Beginning to Poem #1

I'm going to try something different. Due to some inspiration and needing to go back to my roots a little, I'm going to start poeming. However, what I want to do with this is post every draft, every note and eventually the polished end. All on my blog so that the writing process isn't behind closed doors. I implore and invite any additions/ critiques/ constructive or destructive criticism. I want this to be an open ended workshop piece. Could be interesting. Or I could get no responses and just have a really shitty first draft like most of my other pieces this year.

No title yet, just words, not even an ending yet:

You were 16
with the confidence of red woods and eyes
that made me wonder if you spent too much time watching the ocean.
You walked like the smell of waves and felt just as gentle
when I held you close to my heart
so you could hear what kept us flowing through my veins.
There were nights we'd stay up like this,
bundled up on couches or floors holding onto each other
like memories and I remember asking you what you believe in.
If there was anything that kept you from jumping out of my life
and falling into another mans arms.
If you had faith that this would last
or if we're simply going to be recycled newspaper.
And you told me you didn't know. That you
don't look that far ahead because there's too many things between us and
there and we should just focus on now.
So we began writing love notes in each others palms from that day on and
I don't think they ever went hand in hand.
You see I
wrote about your skin and the way your shoulder tastes in the morning and how sometimes, I would wake up before you
just to see how angels sleep and
you showed me that they snore and take up most of the bed but
they're still wrapped up in their wings.
I wrote about
our first kiss and how nervous I was to even look at you like
you were magnesium and I'd be blinded by starring directly at you
like sun light you let me know that
I can get sun spots from just being around you.
I wrote about how I would convince you to marry me,
how I would drive all the way to Colorado with a ring in my pocket
looking for the perfect spot to put it on your finger.
But I think your notes just had to do with now,
with this floor and this conversation see
you were 16
and you walked around like red woods but on the inside
you were tearing them down.
Your past was uprooting you from every bit of good that stumbled
into your life, you started forest fires
and you would burn down yourself with them but
keep just enough to be able to walk away.
To rest your chin on another mans chest
to hear the one thing you knew you could ignite inside someone else.

I needed to know you believed in something.
Just give me one reason
for every time you've said I love you.
Every time you've laid down your walls
so that I can see past them and get the real you and
I need to know one reason
why you cut me down from the pipe where I tried to hang myself
because I would have done it.
I would have leapt away from you and disappeared into
recycled newspapers and afterthoughts but you wouldn't let me.
You wouldn't wait behind that door while you heard choking
and bookshelves falling,
you had a reason then and I need to know it now.
If we aren't looking futures and we aren't looking for mountain tops
and rings and anything else but this moment,
I need to know that you
believe in us.

(I dont know where I was going with this. My idea was rooted in wanting to write a piece that amplifies my desire to save the majority of the girls I seek out in my life ((I've attempted numerous times with this topic but I dont think I've effectively done it yet)), but the direction kinda twisted and reversed a little. I'm not married to any of these lines, so telling me to erase a line or a stanza or the hole fucking thing is fine, as long as you give me something to work with. Dont leave me hanging!-bad pun- HELP)