Broken
Hearts
Foreboding
Though we thought it would last forever
It seems our hearts had other plans.
They began to withdraw from one another
Far before we did.
The Forest
Do you feel the moss under your hands?
Do you smell the forest air?
Do you see the sun through the trees
And hear the birds singing?
We have met here many times
In my mind:
The forest behind that old house
Where I escaped to so often.
Do you remember this place?
We have been here together, you know,
More times than I can count.
This is where I keep my love for you.
This is where I keep you contained,
A fantasy that can never come true.
This is where I feel most free.
This is the well of unmade memories.
The Worst Lie
The worst lie
Our culture teaches us
Is that romantic love
Is the answer
To all of life’s problems,
As if it is some magic spell
That suddenly transforms life
Into a rose-colored wonderland
Without struggle or pain.
The Same Old Path
These days my mind wanders
Toward you
Far more often
Than I would like.
I can’t stop thinking about you;
You take up space
I should be using
For more pressing matters.
I retread the same path
As if visiting the same place
Over and over again
Could lead to a different result.
Cast Off the Remnants
Everything was in slow motion
As I unclenched my hand
And released yours from my grasp.
We were alone, floating in the middle
Of a dark chasm.
Your face recoiled
As you realized
You could no longer use me.
Instantly a weight lifted from my chest
And I was free
As I cast off the remnants
Of the person
You forced me to become.
Finally I burst from my shell,
On the verge of death,
Gasping for air.
I am free, free
Reaching for the heavens.
I am free, free
Taking my life
Back into my hands.
The Thought of Losing You
I struggle with the thought of losing you.
What would I be
Without you?
I want to hold you tight
And cherish the feeling of you
And your warmth next to me.
But I know I can’t hold on too tightly
Because that’s how flames are smothered
And that’s how romance dies.
Before, it was only a dream
That our love could blossom
Into something special.
But now that my dream has come true
Fear of loss grips me.
I have to accept that I can’t control life
And I must live in the moment,
Cherishing your every detail
While I still have you.
For as long as I get to love you
I will love you with all that I am.
Sunlight
Addicted
To the idea
Of love,
We were like seeds
Which sat in the sun
Expecting to grow
But withering away,
Forgetting the value
Of soil and rain.
If I Should Lose You
If I should lose you,
I want you to know
That I will never truly
Get over you.
You gave me everything I could want
And I tried to do the same,
Though that wasn’t much.
If I should lose you,
Know that I only want you
To be happy,
That I only wish you the best.
And if that means
You must love someone else,
Then so be it,
Because I love you
More than I love myself.
And if I have to suffer every day
Watching you love a better man,
Then I will put on a smiling mask
And be happy for you.
If I should lose you,
Know that I lost everything.
Liars
I have seen what people will do
Just to keep loneliness at bay.
They will fake whole relationships
And lie about their intentions
Just because they cannot stand
To be alone with themselves.
Maze
I am afraid
That I am wasting
My one chance
To be truly honest
With myself.
Am I chasing after whispers?
You tell me they will slip through my hands
Like some vacant apparition;
Perhaps you are right,
And my belief that I
Might someday catch them
Is only self-indulgence. . . .
Maybe I’m throwing away
The best thing in my life
For reasons that don’t make sense.
You make it so easy to doubt myself:
Because it was never all bad,
I don’t feel like I’m allowed to leave,
That I’m being selfish,
That I owe you something.
I’m afraid I’ve gotten lost
In a maze of my own making.
Blacksmith
I pour my heart out on these pages.
Ruthlessly I melt it down
Like molten gold
And pound it into shape
With my pen.
Why do I do this to myself?
What do I have to gain
By causing myself
To relive the same pain?
Remorse
I didn’t think
The small moments
Would be so difficult—
Seeing something funny
And wanting to share it with you
As I always do
But then remembering
Our unbroken silence.
Waves of remorse overtake me.
Train in the Night
I lie awake in my bed,
Listening to the sound
Of the train passing by
In the night.
It reminds me
Of our careless adventures,
Untethered to earthly demands,
Free of constraints.
It’s all I can do to stop myself
From packing my bags
And leaving this place
As quickly as I can.
Too many memories here,
Too many forlorn ghosts
Reminding me of a happiness
That has long since passed.
Derelict Castles
We built a castle together
On a hill near the sea.
I hate to see it derelict
With no one to tend the grounds.
