Do you know what it feels like to think you're in love?

To meet a crooked-smiling boy in a dreary town you're tired of,

A boy you want to believe will change everything, save you from nothing.

To hear the wind chime and bird song in his laughter.

Comforted by a warm, live palm in your own, tracing heartlines.

Making a home in the foundations of his mind: the structure of his body, a sanctuary made for you and him alone.

A place where you told him about when you were twelve and tried to run away.

He promises he would've gone with you; you pretend to believe him.

Do you know what it feels like to ache in the name of love?

Seeing the man you've known and loved turn away from you

With a loss in his eyes and nothing more to say.

He goes instead to a bar downtown finding his comforts in a bottle rather than you.

You keep searching but he's no longer there;

His crooked half smiles seem pained and forced, like a soldier drafted to Vietnam- never truly came back.

Sitting next to me was a stranger with a name I couldn't forget.

You'll want to scream, "what happened to you? What happened to us?" but the words will never make it past your tongue.

He will change like the leaves in autumn and nothing you could do would stop nature. 

Do you what it feels like to be in pain at the hands of your love?

To feel beaten ribs and bruises bloom, like blue and purple flowers he once gave you shyly on a warm summer day.

Back before you had the charcoal imprints of fingers too harshly grasping wrists.

Knew the taste of copper blood from your own split lips.

Denial weighing on you like drunken heavy holds holding you down.

Glass shards in your feet because sometimes he breaks vases that belonged to your dying mother.

And somehow all that hurts alot more than leaving pieces of yourself with the glinting broken glass on the floor. 

Leaving him felt like abandonment; Judas' betrayal. 

Do you know what it means to feel fear and desperation at the thought of your love?

To hear approaching footsteps and a too-sweet voice knowing what comes next all too well. 

Better than classic rocks albums you and he sang to drunkly.

A voice plays over and over inside your head it's your own saying "I'm sorry" over and over again.

His voice will haunt you with cursed words: "can't leave, nowhere to go" as though you could forget.

He'll be your Achilles' heel; after all, he always knew right where to hit.

It's praying when you never believed in God.

Do you know what it feels like to grieve after love?

To feel empty and hallowed out as you unpack your things in a new life, states away and yet you feel like he still has you trapped. 

You're supposed to be free; you survived

Don't you see the sunlight?

You hear his voice like a shiver across your arm,

His touch undulating down your spine.

You try to remind yourself: It's not your fault, he's not the man you fell in love with.

You no longer look the same in the mirror's reflection

You try not to think about the last time you felt like your own person.

Everything seems broken like glass vase shards on your old home's floors, the home you shared with him.

You still miss the idea of him- but you can never look back

Not without becoming trapped in the memories of a crooked smile and sun-warmed skin.

Do you know what it feels like to know it wasn't really love at all. You were just a sick young girl, who wanted to be loved,

that he was sick too and two broken pieces don't make a whole?

You wanted to what love was, he taught you all the wrong ways

He loved you wrong.