when we pulled into your driveway, you kissed me in a way you haven’t done in years.

you grabbed me and pulled me in, your lips leaving mine only to breathe. your hands wouldn’t stay still, tugging on my shirt and pulling me closer like you were making sure i was real.

i don’t know why you wanted me here tonight. if it was for that, just for that one reason, i think i’d be okay with that. as long as you want me, i’ll be okay.

i hope you wanting me lasts long enough to see the morning. i hope it lasts longer than that.

this must be my penance.

there must be something that i am lacking that makes you seek it elsewhere. there must be something wrong.

tell me what it is, and i will fix it.

please. tell me what it is that makes you say such sweet things only for them to be half truths. please, tell me what’s wrong with me.

this is what i asked for though, isn’t it? i asked you to dip your words in honey and let me drown. i feared i would want too much, and i tried to stop it, but i must’ve gotten lost for a moment because for just a split second i truly believed you could want this too.

i believed you could think that im enough, i believed you could want a life with me, and only me.

this is what i asked for, isn’t it?

if this is what i asked for, then why does it burn? why can’t i breathe?

i asked for this.

i lay next to you while you sleep.

and for a moment i believe i can be enough. i believe you could want this with me, and really be satisfied.

for a moment, i let myself imagine what it’d be like to do this for the rest of my life. to change the sheets of our bed, to watch you arrange the pillows in the way you like. to crawl under the blankets when we’re done and feel your arm wrap around me and hold me just a little tighter.

for a moment, i let myself imagine what it would feel like to fall asleep and wake up to you every night and every day. and the next moment, i am terrified that i want you too much.

could i be enough for you? could i be what you want for the rest of your life?

do you think of me?

when the only noise is your breathing mixing with his, and the only light is from the moon creeping through the windows?

when the moonlight catches his eyes just right, for a moment do you think it's me? for a moment do you wish it was me?

when he grabs your shirt, tugging in a silent plea for you to remove it, does he know the shirt belongs to me?

does he look at you the way i did, the way i still do? 

does he see the constellations scattered around your skin? does he trace them with a delicate touch, like you’re something to be revered? 

i need to know. i need you to tell me you still think of me, even if it's a lie. for once, i need you to dip your words in honey and let me revel in the way they settle in my chest like a hymn i’ve known my whole life.

does he touch you the way i used to?

does he touch you almost like it’s instead whispering a prayer, like you are the only form of god he knows to truly be real? 

does he know what it means when you tug the hair at the back of his neck, when you dig your nails into the skin of his shoulders? does he know not to hold your wrists, and instead your hands? 

does he make you feel loved?

at times i fear i am unable to express the devotion i feel to my best friend.

it’s been a long time since that first night we really met, and an even longer time since i have believed that one person could mean home.

there was a time we were in love. in those moments they saw me at my absolute worst, when i couldn’t decide to stay no matter how much i wanted to. and when the guilt was momentarily washed away and i thought i could make peace with myself for the hurt i’ve caused they would let me come back, even though we both knew id be leaving again, in the end.

the last few years have been wrought with guilt, trying to repent for the endless months of pain i caused, for the sleepless nights and tired days. part of me, even now, believes my penance is not finished.

in a moment i can no longer place, between our arguments and days full of so much love it felt thick like molasses, the blood on my teeth began to taste like a poem; like religion.

i sit next to her and try not to notice the way our legs touch.

i ignore the way my cheeks flush when she looks at me, and i push down the urge to feel her hand interlinked with mine.

i want to be someone she looks at, i want to be someone she reaches for, i want to be the person from which she seeks safety and comfort.

yet i am afraid.

i am afraid that if she does reach, and instead of feeling a soft hand she feels the jagged edges that have formed after too many months of loneliness.

i fear that she will see how deep my longing plunges, how desperate i am for the touch of a lover i have yet to know.

i fear that if she looks too close, she will see the part of me that aches to be held but flinches when touched, the part of me that bites like a wounded dog when fighting is the only option.

i fear she will grow to resent me the same way i sometimes resent myself.

i think i am becoming a cynic.

not the way i was in high school. it’s not about hating school, or a teacher, or drama in my friend group, or breaking up with my boyfriend for the third time even though i know ill find him again.

now, it’s about seeing a dead possum on my way to work, and wondering if in its final moments it was praying for death to be kinder than man. it’s about seeing that same possum on my way home, except now there’s another, smaller possum next to it.

part of me is comforted that the first possum had another to come looking for him, but a larger, more bitter side of me is angry that his friend was killed for the simple fact of loving another, and how love makes you look for them.

i have not been religious in a very long time, but i cannot help but think if a god is willing to stand by and watch his creations be killed for the simple act of being small, and he can still watch and do nothing as his creations die without knowing love, then that is not a god that is worthy of my devotion or worship.

