In Lieu of Flowers

Not much of a love poet

It's not often that I find myself eager to write about love.

Too often when I try my hands cramp.
Just  shows how much love can be painful.

I'm not much of a love poet,

But if I was to wake up tomorrow morning and decide I was gonna write about love—my first poem would be about
you.

I'd write about how
I love you like I learned to ride a bike:
•Scattered
•And reckless
Without any training wheels or elbow pads, so that my scars show how hard I fell for you.

I'm not much a love poet,

But you make me want to write about how the corners of your eyes are filled with crystals in the morning, sometimes tears at night

                          when you undress yourself in front of me
                 with stories of wounded past selves
verses of dreams you ceased to chase
                                                                       &
fairytales of romances that bled you dry.

You make me want to write about all the times you set fire to my mind. With praises I felt unworthy of. Words of wisdom I didn't know I needed.

You see—I've written a thousand poems hoping that maybe somehow you'd jump out of the page and be closer to me.

I'm not much of a love poet,

but if I was

I'd write about how you have to audacity to be beautiful.
                  Even on days where everything around you
                     is ugly.

I'm not a love poet.
But if I was, I'd write about

how your eyelashes are like strings and everytime you blink it's a symphony and every time I see your name popping up on my phone my heart jumps and climbs on my ribs like monkey bars and I swear

I'm not a love poet,

but I wish that God would've made you as one of my ribs so that I wouldn't have to spend a single day without you            when I wake up and you're not there my reality feels like a fever dream           I walk in my sleep and everynight I die and come alive again just to find you            I die as your lover and reincarnate as your wife                            I die as your wife and come back as a caterpillar turning into a butterfly that land in the palm of your hand and as you brush me away I die and come back as a stranger you pass by in the street just so that I can catch a glimpse of your eyes              I'm killed by a car passing by but I come back just to leave random notes for you in the hope that you'll find them                 I carve our names in trees leave bread crumbs behind and scream your name in the wind hoping that maybe
somehow
in some way
my voice will reach you but it never does and I die.
I die early.
I die young.
With breadcrumbs in my hand hoping that I'll wake up next to you and when I die they put these coins on my eyes and I use them as bus fare to come back to Earth just so that I can be with you.

Im not a love poet.

But right now when I try to write about the stars—I write about you.

When I try to write about the world—i write about you.

When I try to write about anything but love—I still write about
you.

As I scribble painfully about the hold your existence has on me
                                     the sound of the lead dancing on the crumpled paper isn't loud enough to cover the truth laid by a silence I can't seem to voice.
                                    You're not here.
and the sting of your absence doesn't even make sense.

It isn't—

I love you, you are the one, but I'm not, and that's okay, then I'd cry as you'd leave me astray.

It isn't—

Years of waking up to the soft blow of your exhales on my forehead as you're still sleeping while I watch you in a state of beauty you'd never be able to witness thinking about the  day you might leave and I'd feel shattered just from the thought of it.

No.
       These would be the kinds of pain I could bear,
         it would start from somewhere & the scars would carry testimonials about a time where I was consumed by your love.

Instead,
the sting of your absence doesn't make sense.

You're not here.
                              You'll never be.
You never were.