Pretend

You need someone

And I need you now

It's been a month since you've seen me

We get coffee and talk for hours

I take you home and we say goodbye

And we hold each other in the cold night 

I love you so much 

And you pretend you do 

You need him now

But I need you still

It's been a month since I've seen you

I am still far away and we barely talk

And you tell me how he holds you

And how he makes you far happier than I could ever hope to

I love you so much

And I pretend I don't

Mulligan

I came here with

One thing in mind

I wanted a fresh start

A chance to find someone else like you

A chance to not make the same mistakes I once did 

A chance to do something other than hurt and get hurt 

And I found someone 

The same enough that she could mean the same

But different enough that I could be someone different

But as time went on I learned 

What they say is true

Old habits die hard 

And history is doomed to

Repeat itself 

Memento

I drove for miles and miles

Still I can't run away

There's memories of you

Everywhere I look 

Running alongside me

In that coffee cup

From the last time we went out

Sitting in the cup holder by the passenger seat

Reminding me of us together

In that 33

A repress of your favorite album

Sitting in a black trash bag by the back seat

I bought it as a gift for you

In your smile still burned into my sight

In your voice still whispering in my ear

In your perfume still filling my memory

In the taste of you still on my lips

But even though it's all in my head

It still feels like you'll follow me anywhere

Both a torment and a savior

Simplicity

You make me laugh 

You make me smile

That's all there is to it

Talking to you is easy

Talking to you is fun

Plain and simple 

Looking into your eyes

Time lightly pauses 

In that moment 

We are happy

We laugh and smile

Life is easy and fun

You make me happy

For a moment 

Or maybe for longer

Because

I like you

That's all there is to it 

Plain and simple 

Right and Wrong (Orbits)

I am sometimes so focused on making something right

With two wrong people and all the wrong words I've said

That I miss someone who has it right

I am unstable and so are you

So unsure of yourself

That you follow the crowd

An asteroid in this belt with me

Whom I thought I could fly alongside

But you so small so light so fast

Leave me alone in the dust

Spinning with nowhere gravitate to

Until you pass by then leave again

Stuck in unstable orbits so wrong

That is wrong for me

You are wrong for me

I am unstable but you are not

So self assured and confident

You stand out immediately from the crowd

A star who so many pause or stay for

Whom I think I can stay alongside

And you so small yet so stoic 

Make sure I am not left alone

I spin and circle around and gravitate to you

And somehow neither of us flies away

Finally a stable star and a stable orbit

Maybe that is right for me 

Maybe you are right for me

Maybe I have finally learned my right and wrong

And the old idiom that two wrongs can never make a right 

And to look inward and focus on the source of this orbit 

That could be something right

Puzzle

And I, I have to speculate

That God himself did make

Us into corresponding shapes

Like puzzle pieces from the clay

-Ben Gibbard in "Such Great Heights"

_________________________________________________________________________________

The thing about puzzles is

They are always difficult

They take a long time to put

Together

The thing about puzzles is

They are always possible

Their pieces always fit

Together

The thing about puzzles is

You'll end up frustrated
You'll end up angry
You'll end up sad
You'll end up depressed
End up broken
                                 
Just wanting to give up


Don't

The thing about our puzzle is
It took a lot of time
It took a lot of wrong pieces
It took a lot of us

but
We solved it
Together


Together
You and I

Memories

I remember
Late night talks
I remember
Out-of-the-way walks
With you

I remember
Venomous words and fights
I remember
Apologies and dying light
With you

Everything
With you
Against you
About you
I remember everything that's you

I wish I didn't

Sometimes I will be in an anonymous crowd
Someone will wear the same perfume as you
Somehow I will remember so much more

You said I was listening to your favorite song
So we loved music together
And you laughed at my lame music
And I leaned against you and laughed too

You sat beside me with a long way home ahead of us
So we kept warm together
And you slept on my shoulder
And I kept watch over the open road

You wanted to hang out for once
So we watched a dumb movie
And you gained a new favorite
And I laid my head in your lap

Somehow I remember
When we were close enough
That you flooded all my senses
And know it can never be that way again

I remember
What you said
I remember
How I bled
I remember
Cut red thread

I wish I didn't
But I remember everything that's you
And how it really is everything
And how there will be no more you in my life

And how memories are but jagged shrapnel of better times rending me anew each time I try to return and repair whatever it was that broke

So I wait for the day when
I don't remember
Anymore

Lies and Realities

I loved you from the moment I met you
That's a lie. I hated you when I met you. I hated talking to you, I hated listening to you complain, I hated how you'd always be upset about the same damn thing. I thought you were this obnoxious little annoyance. Hell, I thought you were just pretending to be hurting for the attention. But I stuck around because I felt like I had to.

I have all the confidence in the world in you.
That's a lie too. I'm scared near constantly that you're right about yourself. That one day you'll end up dead in a gutter having overdosed on some drug or another. I'm scared that you won't make it. Hell, sometimes I'm scared that I won't make it without you if you don't. But I stick around because I feel like you need that confidence.

We fit together like pieces of a puzzle.
That's another lie. Yeah we have a lot in common but we don't "fit together" in some special way beyond the fact that we usually enjoy each other's company. Hell we don't even tolerate each other half the time. We argue and fight damn near constantly. But I'm sticking around because I feel like the good times are worth it.

You're the most beautiful person I've ever laid eyes on.

That's just one more lie.



...I think
See that's the problem with making up my own version of the truth. With writing a revisionist history. With putting up a facade to hide what I really believe. With pretending the arguments and hateful words don't matter in the end.
Truth and lies blend together into a false reality I no longer understand, but I need to survive. A reality I need so I can survive, but one that is coming apart at the seams as I'm caught in the web of lies I wove.
But that wasn't one more lie. You are the most beautiful person. So I stuck around. So I stick around. So I'm sticking around.
Because the most beautiful piece of my false reality is true.