I thought it would be better
If we ended things peacefully,
But now I think it might be worse
To see what we built still standing,
Just abandoned, but not broken down.
Perhaps it would be better off as ashes.
Horcruxes
These photos—
So many horcruxes
Containing the soul
Of us,
Our unforgivable sin,
The murder we committed
Together.
We are each haunted
By the specter of the deed,
Or at least I am.
And if I must bear this pain
I hope you feel it, too.
Leaving
The hardest lesson of heartbreak
Is that you can still love someone
While knowing you shouldn’t be with them.
That makes it all the harder to let go,
All the harder to be the one who leaves,
All the harder to abandon ship.
Captive
I find myself wanting
To cleanse my mind
Of your memory.
If I could just forget
The magic of your touch
And the rush that accompanied
Your every word,
Perhaps then I could be free.
I am a prisoner
Of your memory,
A captive
Of possibility,
But every day I inch closer
To leaving you in the past.
You may break my heart
But you cannot lock my soul away.
Erosion
All of our small memories
Will be forgotten
As time erodes their edges
As surely as the sea
Erodes the shore,
Until all that is left of us
Is a vague remembrance
Of what used to be everything.
Echoes
I stumble upon
An old photograph of us
That transports me
To the place we used to be.
I hear the echoes
Of our joyous laughter;
Our journey passes me by
Like a rock skipped onto a wave.
The memory ejects me
And I return to the present,
Reminded of how
Life turned joy into misery.
Changed Locks
You never deserved what I gave you.
You saw my love as an opportunity.
You came and went as you pleased.
I hate to say it, but you used me.
Next time you come around
You will find that the locks have changed
And your key no longer works.
You will find that I’ve changed my number
And your voicemails will remain unanswered.
Though I doubt you’d bother sending any,
Still, I will never check
This is the closure I deserve.
Someone
You didn’t care
Who you were kissing—
You just wanted to be kissed.
You didn’t care
Who you were loving—
You just wanted to be loved.
You didn’t care,
You just wanted someone;
You didn’t care if it was me.
Bittersweet Mistake
Driving around these empty streets
In the middle of the night,
Wondering if this was all
Some bittersweet mistake.
The problem with love
Is that it’s not so easy to tell
Where the good ends and the bad begins.
They don’t separate like oil and water;
The difference isn’t clear—
Everything is muddled.
I don’t know if it’s worth it
To keep fighting
For what we have.
I don’t know
Where these streets
Will take me.
Your Favorite Place
The vines cascade down
Over the whitewashed brick.
The avant-garde décor
Clashes with the patrons:
The place you always loved.
Now I’m here alone
And I can finally say
How much I hate it.
How a toddler
Could make better coffee,
How a craft aisle
Has more class,
How . . .
How much I miss you,
If I’m being honest.
Out in the Rain
I hope you find someone
Who gives you the feeling
Of completeness
You were always looking for.
I hope you find someone
Who would rather
Stay inside when it rains
Than go out into it.
I hope you find someone
Who gives you everything
You ever wanted
That I couldn’t.
Expendable
It is such a painful realization
To see that you
Never loved me
For who I was.
You only loved me
For the place I could hold
In your life
Whenever you found it convenient.
To you I was expendable,
Just another listening ear
And comforting voice.
Tell me, did it ever dawn on you
That our conversations
Would be no different
If I were anyone else?
I wish you cared about me
And not just
What I did for you.
Soften the Blow
I spent far too long
Wondering how to do it
Without making it my fault.
I think I would’ve hurt you less
If I had just told you I was unhappy
Instead of trying to soften the blow.
Prisoner
It took me far too long
To realize
That by indulging in the pain
Every time I thought about you,
I built these altars,
These shrines of rose-colored memories,
To worship the thought of you.
Perhaps I took comfort in the familiarity
And became a willing prisoner
Of my self-inflicted misery.
It took me far too long
To realize
I should’ve celebrated,
Rather than mourned,
The death of us.
A Place I Cannot Go
There’s another universe
Somewhere out there
Where we
Are still together.
It breaks my heart
That it exists
Yet I can never go there.
If only I could jump in a spaceship
And fly through the multiverse
To find that happy place.
If only it were that simple;
If only I could run away
To that place
I cannot go.
Harmony
I miss sharing the moments with you.
I miss the feeling
Of experiencing life
With someone else.
