i took a picture once
of a beach in a city
that i love

and the people are all so small
next to the big big buildings
that line the coast

i took a picture once
of a beach in a city
that I love

a city filled with dreams
and little wishes and
bigger hopes.

a city where i found myself
and lost myself
and found myself again

and maybe lost myself once more

i'll find me again someday.

i took a picture once
of a beach in a city
that I love

because i wanted to remember the feeling of
being so small, surrounded by big big buildings
and other small people
who came to the beach in the city that I love

probably to read and lounge and take a swim

or maybe to ponder big questions next to big big buildings
and endless lakes that stretch to the horizon.

maybe someone once took a picture
at a beach in a city I love
and i am the small person
peering up at the big big buildings
wondering who else knows
i exits.

seeing you sit across me is
scary and
familiar

and scary because its familiar
(and familiar because it is scary)

i don't love you any more.

and that is scary and unfamiliar.

but seeing you sit across from me i became so sure
that i didn't even need to question it.

i feel the hole in my heart stitching its last little stiches
it is fragile but it is complete.

i will never regret my love for you
because to love is to feel and to feel is to be human

i will never regret how i gave you everything i had

but i will always regret not seeing when enough was enough
for not believing i was enough.

i am enough.

sitting across from you is pleasant but fleeting
and though i'll smell your scent on me for hours afterwards
and stand and watch you walk away for a little too long
it will all flutter away
it will melt and it will pass.

and i will smile because i am full and a little more sure
and that is scary and unfamiliar
yet pleasant and permanent.

each and every day
is a little easier

182 days of
deep breaths
and adventures
and pain
and healing

its the little things
you know?

remembering the words you said
the anger you caused
the way you treated me.

the way i felt:
drowning in undying love
for a person who would never
love me back.

the way i felt:
drowning in anger
at myself
for my stupidity
for my helplessness

the way i worked:
the itty bitty steps towards
fullness

the realization that I deserve something better.

i still worry i meant nothing to you.
that everything was all a lie

that all our love was just the fog,
disorienting and fleeting.

but

i am every piece of every moment
before you
with you
and now after.

i am everything and anything
and i feel and i feel and i feel.

i am all the little things.
i am not nothing.

everything i feel now is
bitterness and regret
i want to say our love wasnt such a mess
but that would be a lie to myself
and to the world
and I just want to feel like i am important
and free and unfurled

i wish that you had loved for everything i am
and i wish i noticed everything you werent

but here i am 5 months later
alone and scared and shy
and i wish that i could fall for someone else
the way i fell for you

but life isnt perfect so ill monitor your moves
on some media platform and ill wonder
do you do the same as i do?

or am i lost to the past?
and what all is left
of what we were?
who am i now that
time has gone on by?

i loved you with my everything
my all
my best

and I want to go back to when things werent such a mess
but here i am now
vulnerable and so afraid
of who i am
what ill be
who ill love
without you.

someday this won't hurt
but today it still does
and that's okay

i think

its the little things
you know?

the posts you share
the things we used to share
we don't share them anymore

i want to pretend like you are upset
you are bereft
that you feel the way i feel

but i don't think you do
and the worst part is
i don't know

i want reassurance that i meant something to you
that this wasn't nothing
that i am not nothing.

i am every piece of every moment
those moments include you
those moments existed before you

i am everything and anything
and i feel and i feel and i feel.

i am all the little things.
i am not nothing.

when you told me you loved me
i thought i was safe
because you said it first
and you said it fully
and you said it with a desperation behind your eyes

i said it back
but a few days later
and timidly
and with fear

we said that we loved each other
and I think that we meant it
i did.
but now i question everything

i knew we weren't perfect
nothing ever is
but love is funny

like a white male comic
who spews ****** jokes
but still gets the laugh

i keep finding pieces of you
in my room
in my car
in my heart

i wanted to tell you about the new exhibit
at the museum
where we looked at the small rooms
and we laughed in each others company

i wanted to tell you that i saw a movie
and you would have loved it

i wanted to tell you that the silence hurts me
that it feels heavy and angry in its weightlessness

that your absence is greater than your presence

if only we had gone to see
more movies
or laughed a little harder
or taken care of ourselves
in the way we aren't capable of doing

if only i had texted less
texted more
been ever-present
and invisible at the same time

if only what you wanted was possible

if i could turn back the clock
to the day you told me you loved me
i wouldn't change a thing.

i love you so much
in ways i cannot describe
i just
feel it

the way looking at you makes me nervous
the way thinking about the future makes me weep
the way knowing forever isn't truly permanent
makes me feel defeated

i love you so much
in ways i cannot describe
because saying them out loud makes them true

the way you wheeze when you find something funny
or how you look when you're sleeping
or how you can spout nonsense on cue

love is pain disguised by fullness
they are two ends of the same circle
the fine line where they meet
eventually becomes indistinguishable

i hate to see your eyes empty
to see your smile fade and the light slip out

don't shut out my love, love
don't close off you heart

i love you so much
i could love you always
but i'm too scared of always
to love you forever