it is light
it is how i write and write but that's the only word worthy of describing
it is waking up in the middle of summer on your own time
it is closing your eyes with the sun on your face
comfort in blankets when safety is thousands of miles away
free thinking and blushing and taking day-naps
one thousand questions with repeated answers
it is smiling so hard your face hurts
clean sheets and sitting in empty fields
it is car rides with the windows down
the way the moon reflects across water when the sky is deep purple
it is dancing in the refrigerator light
with no socks on
at three am
to a quiet song we hum the next day
it is coffee in the morning
alcohol that stains your brain and makes you feel like you're underwater
it is the first time we touch
with enough electricity to power a city for a week
it is the weightlessness of your laugh
and messy bedhead
it is the way distance disintegrates like poetry
and your promises in prose
always on my mind
in my words
it is that thing people are writing about when they say,
"when you break my heart, it will hurt like hell"

i'd do everyone around us a big favor
and apologize
i'd do them an even bigger favor
and forget you
but baby you knew
my stubborn masochism was my best quality
when you told me you didn't love me
so tell me
does it feel good
when i make you feel wanted
when i pull you close to me
and hold my tongue
when i regurgitate your fantasies and choke on your scripts
is it everything you wanted it to be
am i lifeless enough
am i suffocating enough
tell me
did you keep me within drunk arms reach
because you knew
i could learn to take your blows
like a ******* champ
is it everything you wanted it to be
do you see the way you hurt me
in the way i left you
you cornered me and expected me not to show my teeth
you shouldn't have been
surprised when i fought back
there's nothing wrong with being a monster
can't you see who you made me be in your reflection?
look closer

i feel like i am the only one who gets upset about how quickly the earth moves and it took a lot of time and a lot of people to sit me down and explain why i can't feel each second and each rotation like a carnival ride and i think messing with my placemat at the dinner table asking why we all don't get dizzy was the first time my family made me feel stupid. this isn't poetry as much as not being able to sleep but when you're a writer i doubt there's much of a difference. things go over my head a lot so i always ask people to be blunt with me but sometimes the force trauma hurts so bad i want to throw up honesty and i can't admit that i like beating around the bush better than knowing exactly what's happening and being able to cross off and narrow down like a game where i never learned how to deal with feeling genuine emotions for other people because there is a strange comfort in ambiguity knowing that even though things change all the time and the earth spins at a million miles an hour that's not the reason why im sick

If I had a better memory
I would let those conversations lull me to sleep
And play that vocabulary in my mind like
A handwritten song
And there are a lot of things that make up a human mind
Components that reach all the way down into your ribcage
Through trembling hands and empty stomaches
But I intend to feel them all
One time,
A long time ago,
Someone used the word "frightening"
To describe the uncertainty
And burden
That comes with having complex emotions
That word is used as a scapegoat
To expunge yourself of the shadow of vulnerability
It takes hours to reach the tips of my fingers
With everything I feel
And maybe I write so much
Because I never remember exactly what people say
Or maybe it's because
I would like to remember it through rose tinted glasses
Either way
It stretches across miles
And I would use that scapegoat word
To describe what it feels like to be vulnerable
When you realize all of these pretend walls you've put in place
Can be destroyed with the right knock
And I think poetry
Isn't about that frightening feeling
It is about
Feeling it
Being frightened
Having emotion
And continuing
Where others would not

maybe its because it hurts somewhere in the pit of my stomach to think about how far away you are and how close we used to be and thats why i try to stay moving all of the time because i'm trying to distract myself from how long it would take for me to get there and how long id have to hold my breath in order for you to admit you wanted me where you are.

maybe its because i never got over the first time you told me you wanted to kiss me or the first time you told me you were tired of me because they felt so similar that sometimes i get the syllables twisted and i felt like too much work and detail on an abandoned project so i let you place me somewhere between your old memories and your new ambitions because whats the difference between compliance and being too exhausted to argue?

maybe its because it hurts to think about all that you've done and all that i've done and it hurts to lace them together in a spiderweb of why we didn't work out and maybe its because we didn't try hard enough or maybe its because we have always been written as a tragic story where we are both victims of self sabotage with emotional damage that keeps us up at night and our own demons that could never learn to love eachother

maybe it hurts because its not our fault or maybe it hurts because it is and we are both too stubborn to admit it

i sit in a boat
and im so far from shore i have forgotten which direction the horizon follows me
i am so far from home the word sounds foreign and construed as an apology
i am so out of reach the seagulls will never dive deep enough
or swoop shallow and barely disturb the oceans sequence of tides and rhythms
to pick me up

i sit in a boat
the waves steady flow acts as a clock to keep me sane
it rocks me
it rocks my boat
back and forth in its tick tock motion
the fact that i haven't seen any fish glide by
and wrap themselves in the warmth of the crystals dancing on the top of the water
creates a feeling more violently lonely in the pit of my stomach
than the fact that i sit in a boat all alone

i sit in a boat
in the middle of the ocean
in the middle of nowhere
its easy to comprehend that there is nothing above me
the sky is a blank sheet of paper
the horizon falls all around me an encompasses me
looking up makes me lose time with the waves

its harder to comprehend the likelihood of nothing below me
when i fall in the water
and when i wave my arms towards the diamonds above me
when i blow air though my nose
and keep my eyes shut tight
when the water begins to get cold around my feet
towards my chest and on my shoulders
when the light green water that has comforted me like a mother
that has taught me like a father
the waves that have kept me in sane like a teacher
disintegrates into a dark murky black
so quickly i have no time to notice
where the pressure is too loud to hear any lessons
where the touch is so ice cold every hug feels like a constrictive hand around my throat

i sit in a boat
its easy to understand i am alone up above
no one calls dinnertime
no waves rock me to sleep
no birds call their mates
no bugs fall in and out of their reflections
its harder to fathom that
under the peak of the water
under the tired lazy strokes
i look intently and see nothing
i look intently and all i see is how
in an ocean that stretches forever
and falls off of the horizon
i was alone before i realized it
i was alone when the sun reached down
and bounced off of its blue playground
i was alone when it comforted me and i was alone when it choked me
all i have ever been
is completely alone