Poems

Year after year of looking for someone, 

Just to rest their cheek against my chest when I’m feeling alone, 

And I was starting to give up hope until you came along,  

With your head bobbing along with each beat, 

Inside of me, 

And my hand squeezing your nose. 

Life can be odd that way,  

When someone appears in our lives with something about them, 

That makes us want to tag along wherever they go, 

Past screaming mothers, 

Past missing fathers, 

And past siblings we barely know, 

No matter the cost.  

And, so far,  

The cost of following my feelings for you,  

Has been nothing but the reciprocation of love,  

Tongue against tongue. 

From nobodies in May,  

To friends in June,  

To the one I want to never let go of in July,  

We move quick,  

Even faster if we just could just run away like we sometimes dream,  

But each hour we get to talk only adds to feelings that we show,  

All part of another day where I can’t count the number of times, 

I say that I am in love with you. 

I’ve met so many souls in my life,  

Having gone from one girl to the next against what were my own wishes, 

While some of those people were more broken than I have been at times, 

And some of them were the reason that I have been as cracked as I was, 

Back in days that are now long gone,  

But you, my dear, are not like those that have been left behind. 

Our pasts can make us lose our self-worth,  

Because I was once caught in a loop of suicide attempts. 

Can make us hurt again and again and question what is wrong with us,  

Because you were born with a chronic illness, 

That took doctors nine months to dig up. 

Can make us ask what must we do to stop ourselves from falling apart, 

Because I’ve spent so much time crying, 

That I now know just how to plug the holes in my heart and mind. 

And can make us wonder what anyone else could ever see in us, 

Because you were attacked by the last boy, 

That you thought you loved. 

So, now that I’m here,  

I want to do everything I can to put you back together,  

Because you are a piece of art with scars. 

You were painted by nobody worth knowing,  

Yet so beautiful,  

So alive,  

So worth loving,  

And only time has left you showing signs of wear,  

Where sickness and sicker people have left you with tears. 

Anyone can take a knife to you, 

People you call stepdad, stepmom, brother, sister, or just friend, 

And cut you right down the middle,  

But it takes an expert to stitch you back up,  

Through hugs, cuddling, and those reminders that you are loved, 

Even if I have to go day by day, 

And remind myself that you feel the same. 

Because, along the way,  

You don’t realize you do the same for me, 

Just by opening yourself up again and taking that risk,  

By looking beyond my past, 

Letting me into yours, 

Or even by coming to my house on our first date, 

Before we’ve yet to meet. 

Only so that my mind can hold itself together and envision something beautiful,  

Like your Nana, 

Who now sees me as family, 

And the masterful paintings of hers that she keeps hidden in the den, 

Of the home that your entire family, 

All eleven, other, little grandchildren, 

And the two of us meet at every other Sunday. 

Love is a strange beast, 

Like Frankenstein’s monster or Jekyll and Hyde,  

And, unlike the ‘birds and the bees’, 

It isn’t something anyone can teach. 

Yet, here I am, laying in my bed with twisted sheets, 

Thinking over whether or not I should tell you tomorrow or tonight, 

Or if my understanding of my feelings for you is way too early to convey, 

Or even the right string of words to say, 

For fear that they act like a kite made out of and flown by metal wire, 

In a thunderstorm on the middle of a lonely isle. 

I know for certain I love your blonde hair, knotted from my hands or knot-free, 

Your freckles that look like the stars in the sky on any night of the week, 

How I now dream of you rather than the pieces of my past. 

I know I love your green eyes, 

Your dorky smile where you hide your teeth like shuttered blinds cutting out the light of the sun, 

How I could do nothing but lie around naked with you for a while. 

Though, love is not just about your physical attributes,  

Or whether or not I prefer your backside over your breasts. 

Love is internal and eternal, 

Until death do us part, 

And leaves one of us with a broken heart. 

It is about what I think when I first see your face after a week away,  

How I feel during those moments when I cannot wrap my hands around your waist,  

And where I pray we will grow as individuals and as a set of two upon each new day. 

For, without these aspects,  

The fact that I think you’re the most beautiful woman of them all would be null,  

like the sum of two nothings,  

But, instead, you are the one that lifts me off of the ground, 

Just by adding supports and a roof to the wobbling walls that are my troubled mind. 

So, when I first see your face after that week away,  

The question becomes ‘what can we do with the time we are given?’ 

