I gifted him my words,the best ones from my wardrobe of poemsBut he dissolved those greedy high rollers in his cup of coffeeThey swam in his café au laitcolonizing every molecular space,that was left between the sugar and the cream in anticipation that they could cover the distance between his cup and his lipsquicker than I ever could

There is a love poem in here somewhere, it still has baby teeth A precocious pearl in an unopened shell, adamant and stubborn that it wants to love you, so baby please let it! There is a love poem in here somewhere, and it burns like autumn. Dirt stained on the sidewalk, in a pile of deciduous leaves, at loggerheads with the wind that it wants to love you, so baby please…let it

We rested our tired spines on your terrace waiting for stars to show up and fix our broken constellations, for the moon to be whole, for a meteor shower, for the northern lightsI stayed up staring at the sky every nightbefore falling asleep, before sunriseand you were gone before my eyes were hit by dawnYou were so wrong so, so wrong for meI know that deeplyBut poetically,if you know what I mean Poetically, so right

I wished this was a better story to tell,a better ending with no crying spells

I love you", he said" But it's not exactly the way you do

You are gonesilence screams in my earsI have cold feetStepping out of my bed that morningwas the hardest thingI have ever had to do

I didn't love like the women who swiped left and right from one heartbreak to another. I couldn't just trade some skin for scraps of attention from men who would never use a Swiss knife to declare their love for me, by scraping my initials on the bark of an old oak tree or promise me a forever with a lovelock on Ponte Des Arts. I needed a Romeo. I deserved a Shakespeare in love. I deserved a man who had birds flying out of his ribcage every time he saw me smile.

I wish I could live in a sentence, incarcerated for life among your words. I want to be that flower, that lost count of its breaths somewhere in a haiku or a sonnet, lifeless and wrecked, smeared in ink, in a dusty pile of books, swallowing sunshine by your window.

This wasn’t better eitherI was happy once when I was hereThere was peace and youth,love for myself and cheerNo man to craveand no misery,no insomnia and reverieDisappointed in me, I contemplateI don't even remember the girl,who I now totally hate

We almost made itWe almost died tryingWe almost drowned and saved ourselvesWe almost fell in loveWell something like love a lot like love almost lovers almost but not quiteNot love but loveishDamn loveish!