Hiraeth: A Collection of Poems

candles melted by love.

you asked me why
i don't write about love anymore
i just smiled and shrugged
because in that moment
I didn't know what to say to that.

but i think i do know now.

i write about you in
old notebooks and pamphlets
and the last pages of books that smell like home
and i tear it all off
because i don't know what to
do with it.

and i see you in happy songs
that smell like lillies
and i see you in sad songs
that look like a glass breaking itself
because I can't decide where to put you.

and it hurts
but i keep coming back to it
because you're the type of person who
won't stop playing the guitar
until their fingers hurt
who
breaks their chocolate chip cookie
in half
only to give both pieces away
who
dives deep into everything
so that one day you could
make a story out of it

and you had to be the first person
i met who could
fix complicated
by being complicated

so i can't help but smile
whenever i cry about you
or see you in both happy and sad songs
or write about you until there is
nothing to write.
and now my papers are so used to you
that they know what to expect.

so i sit beside
my melted candle
since it burned out
what i wrote about you the paper in which
we're two messes;
that didn't know
what to do with
fire.