Do I use the hours we have to do the most joking,  

Making you laugh and smile as much as I can while giving you a tickling,  

Or do I spend the time laying calmly beside you,  

Among the sprawled covers and with our lips together, 

Where the only problem in our little universe, in that moment, 

Is who has stolen the most blankets from the other. 

When it comes to how I feel when you’re not in my bed,  

And all I can do is take the opposite and keep on wishing, 

It’s easiest to say that a part of me, like a nail or a screw, is missing. 

This feeling in the bottom of my stomach,  

not butterflies but the longing to fly away with you,  

Is strong enough to capture my entire mood,  

And take the concept of time apart like the pieces of a clock, 

And leave it all in our wake. 

As there is nothing I would rather do in that second,  

Minute,  

Hour,  

And every single day, 

Than welcome one another’s embrace. 

And, when it involves building each other up brick by brick, 

To put together the pieces of our minds or our future home, 

I hold myself up on stones made of hope. 

Here, stone is not literal. 

Stone is more like concrete,  

Where it begins with a pouring of affection and lust,  

And, when that settles,  

Only one feeling is left in our hearts. 

Love. 

And, now that the feelings in my heart have set themselves into place,  

Like the base of a home that can withstand any storm, 

I am certain that, 

No matter if you are close enough to touch, 

Or so far away that,  

As I write this,  

All I can feel is the tears dripping down my face,  

I love you.  

You sat there on the edge of my bed,  

Tucked me in,  

Planted a kiss on my forehead,  

Like watering the flower you had already planted, 

And, the second you looked away, 

I saw that first tear glisten on your cheek. 

So, with my covers undone again,  

I should have crawled towards you,  

Wrapped both of my arms around yours closest to me,  

And, from my mouth,  

The words “Mama, please don’t cry” should have emerged. 

Unlike you, I was too young and foolish to lack courage,  

So, when I saw how the world dragged you down to the darkest part of the dirtiest town,  

I didn’t understand why it was able to make you frown. 

You taught me, among so many teachings, 

That the only way to live happily is to look past those whose hearts are boiling with hate,  

And, when their words are as meaningless as a check with no name,  

I’d earn the smile upon my face. 

So, in other words,  

I learned my strength from you to avoid any struggle,  

Yet, for whatever reason,  

Those same muscles were of no use to any of your troubles.  

That should have left us sitting here,  

The child comforting the mother,  

And, when I reached the edge of the same bed you gave to me, 

So that at least one of us had a mattress to sleep on,  

I should have dangled my legs over the side anyway,  

Because I was not and have never been afraid of the monsters that might hide under or near. 

For, because of you,  

I was and am strong enough to take on the world each day, 

So, then, Mama,  

I should have asked you about the problems I heard you say.  

Why were you too scared to take on the man that beats bruises into your heart,  

Why did you let your ‘friends’ treat you like they were worth more than you were,  

And, with Dad gone,  

Why did we need anyone but each other, 

To see how far away from that life we could get like two nobodies in a cable car? 

Oh, God, Mama,  

If I was so courageous already,  

I should have made you put on your armor with me and fight for your life. 

I wanted you to give me eighteen years of your time,  

With a third of that already gone by,  

And I would have promised you I will be better than any man you or anyone else had met in those times. 

There only would have been a couple thousand more nights of tucking me in and planting a kiss on my forehead, Mama, 

And I know I would have been strong enough to save you from that life. 

For, in that world,  

We were nothing to nobody but each other,  

But, with one another,  

The world could have been ours, Mama, 

While the people below would be lost among their own troubles forever. 

Truly, in those times, 

It was just you and I, 

And, to survive,  

We had to find our own way to live our life,  

One where happiness was abundant and always at our side. 

Because, you, Mama,  

Were the only reason I was able to hold back the tears inside. 

Now, if only I had not made that mistake,  

Because, when a life is at stake, 

There is no making mistakes. 

So, I sit here thinking, 

If only I had the power for this story to play out the way I would have wanted it to today, Mama, 

For, on this night so many years ago,  

These were not the words I said. 

Instead, I left you crying like you left me with someone to babysit, 

And, when I woke the next day without you at my side,  

It was almost a fatal blow, 

Until Grandma told me you’d always be watching from above, 

And that you will always love me more than I ever could know. 

So, as I sit here alone,  

About to head off to college at the age of eighteen,  

I just need you, Mama,  

To know that I never lost the meaning to any of the teachings you gave to me, 

And, with everything I do to make me the best man I can be,  

I do it for you, 

Because I will always love you as much as you loved me.