You don’t love her but she’s there for you. You don’t love her but she’ll do. You don’t love her in that hazy mist, with that special affection, in those four minutes before you fall asleep; you don’t see her head on your chest in two - never mind twenty, years time, but she’s there.

You know she loves you because she says it with her eyes. She looks at you with the kind of adoration that breaks your heart. When she kisses its soft, slow, until she can’t hold it back and she loves you, with every particle in her being, she does.

You don’t love her but she’s there. You don’t love her and she can tell. Let her go because she’ll never be the one to initiate goodbye. Forget better, both of you deserve more.

Sometimes, it
is so violent
inside of me,
my bones
become
jagged rocks
beneath a 
rushing river.

I  remind my 
stone skin
of what 
water does
to the roughest
of edges;
of lotus blossoms
growing above
even the dirtiest
of waters. 

I remind my
blossoming skin,
this pain
is the dirty river,
let it happen to you,
let it teach you
how to be
soft
(again).