This is simply a collection of poems. They were written with certain meanings, but the beautiful thing is that now they belong to you, the reader, and can mean anything your heart desires.

These words are not important, by any stretch of the imagination, but at one time they meant everything to me. I hope you can take them and make them your own.

I’ve never been good with words, but I’ve found the words for the things it’s too late to say. I know it won’t make any difference how the ocean in your eyes calmed the gold sparks in mine, or how I melted the snow in your bones with the inferno I kept hidden just under my ribs. You always said I was trying to hide in those hoodies, but with you I didn’t have to hide. And you said you would never leave, as if you knew that was all I needed.

So, when you run your thumb over her knuckles, I hope you think of that ring I always wore on my pinky finger, the one you said matched my eyes.

When you taste her shiny lipgloss, I hope you suddenly find yourself remembering that stupid Hello Kitty chapstick that I never left home without.

Sometimes, once in a while, I hope that you smell her flowery perfume and remember burying your face in my neck and breathing in vanilla...

I hope you think of me fondly from time to time, because I know I think of you.

I think you’d be pleased to know that when I try to fall asleep all I can think is how the ocean in your eyes calmed the fire in mine, and how all the summers in your voice warmed the sixteen winters my heart had weathered.

And I think you'd like to hear that I still can't go into that little bookstore without thinking of you and all of the worlds you introduced me to.

You always did love those detective novels, but you were the first mystery that I ever tried to read.

I never knew what it meant to be covetous until I was jealous of the sunlight itself, the intimate ways that it caresses your skin. I wish that I could kiss your freckles with a drop of golden light, I wish that I could make you shine.

But I will never be your sunlight, and I will always be the moon, so small, desperately trying to mimic your radiance. You're brilliantly burning, they say that this fire, this passion, is in your genes. You're gold and I will always ever only be silver.

You have become the only star that I see, and somehow, in the light of this revelation, the earth has continued to turn, and the sun has continued to rise.