i cry for the family of possums i saw on my way to work for nearly a month, rotting in the middle of the road because the only kindness man could afford them was death. i cry for every pet that is abandoned and left wondering when their favorite person is coming back to get them. i cry for my own animals, stricken with the fear i am not showing them how much love i feel for them in every part of me, i fear i am so full of love yet i do not know how to show it, i am stuck in a world where people praise love and light, and they tell me these things come from god, but i have felt love and light within myself for 20 years and i have never once thought that to be from god.

i feel as if i am repenting for sins i was not aware i committed.

maybe that’s a lie. but i have yet to be told what my penance is.

maybe it’s crying myself to sleep like i have been the last few nights, listening to the songs we’ve shared for years on repeat, wondering what i did wrong. wondering why you were the one to leave this time.

i don’t think i’ve ever missed you like this, not as a lover, but as my best friend.

i’m so fucking sad all the time, and all i want is my best friend to tell me i’m going to be okay.

you were supposed to take me with you. it was supposed to be you and me running far away and never looking back. you said you wouldn’t go without me.

it’s not too late.

there were many moments where i realized i would do whatever you want me to do.

when we were fourteen, sitting in the back of your ex boyfriend’s car, with two other strangers in the car. you held my hand and laid your head on my shoulder. when i looked at you, you just held my hand tighter. i never liked him for you, anyways.

another time at your birthday party. i’m the last to leave and you beg me to stay the night. i never could say no to you. we wait for the dead of night, then we ride bikes through your neighborhood, and you steal a political flag from someone’s porch. when we get back to your house we burn it in the fire pit, for a split second you’re looking straight at me, almost as if you’re seeing me how i’ve been seeing you. the moment passes.

once again when we’re fifteen, it’s the middle of the summer, right after your birthday. in the dead of the night, i’m laying next to as you’re asleep. the air is so thick i can barely breathe. i was up all night trying to find a way to tell you i still loved you.

you are an impossibility i cannot let go of.

i’ve been stuck admiring from afar for the last few years, like you’re afraid of what it could mean if i got too close.

always at arms length, always down the road, always nearly a city apart.

maybe i won’t think of you three thousand miles away.

maybe i will.

i see you everywhere i go

no matter how hard i try i can’t escape you

you’re always in my mind, not a day goes by where i don’t think of you, and it’s slowly killing me

i don’t think i’ll escape you until i’m across the country

in a new town, a new state, three thousand miles away from you and everywhere i have memories of you

the longing i feel for you feels life ending.

i fear you’ve ruined me for everyone else without having been with me.

it’s been five years, and i still haven’t figured out how to let you go, i fear i never will.

i’m so tired of this longing, of this never ending want that plagues me all the way down to the bone.

i remember the early mornings i spent sitting in your car in the parking lot of our old high school.

i remember the frigid air, how every time i exhaled i could see my breath in the air.

you always parked in the same spot. it was your spot, and whenever i’m around i park there too just to see if i could feel again what i once felt then.

i remember waiting for you in the cafeteria on the days i didn’t see you before the first bell rang.

how you’d always pass through on your way to class, coffee in hand, smiling at something one of your friends said.

i remember the first time i made you laugh. you grinned so wide, and you squeezed your eyes shut.

i miss making you laugh.

it’s been a while since we’ve spoken, let alone seen each other.

i’m afraid that i remember all of these things, and you don’t.

i won’t forget you.

i’m delusional, baby.

i can’t help but think of you, i know you’re not thinking of me.

you’ve taken over my mind, you’re all i think about.

i thought things would’ve been different.

that night felt like a turning point for us.

you said things would be different this time. that you weren’t going to disappear again.

i needed you, more than i had ever needed anyone, and you abandoned me.

it’s nearly been a year now.

things aren’t different.

i called.

my life consists of moments wrapped in others.

i can pinpoint years enveloped in other people, in feelings, in songs, even in the sky.

i can’t listen to my favorite song by my favorite band without thinking of that one night nearly five summers ago, we were walking down the road by our high school and you were telling me you didn’t want me anymore. the sky was a bleeding orange.

before that, were the sleepless nights driving down empty roads listening to songs that secretly revealed how each one of us longed for something that this town didn’t have. you were busy looking at the road, and i was busy looking at you. the sky was nearly pitch black.

there was one winter that felt darker than all the rest, it was only me and you. our song still hurts my soul in a way i will never understand, and sometimes it still hurts to listen to it.

they say love conquers all.

i’ve never believed that until recently.

beforehand i believed love had conditions. that if i did not meet someone’s criteria their love would be ripped away from me and i’d be left to pick up my own pieces.

because that’s what it was, time after time.

a lot of bad things happened during the year of which i met you.

you weren’t speaking to me when those bad things were happening.

time went on, as it always does, and i got over it.

i got over the bad things and i got over loving you.

but, love conquers all.

you love me in your own way.

you sleep out in the living room with me, you offer to pay for breakfast, walking around random stores aimlessly with me, hugging me so tight it feels like my heart is stitching itself back together.

i love you in the way the moon loves the sun.

missing you every night, but relishing in the sporadic moments that we meet.

it’s been five years since i started loving you, and i both hope and fear i never stop.