The haiku here touch on relationships I’ve had with others. Most of them were written either about the honeymoon or break-up stages. In 2020, I started writing about the relationships I was in as I was experiencing them. Being able to draw inspiration from a relationship as it was going rather than wait for the end was a huge area of growth for me. Some of these haiku that were written during the relationship rather than after, were also interestingly written in beds, either alone or with my then partners near. I would often tap my fingers alongside their body and they knew a haiku was forming in my mind and would ask me to share it aloud.

Relationships are so many things – beautiful messes, healing containers – created by two people and as I have grown I have tried to do a better job of capturing that rather than the one-sidedness that often comes about in a cathartic purge of feelings when I am grieving. the loss of the person, the relationship, and part of myself.

I am looking for ways to reach larger audiences and be published, if you or someone you know can help please reach out here.

  • clarity

    waking up to you
    used to be a dream, but now
    you’re not what you seemed

  • things we do for love

    they say that healing
    is a prerequisite for
    loving someone else

  • trauma-bonding

    i tried loving you
    with large wounds that turned my mind
    and my body blue

  • the bear

    against my judgment
    i let myself be wrapped in
    arms that could not bear

  • heartbreak

    this time he was more
    than an idea, he was love
    then he became pain

  • physical attraction

    physically we were
    as harmonious as we
    could ever become

  • inner child

    emotionally
    we were childlike in ways that
    were both great and not

  • missing you

    nothing feels bounding
    emptiness fills my insides
    clean slate, heavy lift

  • the bear and the hunter

    won’t date another
    lab coat wearing white guy who
    is younger than me

  • sinking

    you're like the ocean
    overflowing emotion
    i’m drowning in you

  • dreaming

    sleeping as i walk
    into your arms, not waking
    ‘til my dreams come true

  • enchantment

    lost in the forest
    of your eyes, cant tell the charms
    from the poison oak

  • regulate

    can we be friends first?
    because if you kiss me now
    it will ruin us

  • anxious attachment

    did you know you cause
    rainbows, butterflies, and storms
    in me with one breath?

  • drowning

    you’ve got ocean eyes
    turbulent and calming, did
    you know i’m drowning?

  • kisses

    my lover has lips
    full-blooded and pillowy
    that melt my insides

  • silence

    i enjoy your mouth
    in a few places, none are
    in conversation

  • sleep it off

    love notes penned in blue
    the color of missing you
    written on my skin

    and faded by dawn
    in time to recall there’s no
    sense in loving you

  • narcissistic "love"

    your sense of self was
    so inflated there wasn’t
    much room left for me

    in our fantasy
    life you drew up on post-its
    with dried adhesive

  • superficiality

    we spent all our time
    on the surface, going un-
    der felt like drowning

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Nature haiku