Countdown.

18.
The age I met you at. I just moved in with my high school sweetheart and you let me borrow your lighter outside of a coffee shop.
17.
The exact amount of minutes it took me to ask you if you had a girlfriend.
16.
The amount of cigarettes I went through the first time we hung out one on one.
15.
The number of weeks from the time I met you, to the time my high school sweetheart and I broke up.
14.
The number of days before I took you after that to rescue your girlfriend.
13.
The number of days it took me after that to be able to admit to myself that I was in love with you.
12.
The number of years it's been since I met you.
11.
The number of times I have thought about you in the last three days.
10.
The number of miles we drove to feed the ducks.
9.
The number of times I have wondered if you still have the cd I gave you.
8.
The number of years since I saw you last. 7.
The number of times I have admitted to you that I loved you.
6.
The amount of unpublished love letters I have written to you and never sent.
5.
The number of times we've tried to see each other but never made it.
4.
The amount of times I have actually written about you in poetry form.
3.
The number of times I have asked you to marry me.
2.
The number of times you have asked me to marry you.
1.
You are my one.

Denial.

I have earned my freedom.
It doesn't matter who was right and who was was wrong,
I made the choice to leave
And start a new life
Without you.
But I keep finding myself
Reading through old emails,
Text messages and
Facebook posts
Trying to find some semblance
Of the good people we were.
And the truth is,
we weren't.
You made me defend every decision I ever made.
And every decision you ever made.
You conned me into believing you'd love me forever.
And I took the bait.
We were fire and oil and we burned too brightly and too quickly,
Though neither of us could contain the blaze,
The truth is
I enabled your bad decisions.
You tried to enable mine and when I tried to stop short you'd push me further and further toward the edge.
Until I made the right decision.
To leave.
But you can't let me leave.
You'd rather lie and con your way back into my life.
I've had worse.
I've had worse.
Don't think I haven't had worse.
I'm a survivor.
And I will survive this.
My track record isn't perfect
And my legs are tired from running,
So I'll meet you head on.
And when the fire burns out I will rise like a Phoenix from the ashes.
I will rise above you and this and fly.
I won't turn around.
Not for fear of turning into a pillar of salt,
No.
I won't look back because you don't deserve it.
I have earned my freedom.
I chose freedom.
I won't be looking through old love letters anymore.
I won't be hanging on to misguided hope.
Do what you have to do.
You just don't have permission to drag me down with you.

Simple

Just words just words just words

You say my whole life has been 

Just words. 

Hullabaloo

Globular

Incandescent

Repetitive. 

The mishmash of language boils in my cranium. 

My lexicon is impressive. 

But it's the simple words,

Anger. 

Hurt. 

Sadness. 

That I have the hardest time voicing. 

You can see, from my 

Actions,

Or lack thereof,

That I am all these things as well. 

Similes and metaphors don't compare

And contrast

The starkness

The whole-ness

The truth

Behind those word-emotions. 

Other simple words start fires:

Love. Hate. Inspiration. 

But your actions provide the kindling.  

I can't live this way, can't live this way can't live this way 

can't live. 

Like this. 

Anymore. 

Compassion and empathy

Dried up like your touch

The moment I started to feel

Simple. 

Right and fairness and good,

Expired when

New life

Began. 

It's a choice you made somewhere along the road. 

In the before time,

I would wake up next to you

And happiness consumed my bones. 

I wake now

To empty beds

Empty promises

Empty love. 

I won't let the hollowness eating at me

Devour my legacy. 

I won't let the steam in me

Waft away into nothingness. 

I won't let you

Push me down

Into the depths of grey. 

My words are black on white pages. 

And I will shout them into existence. 

I will watch them lift off of the page

And flow into your ears. 

You cannot shut me out. 

I will fill your head with letter algorithms,

Anecdotal pieces

Of paragraphs. 

Until you hear me in the very bottom of your being. 

And maybe then you'll realize

I never left. 

I don't want to go. 

I just became

Simple. 

Memories

I still remember

The "Some Dude's Birthday Party Poetry Tour"

Back in 2011,

When I was just this girl

Who just knew how to use words

In just the right way

To justify anything. 

I remember the day we were almost killed accidentally,

By a flying queen sized mattress. 

When you were just this guy

Who just knew how to love me

In just the right way

Without justification. 

I used to write you love poems,

And you'd ask me if my seatbelt was buckled. 

I remember sleeping on the floor in the living room with you,

Watching the A-team on the mattress we moved in front of the fire place

like we were in high school. 

I remember flirting with you

When you came to see me at work. 

And I remember when we went to Prescott together. 

I remember how much I loved you. 

It's been three years since I have seen you, or spoke to you. 

I lived my life after you, knowing you were never coming back,

Knowing you were justified in your decisions,

Knowing I had to live with the consequences. 

I wanted you to know I made it through the last few years, 

And I have always been thankful for what you said to me before we walked our seperate ways. 

You meant so much to me, no matter what it was that I did to cause it all to end.

We are just passing memories now. 

But I remember them fondly. 

Is.

"She wanted love so strong it wouldn't be anything but a destructive force in the end. And that scared me because I couldn't do it to her. "

Love IS a destructive force. 

It burns deep down into the very darkest corners of my hidey-hole heart. 

It causes me to tear down barriers, strip my soul naked and beat myself up. 

Love murders former entities, breaks people, and destroys them. 

And it doesn't have to apologize. 

Because love is simultaneously

A constructive force. 

A force that binds me to you,

A desire to be the very best I can be. 

A drive to live not only in the always now,

But also in the maybe tomorrow. 

Love doubts,

Love struggles,

Love does not have to be financially stable,

Though it does have to be well-fed

Love 

Love is talk til three in the morning about when we were younger

Love is that orgasm where we both are breathing so hard it sounds like we're crying and dying

Love is language that drips from our glances and 

Love..

