asitrytounderstand-blog

[asitrytounderstand-blog]

ghosts

Some things still hurt Like the suit he wore on our anniversary That she bought him for their own Like the pictures buried deep in albums on his phone That never quite made it to “delete” Like the color she painted on the walls, The cat that slept on the foot of the bed The bed. The bed that begged for her tired body to find peace. It took me a while to realize ghosts aren’t just what horror movies are made of Ghosts are memories Are the freezing breath on your skin Are the cracks in the walls Are the cracks in my hands Ghosts are people Living people A woman he left A ghost never quite gone

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But I think the universe wrote darkness across the sky to see who would sit in blind oblivion and who would adjust their eyes to see the stars

[asitrytounderstand-blog]

All I know is you sleepy in bed Is what I want to wake up to And me sleepy on the couch Is you playing guitar Well, guitar hero Is you, eyes closed, knowing words by heart. And I know you By the smell on my pillow By all your songs on the radio By gray sweatpants Toes under the covers Taco Bell at three in the afternoon Your unshaven chin tickling me And wrapping my legs around you. And you knowing me Is starting kisses when we have to leave Is fuzzy pajama bottoms And interlocking fingers and hips Words and lips, But how calming it is That you chose me And I chose you Night in, night out Two hours before my alarm I waited for you to tell me you love me Goodnight doesn’t hurt Because I felt it in 4am kisses Cutoff white t-shirts “Let me make you dinner” And falling asleep to the sunrise

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moon

I called him my moon at first because we only saw each other at night Not 8pm-dinner-and-a-movie nighttime But 2am Pitch black See the curves of your face highlighted by clock on the dashboard Anyone can see the sun but it takes a second wind A fighting the urge to sleep A Red Bull and don’t-lay-down caffeine To stay awake for a three am moon And every night I chose stars And phases of the moon I chose you And I And watching the moon through the back windshield Pretending to be comfortable in the front seat under lamp light Curled up between streaks of moonlight And you

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i hold on

I have nightmares still About crashing your truck Your truck crashing me About seat belts and front windshields And broken airbags, broken noses Shattered

I have dreams Of your jacket in my lap Of lacing and re-lacing fingers Because I always did it wrong The first time Of Kid Rock, country music Kissing trigger fingers Combat boots meeting gas pedals And state lines at 3am

I hold on to memories Like the truck in Maryland Would have hit my passengers side And all I had left was The sound of your thumbs Drumming on the steering wheel And skipping songs Knowing when not to talk While watching the clouds Silhouette the scruff on your chin The smile you tease When I manage to make you laugh While we’re trying to kiss And you keep trying to kiss me anyway

But I still have nightmares About crashing your truck Because I remember being tired On North Carolina highways And watching you in my front seat Sigh yourself to sleep And I wish I had intertwined my fingers with yours One last time

And I know you’d laugh And tell me I did it wrong

[asitrytounderstand-blog]

revolutionary bullshit

I found out that no matter what there is always a tiny microscopic amount of space between two objects and i felt myself dizzy because how could that be when my lips pressed to yours and i remembered everything that hurt me that felt like a tear through my stomach does this mean your fingers never brushed down my thigh does it mean my cheek never lay on your freckled shoulder does it mean i never held my chest together when you left it’s all so disappointing and revolutionary

[asitrytounderstand-blog]

fire

What do I do with my burning self When sand feels like glass When diamonds shine like coal When I am melting to the tune of forgotten heartbeats I remember falling asleep to your singing Out of tune and perfectly in sync With whatever charge was left between our noses He looked at me over the bar with the bottle of Jameson in hand Told me to fight fire with fire And I couldn’t understand how the burn of whiskey in my throat Couldn’t fight the taste of your anger on my lips I was not enough flame Or perhaps you were too much heat The blisters on my fingertips never taught me to keep my hands away I have always been lured by your warmth

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shit show basement writing

You carved Sacrifice into your shoulder with black ink  But the only thing I’ve ever carved is Pathetic into my forearm What am I doing here This morning should not be this rough I never liked the snow But you’re pretty damn cute in that hat  You don’t know what words carve into my belly When you talk with your back turned In the basement under white blankets Play Those Songs again And let yourself be mine for awhile Closed eyes, open ribcages You may be too much for my broken hands to fix But I know how to use a needle and thread You have found your morphine in music and orange bottles Mine in cheap liquor and typewriter poetry  What happened to us

