forty-three

You’re too high up to try to look below you; there are plenty of men up here. If your man can’t be pulled up, you’ll only be dragged down and what a shame that would be. My child, seek someone who will take you higher. Into the sky, above the clouds, seek someone who will take you into Heaven. 

forty-two

Birds have the right idea. Coming and going as they please. It’s not cowardly to leave when you don’t feel accepted; you don’t have the time. You never know who’ll you’ll meet or what you’ll do if you remain stagnant, if you settle. Roam, wander, create, explore. The second you feel safe is the second you’re in danger. 

forty-one

It’s a special kind of cruelty, ya know: to look into my eyes, cradle my trembling face in your hands, and say you care, and in the same breathe say you want to explore. Explore, baby, explore. Search every cobble-stoned brewery and every ill-lit sports bar. Search over a hundred beers, search under a thousand skirts. I care about you too, love, but I need to care about me more. So when I crawl out of this bed tomorrow morning please spare me the feigned hurt. There’ll be a warm body here soon enough, it just won’t be mine. 

forty

Given enough heart-wrenching-crawl-into-bed-and-try-to-escape-within-the-shattered-and-weakened-walls-of-my-own-body-knees-to-chest-arms-tucked-in nights I will no longer respond to your name as if it were my own.

thirty-nine

You’ve been nothing but honest but honesty isn’t everything. Being honest about being awful doesn’t vindicate you and I’m understanding that I crave so much more than hands and sheets. I crave the kind of intimacy that burns my heart inside out. I crave the kind of vulnerability that makes me feel naked, fully clothed. I crave the admiration. I crave the laughter. I got lost in the way you looked at me; I chose to ignore that the hands playing with my hair were practiced and meaningless. I crave so much more. 

thirty-eight

I don’t know what this is. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what I want. I don’t know how you feel. All I know I’m disappointed. You can’t say I didn’t try, though. I guess we all hold our hearts in different places. 

thirty-seven

This is my fault, too. I want you to whisper sweet secrets in the orange glow of the streetlights, but I also want to be strong enough to not believe them. And I have no idea where that leaves us.