a friend once told me that i don’t need to be in a relationship with someone to love them as deeply as i do
and i guess he’s right, though i crave constant confirmation that people love me to the point of obsession, to the point of severe anxiety
texting do you hate me are we still friends i just love you so so much when i should be asleep allowing my heartrate to slow
sylvia plath once wrote i like people too much or not at all
i experience all emotions in extreme and nobody has ever told me that it was okay until now
one night in july i see red flashing past the train window and i think of you
the bitterness has faded over time and i am learning to become human again
to be gentle, to look at you and love you with only an admiring warmth
you should know that i’m okay now. not wholly okay but these things take time
i left myself underneath a hotel bed on the other side of the state and it has taken her all this time to find her way back – in fragments, one piece at a time
in my dreams i am swimming in an endless pool with you behind me, caught in a rip, the salt seeping into your dry skin and weighing you down while my two light feet propel me further and further away from you
exfoliate like a skinless grapefruit, soft and pink
exhale all the breath in my lungs and sink to the bottom with your silhouette floating above
consumed by water i breathe with ease
a child of the ocean could never drown
in the summertime i will see red and it will be fields of strawberries somewhere on the peninsula, full and sweet, and i will think of you
maybe you will be there
maybe i won’t need anybody there because all fragments of myself have made their way back
and i will be whole again
sinking my teeth into the fruit’s juicy flesh with the sun on my back
