His name was Ryan. Plain Ryan in the day, Ryan in the evening, Ryan on the dotted line. But in my heart, he was always Love. Did he drive me mad? He did, indeed. In fact, if it hadn’t been for him keeping me up in the late hours of the night, perhaps I wouldn’t have ever fallen in love that summer, with the boy I now call my soulmate. 
The first time I ever encountered his ivory skin and deep set eyes, I knew, as well as I know now that I will someday die, that I loved him more than anything else I had ever loved before him. I was madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in love as a 17 year old girl should be.

Love, was mine. He was mine. I held the key in my fist, and my fist was sewn shut, he was mine. 

As I recollect our past now, we have been everywhere together, and yet have truly seen nothing. Blinded by our beautiful love, I will let it have its way with me forever. I have loved, did you know? I have been cruel and I have been shameful, but I have always loved him. I have been brutal, and I have been delusional, but I love. I love because it is the only thing I have left. And there were times when I didn’t know if Love loved back, and it felt like hell to know and not know it! My Love, my sweet Ry. 

je t’aimais, mais je t’aimais!

i am now the owner of two lovers pressed in between the page of an old photograph


i stare at them like i know who they are


like i know their story and how they fell out of love


how they found their way back to each other 
and lost their youth in translation 
will you be brave enough to tell me when it stops


in the same way that he was brave enough to tell her 


will you look me in the eyes and whisper that you tried for us – for all of us


will you mean it 
i don’t want to walk into an antique shop thirty years from now 


and find a photo of you and me at the bottom of a bin 
waiting for someone to pick up


i don’t want to hold the photo in my hands 


or rub away the dust on our faces with my thumb

and remember our love like it’s an unfinished story waiting to be told 
you tell me love is our promise
that if people don’t know what forever means

it’s because they don’t know what it’s like to be us


you tell me we are different 


you tell me we are the exception

I have never been closer to religion
 than in the times that I have needed God the most.


Sometimes I trip over my unwanted thoughts & forget which way is hell & which way is heaven. 
But I have realized recently that they are almost the same place.


They both question me, and pressure me,

they both pull me from my past and tell me that I am not allowed to live there anymore.

If I end up on my knees in heaven with each hand holding the other I will shriek out to God.
And if I end up on my back in hell I will sympathize with the devil. 
I’m sure that he cries at night too, and slowly breaks & shakes his fists at the sky because it is falling apart and nobody can fix it.
What have I done! What have I done? 
Jesus is not the only one with a cup to take. Please! Please, take this cup away from me. 
I can hear him begging. 
And when I look at him in the eyes, God turns his face away from me. 
I think he may be sick of all of us by now. 
We can't stop crying out his damn name.