Watching you enjoy a sunset
Was like poetry,
Music became spiritual,
And food became art.
Without you
The sun still sets,
Food still nourishes,
And there is still music—
But it is dissonant.
You were the harmony,
The synthesis of melodies
Into something greater.
Without you
The music feels
Dull.
Cut Away
I let you cut away
At my identity
Piece by piece
Until I could hardly
Recognize myself.
By giving up
Parts of myself
To make you happy,
I made myself miserable.
That is a mistake
I will never make
Again.
Moving Away
Sometimes I think
Of packing up my bags
And moving
To Los Angeles
Like every other artist
Trying to find
Some sense of belonging.
Sometimes I think
Of flying off to New York,
As if the city lights
Could somehow
Hold back the darkness.
Sometimes I think
Of getting a van
And driving down
The coast,
Hoping that experiences
Could chip away
At my uncertainty.
But I know none of that would work:
Changing the scenery
Does not change the soul.
A Ship Without an Anchor
You can’t let love
Define your life.
If you need another person
To validate you
For who you are,
You become a ship
Without an anchor
That can float from
Harbor to harbor
But can never moor
On solid ground.
Tides
I can’t keep letting myself
Fall back in love with you
Over and over again;
I can’t tie my heart
To the ups and downs
Of your waves.
You make me happier
Than anyone ever has.
You bring me to the crests
Of mountainous ocean waves,
Tasting Elysium in the wind.
But when you are done
Playing with me,
I fall down, plunging.
I keep forgetting how much
It hurts to fall
From such a great height.
I have been wounded
Too many times before.
It’s time I learned my lesson—
I cannot afford to tie my heart
To the ups and downs of someone
Who doesn’t care enough to be careful.
Broad Strokes
The curse of time is that we
Are no longer entranced
By the magic of moments;
As dry history replaces vivid art
And details we didn’t notice
Replace the broad strokes
We first fell in love with.
Half-Hearted
I’ll always treasure the moments we had
But in truth I don’t know
If I will ever love again,
At least not with my whole heart,
Because part of it
Will always be yours.
Sober Love
When was the last time we just . . . hung out? Spent time together? Sober. Clean. It’s been so long, I don’t even remember. . . . What if we’ve forgotten how to love the real versions of each other? What if our brains are so fucked up, they’ll love anything? I just want to know. Give me a night with you, the real you. Let me touch you and kiss you and love you—I just want to feel again. I want to be together in that wretched sobriety, that dullness, and remember the way it was when we first fell in love.
Utopia
We are consumed
With being in love.
We hold up romance
As some kind of utopia—
If only we could make it there,
All our problems
All our sorrows
All our pain
All our suffering
Would be dispelled by the power
Of love
As if by magic.
But that’s not how life works.
There is no utopia,
No magical solution.
Love cannot fix us
No matter how much we wish
It could.
Dystopia
Broken glasses, cloudy vision,
Dust and haze hangs in the air,
Half-decimated skyscrapers on either side
Of this bleak, deserted highway.
This is a trip down memory lane,
As I must return here now and again
And look upon the desolate ruins
Of the world we built together.
I am only a tourist here these days
And I see it with calmer eyes now,
No longer shocked by the destruction
The way I used to be.
Time has calmed my spirit
And made still the rivers of grief.
Soon, I am sure, this once-grand city
Will be a forgotten speck on an ancient map.
Milestones
The first time I saw her
I felt it in my face
As I smiled.
The first time we kissed
I felt it in my spine
As if it were lightning.
When I first told her I loved her,
I felt it in my chest
As nervousness took away my breath.
The first time we fought
I felt it in my stomach
As regret made me nauseous.
When it ended,
I felt nothing
At first,
Before I felt
It all
At once.
Burnt Matches
Every time we try
To rekindle
This same old match
It only burns deeper
Into the fabric
Of who I am
Until there’s nothing left
Of me
But ash.
It’s so tempting
To feel the spark
One last time.
But each time
Hurts more,
And each time
Less and less of me
Remains.
Limitless
Young and in love,
We walked the street
As the cool autumn air
Gently touched our faces.
Optimistic, unacquainted with failure,
We saw only possibility
Instead of limitations.
If only we
Could have stayed
That way.
Selfish
It’s not selfish
To do what makes you happy.
You don’t owe anyone
Anything.
Let no one lay claim to your life
To use for their own happiness.
