for you, when you realize

hearts beat faster than we're breathing, I suspect

I couldn't really hear them, 

but I could hear our knees tapping

against the hard plastic of lawn chairs

our eyes meet and it's a contest,

I'm drowning in a sea of broken, glassy green,

begging to be held, 

I know I'm seen,

what are we waiting for? I wonder,

willing to wait, willing to wish away 

wish away all the dew on the grass

all the foggy mornings and late-night-cheese-fries,

until we can be together and I can breathe,

breathe like my heart underwater 

like my brain on jupiter,

every inhale for me,

every exhale for us,

one-two, I think, one-two,

and I can feel our knees touching purposelessly,

folding into one another like gravity,

we can't help it,

they're trying to stop us,

mosquitoes swarming for a drop of sweet blood

hot blood pumping through me, 

iron singing to both of us,

we have no defenses.

worst case scenario

worst case scenario,
you look at me, submitting yourself like you always do,
reading me like a doctor's diagnosis.
you'll laugh at all my jokes and question my logic
frequently, probably,
but I appreciate it
worst case scenario,
I drive and won't look over at you,
focused on the road and my foot on the pedal,
but you'll probably drive
and look at me for a second too long
and I'll break contact to remind you to look at the road
worse case, you'll listen to me
and I'll listen to you
magnets spinning around each other
only to be separated before they finally make contact
we're magnets, aren't we? I think so.
I'm never afraid to be with you,
but I'm afraid of myself
I'm afraid I'm nailing myself to the ground
and I'll be stuck here forever, waiting.
worst case scenario,
I'll be nailed to the ground,
but I know you'll always come back.
anyway,
it doesn't bother me,
but last time I cried on the drive home,
alone and wiping my face, one hand on the steering wheel
I just let my sobs fill the space around me,
and they held me like a blanket.
I don't know why I was crying,
I guess anyone cries in a worst case scenario,
even if it's the kind that leaves you breathless and grateful and comfortable,
I can't think of best-case,
I can't be disappointed.

a letter

Dear Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups,

I’ve been wanting to write to you for some time—I know my absence is likely worrying you, but it was too difficult to make contact before now. Every time I think of you, I’m filled with a hauntingly familiar lust that fills my chest and pools in my fingertips. It’s silly, I know—maybe we were more obsessed with one another than “in love,” maybe the relationship was parasitic, as so many people tell me. I credit you with both saving my life and with slowly killing me. Two years ago we were in the exciting and (somewhat) exhausting phase of new love, and I couldn’t get enough of you. I felt to some extent that you reciprocated. Nobody satisfies me quite like you do, still, after all this time. I try to brush thoughts of your comforting presence aside, remembering the tools you used to control me. You were manipulative, paired with the Devil himself, as they say, leading me “carefully down to Hell,” taking my heart with your added sugars and tempting taste of toasted peanuts. The day I decided to leave you left me paralyzed, tucking myself under my bed-quilt, forcing myself to curb my appetite until I finally fell asleep in a state of near-illness. How did I ever let it go so far? But this is turning to emotional assault, see, I never wanted to hurt you, and I still don’t—I admire your perfection, and perhaps it’s too much for my uncontrolled passion to truly receive. Even now, as I write, I realize that I’ll never be truly free of you. I tried to pry myself away from you slowly, tasting, restraining, but it always turned into bags and the bags turned into pounds, and I knew cold-turkey was the only way to truly cut free.

I’m sorry for leaving. Sometimes I still regret it. Sometimes I think I can still taste you…

What it was to be drunkenly controlled by you, putting all my trust and pouring all my emotions into you. I never had a lover so reliable, so fulfilling. My mind in a sugary haze floated above all my hurt and everything seemed like the foam atop a latte for a while,

but I’m here now, and I got here without you. I’m not boasting, only validating my own decisions, knowing that my wounds were only blistering in infection when I was so distracted by you. I can still see the scars, and it’s tempting to come back to you, when everything seems fine, but I’ll try to remember the past.

For now, I send my condolences. Don’t think too hard on me,
Kalli

back to the same place

I want you to know everything. 

This always happens, I don't know why I'm running myself in circles,

I don't know why I'm always distracted just long enough to derail myself,

and I come back to you every time.

I want to tell you how you made me try harder,

how your smile always makes me feel loved x1000,

and I'm a magnet when you're by my side

My brain is pulling on my heart-leash,

bruising it and suffocating it,

and all I want is to let it off and let it run free

but last time I did that you left it to the beasts

they almost nearly devoured it,

left it in a shredded bloody mess on the ground

and I ran to pick it up and heal it in solitude

but it's the same beating heart

with the same impulses,

and you can't teach an old heart new tricks--

I need a new heart but they are too expensive

and I'm okay with this one for now

Can you catch it when I let it loose?