Now that i’m 22, I find myself inching a little closer to the threat of love. Reckless devotion – it’s fooled me, once. Like a jilted bride thinly veiled and only half-surprised. Was it too much to ask for a little less mystery? But perhaps that’s where the magic was.
~ MIO
the rain stopped reminding me of you
(The way you would run into it until your hair turned brown and your chin was shivering)
As the hail knocked on my window sill, and the sky emptied her belly,
I sighed a little,
Emptying mine.
we don’t talk anymore.
And I can’t quite picture the way your nose crinkled in the sunlight
And I don’t keep your handwritten letters in the drawers of my bedside table — the ones with coffee stains and smeared ink from your broken fountain pen...
I don’t read your favorite books
Or drink your coffee order every once in a while
Sing my laughter like you did
Keep a piece of you in the back of my pocket like
A good luck charm (your initial entwined with mine).
We don't talk anymore.
the silence was persistent at first,
Woven into the fabric of every empty chair I sat across,
Every forbidden thought of you.
But you were such a beautiful moment in my girl years.
Blindly– bravely — we learned even when the world ends, it begins again in the morning.
How to stretch when we reach, how far to fill our lungs, from which pools of air and light
Which gods to pray to and which ones to avoid (re: Justin from the basketball team)
The best blizzard combinations,
How much it hurts to love and yet how recklessly we needed it, the way I needed you and you needed me like a dreamer needs her stars
How right they were when they said time pulls us apart,
how desperately we tried to fight it
And we did.
My god, it was a beautiful fight. Always has been.
We learned love never really leaves, even if we do.
It just evolves into something different; more familiar,
Like a warm chai latte on a rainy day.
It is loving in silence, from afar,
with only the bestest, brightest hopes of what the future holds for us both.
Even if our futures are miles of unspoken “I’m sorry’s” apart.
We don't talk anymore.
And the first day, week, year without you,
Loneliness sunk her wretched palms into my pot and left me empty.
I wailed on my knees like a child at the feet of her Maker.
I told Him…
I told Him the headache wouldn't stop spreading.
Everywhere.
It hurts everywhere,
And there is no fight left in these lungs anymore.
But then one calm evening, as I whiled away time on the last page of my favorite book
I realized
The rain stopped reminding me of you.
And I no longer lamented with the heavens; I simply read, closed the book, and started a new one.
There are beautiful stories to be found everywhere,
I think.
No matter how many end.
