The ghosts of the life we lived together still linger in the empty space where you used to be. I wonder if you ever did become a better person, if you continued to take that 2 hour train ride for who you loved, for who you left me for, if you’re happy. I am happy, I am whole, I am free. Years later, even when the ghosts come knocking at my door, I’m no longer afraid of them. We shared time and space together, they will always be a part of me. You will always be a part of me and still that does not mean that I give you more power over me than you deserve. I loved you once, and maybe in some other universe, I still do. I hope you are a better person. I hope by now you’ve created the life you dreamed of, still I’m not sure you deserve it and so I hope you’ve changed. I hope you’ve become the person who deserves the good things. 

you and i are proof that there is nothing rational about love. if there did exist rationality, we would have never made it. because your friends tried to sell you on the idea that I was not good for anyone. they ran you through a timeline of events, dug up every love that went bad at the core and placed it before you. they tried to sell you on the idea that i could have never be good to you. and yet, you stepped into the abyss of everything unknown. Told your fear to come back another day because courage was visiting. This is love. 

I want a love that wakes up every morning and feels lucky to have me. I want a love without hesitation, without doubt. A love that can say, “yes, yes I am in love with you” without having to stutter at the question. I want a love that keeps me safe, but that at the same time pulls me towards the things that I am too scared to do alone. I want a love that holds my hand, that says “I am here, I am here”. A love that never lets me forget it. I want a love that never makes me feel alone, a love that understands, or at the least, tries to. I want a love that never curses me out in the middle of the street, a love that never frightens me. A love that uses their voice kindly, a love that understands my body still remembers what it is like to be dragged out into the mud of everything unholy. I want a love that knows I will always carry that trauma with me, a love that never asks me to ‘just get over it’. I want a love that understands not all the poems will be about them, a love that understands that there was something before this, before him, and it wasn’t always kind. wasn’t always a good place to be, wasn’t where my heart was safe. A love that understands I must tell these stories, a love that understands my survival depends on this. I want a love that always calls me back. A love that moves its own feet towards apologies whenever and wherever they are needed. I want a love that takes my hands and says, thank you. A love that appreciates me. A love that knows that although I am a woman drowned in sorrow and grief, I am still here, and I am still trying. I want a love that is my personal hype man, a man that doesn’t just tell me I am beautiful, but makes me feel it. A love that says, “ you are kind”, “you are smart”, “you are capable of anything”. I want a love that stands up first in a crowd full of people for me, even if they must stand alone. I want a love that isn’t afraid of what the rest of the world thinks, because they know that love is better without boundaries. A love that knows that love is better when you stop caring about what other people think of it. A love that doesn’t look for other people’s approval to love me. I want a love that never makes me feel unworthy. I want a love brave enough to stay, a love that wants to stay, a love that says, “things aren’t always easy, but this is where my heart is, this is where I want to be”.

365 days later and although I was never really in love with you, I think of you at midnight. The clock strikes past twelve and I entertain my mothers tradition that you are allowed 12 grapes at midnight- that you are allowed one wish per grape. Suddenly, I am not just doing this for her, but for me too. 12 wishes is all I get and I find room for you even then, in such a small number. I hope you’re happy. I hope your heart has grown stronger roots and planted itself beside a heart that keeps you safe. I hope you’ve found someone who knows how to be both the sunlight and the rain, but most of all someone who knows when to be which. I am sorry that I could have never been the woman strong enough to take your roots and plant them elsewhere. The truth is I had too many of my own roots to dig up, some of my own pain to heal. There was only room in my world for one of us. I chose myself because you never would have. Happy New Years. 

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stop reading my poems

My bestfriend asks me if there is any part of me that is still waiting for you. At first thought, I want to say that the waiting has stopped. Because at the least, it should have. But the truth is, there is still a small part of me that hopes it’s going to be you in the end. There’s no point in denying the truth, not to myself at the least.

So maybe they aren’t completely wrong in their assumptions. There is still that tiny hope that when I walk into that crowded room, full of familiar faces, I will only see you. That small hope that your voice will be the only one ringing in ears over all of that bickering, all of that background noise.

I remember the last time we were in a room together. We’d only been broken up for about a year and there you were, leaning against some sort of table and me in that pink cardigan doing my best impersonation of a girl who didn’t love you anymore. I wanted to be the girl who could share space with you without sharing so much of her heart. And yet, I could not be. Even now, years later, I still cannot step out of the girl I was then. Because there are bad days.