You are your own person;
You must put yourself first.
Wind
You shattered my heart
Into a thousand tiny fragments
And tossed them to the wind
Without a care.
Explanations
I have always felt
That I owe everyone
An explanation
For everything.
You see, this is why
I have the right
To be the way
That I am
Or do
What I am doing.
But I am done giving
Explanations.
I don’t owe you
Anything.
Not a damn thing.
Unending War
There is an unending war
Between my intuition and my heart.
They want opposite things:
To love you or leave you forever.
I am afraid there will never be peace
Until it is already too late,
Until this conflict has destroyed
Any chances of moving on.
Relief
When those words left my mouth
Like bullets from a gun,
I thought the recoil would hurt me
As much as it hurt you.
I thought the world would crumble around me
And I would be awash with remorse,
Having to fight to keep strong,
Surviving in some great struggle
But the words slipped out by accident
And I didn’t feel destroyed;
All I felt
Was relief.
Embrace Your Madness
Do not let go of the chaos
That wraps itself around your soul.
Do not let the world tame you
When your spirit yearns to be free.
Embrace the madness within you
That defies the decrees of monotony.
Do not let the world cloud your light;
Do not let the world chip away
At the infinity within you.
Endless Ink
You are a bottomless well
Of pain to me.
No matter how many times
I dip my pen
Into the ink
Of us
It never runs dry.
I don’t know how it’s possible
To love
—and yet hate—
Someone
So much.
Sandcastles
I am prone to thinking
That the relationships we build
Will be permanent by default,
Standing strong against time,
Only building upward.
But relationships aren’t stone manors;
They’re sandcastles on the beach,
Modeled after the real thing,
But which only wash away
With the next tide,
Weak and immaterial,
As ephemeral as a smell
Or an idea.
Looking at You
I look at you
And instantly
Every scenario
That could have been
Springs to mind.
My soul is crushed
As I look at the space
Between us;
We could be standing closer,
Happy and in love
But not in this life.
No, in this life
I will forever be haunted
By everything
We could have been.
I would give up anything
In life
To have you.
Love Does Not Subtract
The most important thing
I have learned
From relationships
Is that you should never settle
For someone
Who makes you feel
Like you need to be
Less of yourself
To please them.
Be with someone
Who pushes you
To become
More and more
Of who
You are meant to be.
High-Rise View
I have spent so much time
Being heartbroken
Over people
Who were never really mine
To begin with.
I get attached too quickly
To grandiose ideas
Of everything we could be.
I never seem to learn
That foundations take time,
And I am far too anxious
To jump to the high-rise view
Without actually building that tall.
The Second Loss
I don’t know
Which hurt worse,
When I first lost you
Or when the memories
Began to lose their color
And the feelings
Began to lose their passion.
The pain of heartbreak
Is always twofold:
First, you lose them
And then you lose
The parts of yourself
That loved them.
Alternate Endings
I never told you how I felt about you.
I never told you I loved you.
I never told you what you meant to me.
I never told you the truth.
You carry pieces of my soul
No one else has ever seen.
Tell me, do you treasure them?
Or have you already let them go?
These alternate endings
Dangle in my hands
Like loose strings.
These are the remnants
Of all the stories
Never finished.
Growing a Rose
I have been guilty
Of falling too fast
And too hard.
I have expected rosebuds
Before the stem
Was strong enough
To support them.
I never learned to take it slowly
To build with care and caution
But so it is with youthful love.
Our Bridge
I find myself regretting the way
I burned down our bridge
With such reckless anger.
I find myself sitting
At the edge of the cliff,
The sea that separates us
Stretching out before me.
I imagine that you are sitting too
At the place where our bridge
Once connected
The lands of our souls.
Do you mourn for us like I do?
Are you as obsessed as I am
With all the different ways
Our story could’ve ended?
But there’s no use sitting here
Much longer.
Hope alone could not restore
What we once had.
It’s time I moved on.
Mature Endings
I want the type of relationship
Where we wouldn’t feel the need
To delete the pictures
If it ended.
I want to catch up
Every once in a while
Over coffee
And accept that it stopped working
But be grateful for when it did.
I want to know
That if it ends,
It was despite our best efforts
And best intentions.
Know that if it ends
I will never speak badly of you
Or what we built together.
And even if
The time comes
To stop
Loving you,
I will never stop loving you.