Love is. 

Nerdgasm

I hate college towns.

Correction: I hate going to bars in college towns.

See, I'm not an idiot, I know that I'm no Suzy Cheerleader,

I'm no Trophy wife material,

But I know that I'm pretty,

And when I go out I like to dress to the nines,

But I am sick of the chads and ryans,

the sandal wearing motherfuckers,

the frat bros and bras or whatever they call themselves these days, 

hitting on me.

See, I like to go out dressed to the nines,

But I want a guy who fantasizes about Seven Of Nine.

That's right,

I love Nerds.

So instead of going out,

I'm at home, cruising the internet dating sites, the chat rooms, the blogs,

I'm hitting up karaoke, the arcades and Game Spot.

I want a man who can kick my ass at Halo,

understands soduku,

and doesn't mind if I dance around in my pajamas to the TRON Theme song.

No, don't talk dirty to me,

Talk NERDY to me.

I wanna integrate e to the x with him,

cuz goddamn it I'm a jedi in lingerie.

During foreplay we'll play Magic: The Gathering

And I'll make him harder than Chinese algebra.

That's right. He's gonna Insert his disk into my hard drive,

cuz baby, I got enough memory to save him under file spank bank.

He's the dungeonmaster of our bedroom.

It isn't the size of his penis, but the size of his comic book collection that'll make me wet.

I wanna peer into his four eyes while we hammer out string theory.

I wanna hear about how his level 75 blood elf mage pwnd the alliance noobz in a raid on Southern Kalimdor.

I want him to be so awesome that his head shines like a goddamn beacon so the unannointed might know where to gain their sustenence. yea, verily yea.

Forget paying a cover to go dancing, we've got Dance Dance Revolution hooked up to our hacked Xbox 360 elite.

Afterward, We're gonna hop on the internet and have hot, dirty cyber sex on a mux.

We're gonna fall in love while we're kicking ass during the zombie apocalypse.

I want a man who functions on caffine, does his christmas shopping on thinkgeek.com and runs Linux.

Forget house parties, we're hitting up LAN parties.

He's gonna know that Batman is way cooler than Spiderman and Superman combined,

and pirates always beat ninjas. ALWAYS.

His facebook profile will list  Lord of the Rings, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Trilogy, The Gor Series, and the Dragon Lance series as books that changed his life.

And Movie night?

We're air popping popcorn and watching Cowboy Bebop, The Movie.

Until I meet him, 

I'm calling up the geek squad like it's a phone sex line,

Cruising the internet cafes,

and waiting.

Waiting for one nerd to rule them all,

Waiting for my nerd in shining 1080i.

Let's face it, I need to integrate. 

And when I finally find him,

Actually, I did find him,

All my base are belong to him. 

Lies, No Matter What.

 

When I was little, you would take me into your arms and hug me at the airport, 

and you'd say 

"I love you, Miss Jay, no matter what!"

I'd laugh and twirl my fingers in your whiskers, and say

"I love you too, daddy, no matter what!"

As a child you taught me about rainbows, you told me that 

Rainbows were god's promise that he loved everyone so much

That he would never flood the earth again, no matter what. 

I used to draw rainbows on letters addressed to you in crayon. 

To tell you in secret code that I loved you, no matter what. 

As I got older, we saw each other more and more, 

Disneyland dad, my mom called you. 

It was fitting for awhile when you lived in California. 

You always made sure my brother and I were cared after,

And we'd always have a blast. 

My brother chose to live with you for awhile,

And even though I didn't come with,

You assured me that you loved me, no matter what. 

And when I came to visit,

Because your mother had died,

My brother cornered me,

And told me he wanted to come home,

I assured him I loved him no matter what. 

Just as you assured me later,

When the custody case had been overturned,

That you loved me no matter what. 

Years passed and I got frustrated with life. 

I ran away from home,

And my mother, 

Afraid I would try to run again,

Dumped me with you. 

You assured me you loved me,

And you finally had the opportunity to be my dad. 

Not just my weekend warrior dad. 

You made sure I had everything. 

A mom,

A stepsister,

Pets,

A car,

You even treated my boyfriends like you were a real father,

Scaring them into submission. 

Threatening them with the words "If you hurt my daughter..."

I was so happy. 

My dad loved me no matter what. 

You got to see my school productions,

You helped me with my math homework,

And you let my best friend sleep over. 

And when summer was nearly over,

You sent me back to my mother's because you "wanted me to complete school on time." 

I was heartbroken, because this was the first lie I ever caught you in. 

But I said nothing,

Because as the plane was boarding you took my eighteen year old self in your arms, and hugged me tight. 

And you said

"I love you, Miss Jay, no matter what. "

And I hugged you back,

With tears in my eyes, and whispered

"I love you too, dad, no matter what. "

On the plane, I decided to forgive you. 

I deduced you told me the lie to save me from the heartbreak of your impending divorce,

Because you didn't know 

That I already knew

You weren't sending me home because of school. 

I graduated, and got married a few years later. 

And you came into town

To walk me down the aisle. 

I remember how you looked at me,

And offered me money

Not to marry the man I had fallen in love with. 

I laughed, and told you I loved this man. 

And you responded,

I love you Miss Jay, no matter what. 

And when I got divorced,

You said the words. 

And when you met your grandson,

You said the words, 

And when you talked to me the day after your birthday,

In 2009,

You said the words. 

And then,

There were no more words until Christmas

Of 2013. 

You found out I was bisexual. 

You found out rainbows meant something else besides god's promise. 

You found out that your daughter, your firstborn, your little girl, was something you couldn't understand. 

And then that little phrase,

I love you, Miss Jay, no matter what. 

Became the biggest lie 

You ever told.