There are days where I am weighed down by your absence. How much of my life I shared with you then and how much of it I don’t get to share anymore. There are days where I cannot drag my heart to a place it isn't ready to settle into. My stubborn heart constantly refuses to give up hope on the idea that we might still end up together.

It seems stupid really. I mean it’s been 4 years now. You’re happy. I know you are and I am too, for the most part anyways if you subtract the bad days. I can fall in love again. I did fall in love again. And even then, my heart still found room for you. I don't know what that means anymore. I know that I still must love you, if even after all these years, my hands keep reaching for you. But I’ve also grown old enough to know that there is a difference between loving someone and being in love with them.

I don’t know if I’m in love with you. Still. I will always sincerely hold some special adoration for who you were back then, that young boy who teased me about the color of my jeans, the boy who ran the mile to my house because I was having that anxiety attack, but most of all, I will always love the boy who innocently loved me for who I was, even on the days when I became more mess than girl.

I don't know that I’m in love with you anymore because that boy- doesn't exist anymore. This is as much of a good thing as a bad one. And although this seems strange, I am proud of you for walking away. For growing strong enough to know that you deserved better.

I know that I, too, have came a long way since then. I know I’m a hard person to be with- at least that part is constant. I’m less naïve about love. I can recognize when I’m being loved the right way. But even when I was loved the right way, there was a part of me that was held back by you. Because everything that came after has been held up to the light against what we had.

So I guess this is my closure. This is where I begin to let go of that stubborn hope. Because I have given up a lot of good love in exchange for something unrealistic. I know there is not going back. I know that that ship has sailed. That it is at dock, in a distant place, maybe even a different universe that this one.

I think most of my stubborn hope roots from how much we grew together. From how innocent it all was. How good love was. But I need to let it go. And this is how I come to terms with it. By telling you the truth of it, by finally putting it out into the world.

So maybe you’ll always be the one person I love. Sincerely and genuinely. But that doesn’t mean it works. So this is my apology. I am sorry for how long it took me to let this go.

i wonder if my mother ever knew it would turn out to be this way. i wonder if she always knew that the deep rooted insecurities of the women in our family would eventually come out to the light. everyone says i have my grandmothers eyes. some of her heart. and all of her ache. how much of it she tried to heal and could not. how much of it i have tried to heal and could not. i think my mother always knew it would turn out to be like this. I think that on the day the doctor told her she’d have a daughter- she knew. my mother admits to crying at the news of my gender. a girl. who eventually becomes a woman. but not without dragging her feet through the mud first. my mother says she knew what it meant. that i’d carry the ache of all the generations that came before me. that like my grandmother, I would never learn when to stop giving. when to stop loving. that like my grandmother, i’d never love myself first. maybe second, usually always third. this is a poem about how much of myself I have set down on the frontline of a war in order to protect the ones i love. how little they would do for me. how i am always that girl. sit in the corner of a room long enough without speaking and you and the wall become one. and here is where the deep rooted insecurities come out to the light. because in my attempt to stop the suffering of all the woman in my bloodline, i refuse to settle. for love. for anything that falls short of permanent. the truth is, even my friends think there is too much heart here for my chest to hold. and how eventually in time i will give up on trying to be loved like i deserve. or understood at the least. my mother might not have any eventual grandchildren. my father will probably never walk me down the aisle. no eventual wedding. nobody to share my life with after all is said and done. sometimes this makes me sad. other days i think that this is how it was supposed to be. all that ache in my upbringing could have only led to this and my mother should have known better. and maybe it’s okay if nobody ever falls in love with me. as long as on the hardest days i remind myself that i am still real even then. that i am still able to carry a legacy without bearing children. that i still matter, that my uphill battles are still worth something, even if they aren’t for love, even if they’re only ever for my own survival.

to all the women in my bloodline; here is where it ends. this is how. here is where we set down all of that ache that never belong to us in the first place. it ends with me.

