloth is seen by so many people. they wipe off their true self to board the train home, to drive back to their family after they snuck out to pride, to hide who they are just so they can stay alive one more day. so they can stay alive in hopes that one day, they won’t have to wipe their self away, or stuff their flags in their bag, or dress as the gender assigned at birth. they, and i, hope for a future in which we can all be exactly who we are, without fear, without shame, without guilt, and without the burden of not being “normal”, because we are “normal”, we are human.

eden

you were with me in eden
before the sky was blue
when all there was around us
were where the trees and bushes grew.

in the middle of our garden
stood a tree we could not touch
but an apple seemed so lovely
i couldn’t help but do so much.

the story’s off, there was no snake
just two people, standing new
i took the apple, i took first bite
and damned both me and you.

eden, baby, you and me
the rise and fall of humanity
eden, baby, you and me
i’ll bring the apple, you know the tree.

wildflower heart

my heart is filled with dirt

but you’re the seed

and my blood is the water.

you grow and grow inside me

until it hurts to do anything but love you.

you’re the sunlight

streaming through white curtains.

i’m the moonlight

lighting your path.

i’m the radio

you’re the song.

we were meant to be together

we don’t work without the other.

you’re my soul, and i’m your vessel.

you have me, wholly,

and you could manipulate me

into terrible things

but you don’t.

you warm me up when my heart is shivering

you bleed sunshine in my veins when all i bleed is rain

you let me cry, you let me scream,

but you hold my soul with arms unfolding.

you’ve seen me at my worst and loved me through it

you’ve held me close,

but i hold you closer.

you’ve been my warmth

as i’ve grown colder.

i’ve a wildflower heart

and you’re it’s holder.

porcelain

you took my heart and held it softly

like it was a porcelain doll

ready to shatter at the first scratch

what happened to those careful hands

that wouldn’t dare destroy?

you kept my heart and left it longing

left it broken bruised

battered and beaten

and baby, i want it back

but not how you left it.

central park

do you remember when we shared a room in new jersey?
we'd go up the turnpike to new york every morning for three days.
it was the first time i'd ever been up there.
it was the first time, in a long time, that i had felt loved, felt happy. 
we were only kids, barely teenagers, and you were my best friend.
i had just gotten out of a relationship but you treated me better than she had beyond the third week of dating.
we were in a room with two other girls 
and i slept on the floor and nearly froze my ass off by the air con.
i insisted.
you laughed at me, friendly, telling me i was crazy.

we were supposed to go to central park but it started raining. 
perhaps that's for the better. i don't know if i would've been able to resist holding your hand.
we managed to score broadway tickets, though.
i didn't sit with you because of the ticket arrangement,
but that's also probably for the better because you would've seen me cry during the ballads.

i think the way he felt when he was singing about wanting to run away,
catch a train to santa fe, 
i got it then. 
but even moreso now.
new york was sort of my santa fe. 
the city lights, the theatricality of everyone and everything,
the whole damn city oozed with it.

back in the hotel that night i refused to sleep with you again.
but god, 
oh god i wanted to.
i wanted to stay up with you and whisper about whatever,
i wanted to lay in your arms,
i wanted to hold your hands in mine.
i wanted to take you down to central park,
kiss under the stars and canopies of trees. 
i wanted to go back to the city and hold your hand. 
i wanted to.
i want to.

instead i laid on the floor and looked out over manhattan,
looked out over the city lights until my eyes were burning,
burning from exhaustion or tears, i might never know.
but that night,
overlooking the city, 
veins fueled with the romance of the musical we had seen mere hours before, 
i knew that new york was just a physical manifestation of my santa fe.

you
are my santa fe.

april 24, 2014

sometimes
in the dead of the night
i can remember when i told you i was moving.
the shake in your voice,
the sad desperation,
"oh. where?"
"just a couple miles away"

i remember things falling apart then.
and how they're still not together.
and likely never will be.

i remember you calling me
and telling me about new york.
but i never got the chance to tell you.
i still haven't.
did you even know i went?

i wanna go back to new york.
with you. 
but it's so far
and you're so far
everything is so

far.

but what's close is what matters,
right?
you're not here though. 
and you matter to me.
maybe you don't.
maybe you shouldn't. 
maybe you're just in my head because
i cant let go of you.
could i ever?
would i ever?



will i ever?

a quick goodbye

sometimes i wonder what it would have been like if our goodbye hadn't gone so quick.
it felt like a long time coming, 
like a pot trying to boil on low heat.
but i was too heart-eyed to notice.

we were young, 
i don't regret it.
i don't regret you.
you were somehow the best and worst thing to happen to me.

i still ache,
knowing the girl in my heart
had someone else in her's.
but it's okay,
because you're happy with him now.

i do regret not being able to drive, though.
i can't go to the lake and not think of you, 
even though we only went with my parents.

the good thing, hopefully,
is that it isn't so much you anymore, 
but the girl i'm heart-eyed for now. 

(she doesn't know)
(but you don't know her, so you can't take her too)

i do wish our goodbye could've been,
say,
an hour.
it was a couple months.
maybe from the start.
but time is relative, anyways.

wholeheartedly yours

exchanging 'i love you' isn't uncommon for us. 
i mean it wholeheartedly when i tell you
i hope you do too.
i think you do too.

love is scary, for me. 
it comes naturally, like a tornado;
it happens, but acting upon it leaves much to be desired. 
i love with everything i have,
everything i am.
but i'm so used to it leaving me aching and painfully breathless
that love is scary for me
to perform the most important, 
most amazingly human thing.

i love love and love loves me, but i'm afraid to love you the way i want to.

the way i feel. 

i haven't felt this way in years.
i'm not sure if it's much more than being 
hopelessly romantic and touch starved,
but i've had an inkling for a year or so. 

maybe we aren't meant, romantically.
nor physically. 
possibly emotionally,
definitely platonically.

for you, i'll settle with that. 
for you, i'll settle for whatever you want.

i wholeheartedly believe you're my soulmate in one way or another.
(or both).
i can't think of a life without you and
quite realistically, honestly, 
i don't want to.
i can't. 
you're my best friend.
i love you.

in whatever way you please.