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Am I/ I Am

Call me home in the morning Has it been years Or hours Seconds How long have I been asleep here On the edge of your eyelashes On the tip of your tongue Am I the speck of blue in your eye The knot in your stomach The drop of blood from when you bit your lip Let it all fall to my white shoes I never liked perfect things anyway

[asitrytounderstand-blog]

freezing

I won’t pretend to know what time it is, But I’ll let you sleep for three more songs. Cover us with your hoodie And listen as your breathing shifts from cautious to careless And your head falls to the side in sleep Yet your arms stay wrapped around me. It is finally cold in the middle of October But the world could be covered in snow And I would still be warmed by your fingertips Running over my shadowed silhouette. You called me beautiful while I watched for headlights over your shoulder, Wondering who you were looking at. The scariest thing about love Is it doesn’t exist, Yet it can burn in my throat When your goodnight means goodbye. So I don’t know what time it is, But love doesn’t exist this late at night  For anyone but us. I’ll listen to three more songs While the heat blasts on my freezing ankles. Time will never be on our side, But for once I’m warm in October.

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unfinished

I found you between dreams, Between gasps and opening eyes. In the darkness of my hotel room I reached to an empty side of the bed. January has never been so cold. It turns out goodbye was more than reaching for you. Goodbye was losing 4am Saturday morning Listening to the radio when we had nothing more to say, Pulling you closer on the first night of shaking skin. Goodbye was realizing I knew nothing About how to be with another person Until talking in September, Until holding you in the night, Until goodbye meant it was really the end of a chapter. And I have never been one to leave a book unfinished Or your bed unmade on Sunday morning. When I watch in the window and your headlights never pull up, When I make breakfast and realize I’m not hungry, When I drive by the parking lots we called our own, I knew from hello that goodbye was coming. But at the end of our December, We still feel unfinished

[asitrytounderstand-blog]

I remember 7am Drifting away to a sleep Of remembering your touch While you distanced the sheets Between our breathing Darling, why can’t you sleep I know the echoes taunt your subconscious  But come close to me I will wrap you beneath this thin skin Do all I can Love, I will keep you safe Come morning light May you sleep through daybreak

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intertwined

I didn’t know there was a right way to hold hands until he shook his fingers from mine and intertwined us again And all I could think about was the way he shall shake me from his mind in another month How it will be when he presses his lips to another.. Will I have left enough impression in that he will pull his tired eyes from hers and wonder why he cannot see freckles? You can hide from me no longer, my love. I saw the way you smiled when we intertwined our ankles. I know that smile. I saw it in the blush of my cheeks in the mirror at 5am, Moments after leaving your truck, Moments after leaving the confines of the way your whole body wraps around mine, Moments after leaving. I shall never forget the innocence seeded in the first time I kissed your nose. Come home to me darling, Ne’er have I slept better than ear to your heartbeat. Please stop. Do not say goodnight. My dreams turn to nightmares Echoing your the voice of your goodbye.

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baby bird

You became a sequence of letters on my phone Taking weeks to get your taste out of my mouth Months to digest your lies God only knows if I’ll ever rid your voice from my bloodstream They asked me how I was able to make someone so much a part of me I had filled myself with you so wholly  I am left with bones more fragile than a baby bird I tried to fly home and crashed into a broken window With a final exhale of your breath Wings-spread, looking at the sky I knew it could still be beautiful without me amongst the clouds

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taste the stars

A few months of you will never be enough But for once I can be Everything you looked for in the darkness of a parking lot. Walk with me, love. Tell me all your stories And I will laugh when your touch tickles my side. Kiss me, Here in the light of four am. It’s all going to be okay. Darling, look up at the stars Do you see that one right there? If I could, I would pull the stars from the darkness of the sky And place it on your tongue with my own. Tell me how it feels to be filled with something beautiful And I will tell you how it feels to be filled with your breath. When I go home and you are running through my veins, I am higher than the stars I am brighter than the sunrise.

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To be terribly honest, I am not afraid to love again I know there will never be another love like ours And thank god for that

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Shivering

I should have realized the distance between our lips  When I woke up at three  And the moon was still overhead But the inches between our bodies grew Until you were an arm length away in bed I turned to you for warmth But I didn’t sleep much that night I kept waking up Shivering