You.

Whispers

I dream about you again
I hold you in my arms again
I feel your warmth again
I stare into your eyes again
I feel like part of you again

I hear a whisper
Your whisper
For the first time
And it asks:

What was it like then?
When I held you close
When you leaned your body against mine
When you gripped my arm like it was the only thing holding you here
When I stared off into the distance and hoped that moment would never end

What would it be like?
If I looked into your soul
If you looked into mine and saw a reflection
If you felt the things I do and we saw we were the same
If I told you every last detail of the love I feel for every last piece of you

As I sleep at night
My heart whispers your whisper
My head listens hanging on every word
And it answers:

It wasn't like
It wouldn't be like
It simply never was

Like a whisper
I hear you sing soft and sweet the melody of the beautiful symphony that is the soundtrack of life

Like a whisper
I hear you fade and blend quiet into the inexorable white noise that is the soundtrack of life



And I never hear your whisper again

Broken Body

Not while my heart still beats
Not while my lungs still draw breath
Not while my bones still hold me upright
Not while my muscles still bear my weight
Not while my skin still keeps me from coming apart at the seams
Not while my mind still thinks but
One
Sane
Thought

I will not love you
I will not let you into my heart
I will not let you break apart its ventricles
I will not let you cave in its atria
I will not let you tear open its veins
I will not let you rend its arteries
From end
To end

I will not
A thousand times I say I will not
But I do
A thousand times I know I do

I love you
I love you while you poison my mind
I love you while you weaken my body
I love you while you pull the breath from my lungs
I love you while you aim the rifle
I love you while you break my heart

Break my heart
Hasten its pace until it breaks apart
Heavy its load until it caves in
Heal it then rend and tear it anew

Open my heart open my veins open my every compartment until love spills out inexorably like blood finally finding its escape through a gunshot to the chest straight through the heart

I am a soldier
Shot in this war my heart wages
I am a casualty
Fallen on this battlefield called love

You are the bullet wounds
Bleeding me out as I lie alone
You are the bandages
Keeping me alive against all odds

We are this war
And I am a soldier
But I don't die here
Don't die in the battle
Don't die on the hospital bed
Don't die by the hand of my enemy

I am weakened poisoned breathless and broken
But I don't die here

And I will not love you
Even though I do
And I will fight for you
Even though I fight against you
Because I don't die here
Because you deserve more than that
Even though you break my heart
Even though it was you

You pulled the trigger

New

My heart is a flier flapping its wings
And I teach it how to flit and flutter
At some fleeting new flight or fling
To flee an old flame still flickering

Finally free from frivolous feelings
Finally fond falsehoods fade
Finally forgetting fights
Finally forgone
Forever

New
New name
New nervousness
New novocaine
New noose
New nothing

This is exactly the same
The same nervous flutter of my heart
The same feelings killing my pain
The same fights bringing it back
The same nothing

Find as many people as I want
With new names
Love as many ways as I want
With new names
Write as many poems as I want
With new names

In a moment I knew
This cannot be new
Always I knew
Nothing can be new

Hate/Love

I love how you hate me
I hate how you don't love me

I hate how we argue
How you throw away my love
Then I hate you
But I still love you
I hate that

I love how we just talk
But I also love how we don't
I also hate that
Because that's when you say hate
But your tone says not-love

I hate how you don't love me

I hate putting love into poems
It reminds me of love I hate
Reminds me of loving the hate
I love how I hate these poems

Like I love how you hate me

I knew when I read it
Read another hateful love poem
And in it I heard your lovely voice
But it wasn't talking to me

I hate how you love him not me

So I make you hate me
I tear at the insecurities you trusted me with
Because I thought that trust was something like love
But it wasn't so I used it like hate
I used it to tear you apart

I love how you hate me
Because in the end I want you to care
Even if it's not in the way I want

Little

A short little poem for short little you
It only takes a word or two

A cute little poem for cute little you
For things you say to get me through

A sweet little poem for sweet little you
So never doubt my words are true

A wonder filled poem for wonderful you
Forever you're my little muse

Eyes

Your eyes are the city I get lost in
Your voice is the roadmap showing me every highlight
You laugh is the fleeting glimpse of the sunset skyline

Your eyes are the ocean I've been tossed in
Each wave makes time slower
Each wave I feel lower
Each wave you grow colder
Don't say that it's over

They say eyes are the window to the soul
But I say they are a mirror for the heart
And home is where the heart is
So that city that ocean those eyes that reflected my heart are my home

They say you can't go home again
But I say you can't truly leave
So I look for another city another ocean new eyes to see myself
And they all remind me of you

A pretense of you is not enough
A bitter ocean is not the same
A foreign city is not my home
A reflection in new eyes is not as bright

I need your reflecting gaze
I need your eyes
I need you

For You

Sometimes I lie awake
And wonder
When I stopped caring

For all of this
For these things that matter
For the things I will take with me into the future
For anything
Except
For you

You the one who I care about more than anything
You the one who makes me smile just by talking to me
You the one who makes my heart hurt any time you're anything but joyful
Like you so often are

I'm tearing myself apart
For you
For us
For a mirage a reflection an illusion an image
For nothing

I'm throwing everything away
Drifting away
Slipping away
Wasting away
For you

You who I never wanted to admit I love
You who I couldn't say that I love
You who I wish I didn't love
I pour out this worthless pointless wretched empty love
For you

Always
Forever
Anything
Everything

For you