Words

i was never meant to be held i don't have thorns that pierce and neither am i cold and  need to be warmed but rather i find solace in solitude i was built to love from a distance to watch the way you move watch how your mouth forms sounds to watch the way you watch others and write you into something beautiful

they say nothing is forever but how do you account for all the things that play like an old movie on repeat, haunting corners and moving silently through walls, tearing through what little sanity and sense of safety remain? so don't tell me that things in this world are temporary because every mark scored onto my life becomes a scar etched into my soul

you may have fooled me, let me think that you were something you were not but you don't win because my heart isn't broken and i am so much better  on my own than i ever was with you

if i cannot properly tend to my own heart then i should not be trusted with bearing the responsibility of caring for someone else's

no one ever told me growing up was just a lesson in all the ways you can break your own heart

i keep almost saying it every time i’m with you i get a little closer and i feel a little more i keep almost saying it and i’ve lost count of how many times you’ve been able to say it without hearing it back i keep almost saying it and i can’t help but wonder at what point you’ll stop believing that i’ll ever echo your words i keep almost saying it but what does almost count for?

i once read that there are a thousand ways to tell someone you love them so when i remind you to drink water while you're at work or tell you to drive safe when you're leaving me i hope you hear the words i haven't yet been able to repeat back after you've said you love me

i know there are things you want to say and do that i'm not ready for and it makes me want to  apologize for being such a mess on the inside but instead i thank you for your patience and you say you're fine and i can't fathom what i've done to be so gently cared for

i remember being numb and wishing i could feel anything besides the void inside me and i think, perhaps, i prefer that over feeling everything and wishing for numbness

you asked, "do you trust me?" and i said yes but maybe that wasn't fully true perhaps what i should have said is trust is fluid and some days, some moments i will trust you completely and others maybe it won't be so easy though it might not be through any fault of yours it could just be my head playing tricks on me or maybe i should have said trust is fragile and right now i trust you because you're over there and i am here and your hands aren't straying to places i'm not yet sure i'm ready for them to explore but it feels good when they do or i could have said i trust you not to break me but i don't completely trust that you won't hurt me and i trust you to love me but i don't know if it will be forever and i trust you to listen if i ask you to stop because you always have before but when i'm alone i wonder if you always will and that fear has nothing to do with you but it nags and i want to tell you this about me but i know you don't understand that this is not something you can love away

social media was made for inflicting pain i knew that before i saw today that your wife is expecting and it felt like i had been stabbed in the gut and i couldn't find it in me to be happy for either of you but it's such an unpleasant reminder that what i've felt for you has always been selfish

my hair always looks best after your hands have been in it

i’m beginning to think the endlessness of ‘what if’ would be better than whatever this feeling is

i've spent the last three weeks wondering where you are when all along you've known that i have been where i always am but haven't bothered to drop in and so i guess i'll spend next week learning to accept the answer in your absence

how is it fair that you get to live forever in my words just because you came out of nowhere and shook my whole world and woke me from a sleep that consumed every part of me and disappeared without any trace of existence but i have to die knowing i let slip away the only thing that made me feel anything

isn't it so stupid that i look for you everywhere i go? i don't know how to find you and you never come looking for me when you know exactly where i am

i got what i said i wanted i don't get to be sad