i think of how much it hurt. of how much of that wound still seeps if you just press your fingers enough. how my father sits at that kitchen table. i wonder if he ever knew it would happen that way. or if it just did. i have never met my grandfather. nor will i ever. when my father was only a child, his own father was seeping blood from his own wounds. this isn't a metaphor. just a good example of how everything we do in this life eventually comes back around in time. and then it did. and the circle ended when my grandfathers life did. this is a measurement of how much ache we carry. because thirty five years later, my father still has not learned where to set it all down. i know it still hurts. i know that it always will.

but it was not a mistake. that collision between us. how you came into my life and i made more room for you than necessary. more room than you could ever really take up. my mother sells me on the idea that this is how it was supposed to happen. that there comes a time where things begin to make sense. come together in an effort to manifest something more beautiful than you could ever imagine. five weeks after you’re gone, I instill belief in the idea that after all, this is how it was supposed to happen. we were supposed to intertwine our lives in the only way we knew how. all those phone calls. the text message thread in which I first mentioned a future in which we’d end up together. the fallout. how you had a new girl in your bed the same night you broke my heart. how i cried all the way home that night and began to move my feet towards the door. and how eventually in time, i grew strong enough to leave you.

last night at the diner table, I came to the realization that this is how it was supposed to happen. you served your purpose. you opened up my heart, gave me enough to grow hopeful again. and then, you were on your way. and it has begun to make sense. so this is to say thank you. thank you for arriving when you did and leaving when you were supposed to. for not dragging out your stay. for not ruining all the good you brought out of me. for leaving me while my love was still good.

march- my heart is no longer heavy from all the things I could not keep and wanted to. i learn that what is meant to be, always finds a way. it was supposed to happen like this. destiny. it was written somewhere in stone that i'd fall in love with you. without knowing from where or why. it would just happen. and then it did. and although you never learned to hold me like I needed for you too- you were honest. you could have never loved me. and i needed that. because you made room in my heart for love, because the part of me that still believes in loving a person has not died off yet. it was supposed to happen like this. i was supposed to lose you. you were not born the man i'd spend the rest of my life with, but you were born the boy who'd teach me that's it's possible to start over in your same home country. as it turns out, this heart is still mine even if it's loving the wrong people. anyways, i want to say thank you. thank you for leaving me when you did. thank you for leaving behind all that room for beautiful things to happen. beautiful things have happened since then. this new love, stronger love, is one of them.

i.

why the fuck can’t I stop dreaming about you? a stranger i fell in love with. someone i never knew anything about. someone i still found ways to love in all the uncharted. all the unknown.

ii.

there is no easy way to say it. i guess i knew this would happen. that we would get to a day where the distance between us was something we were both tired of trying to overcome. i just never envisioned it being this way. ending like this.

iii.

a lot of the time i’m not sure what to tell them about you. you know, when they ask. something less than a boyfriend. but a lover that pressed hands against skin. something holy. not always a good place to be in.

iv.

even though you really hurt me, when i hear the news, i learn how to be happy about it. so you finally learned how to love something. and I finally learned how to love you from here, far away, from a place that only ever knows how to wish you well.

v.

i don’t know that there’s much to say about you. or about us. we shared small moments. yet important ones. and i loved you. and although you did not, i have the certainty that if i died today, you’d show up to the funeral. that has to count for something.

There was so much in me that wanted to bury myself beneath the heavy burden of losing you. The other part of me refuses to keep letting you have the best of me. You have had the best of me. You kissed me at a time where I had begun to let my heart grow new, stronger roots. You held me at a time where I wasn't afraid anymore. You witnessed me for the woman I was- brave, or naive, whichever aligns best with the version of me that was always casting herself off ledges to keep you. I stepped out of who I was in order to become someone you could fall in love with. Someday. In the near future. And we never quite made it there. And I finally understand why roadblocks exist. We were never meant to fall in love with each other. You were just meant to remind me that there is still so much room left in my heart for beautiful things to happen. You were the one to whom I opened up my heart to, a reminder that I still could. And I was the girl who helped you believe in the idea that there was still someone out there left in the world who loved you in spite of everything ugly you could become. I was the girl who put her world at your feet, the girl who reminded you of all the different ways you could love a person. Because at the end of the day- some part of me loved you. Some part of me still does. But I also know that we aren't the right people for each other. I learned that the hard way but still a lesson well learned. Because you're happy in your existence alongside hers and because I haven't let bad love turn me inside out. Because there is still so much of me that keeps trying, and living, and loving.