it's funny when you think about it:

of all the wasted words spilled between the two of us
and all the pens i used up,
     in scribbles by my bedside,
and all the keys i tapped,
     in a maniacal panic during sleepless nights,
and all the phrases and sentences and paragraphs spent
trying to capture her and her mind on paper,

the last words I ever read by her,
a short story written for a class I took many years before her,
were really, really awful.

thought i was ok.

then that picture came up—
the one of you smirking
with your brow slightly notched.
and i remember
that time we sat on that hammock
and talked about life,
and kissed on the roof,
and ****** in your bed,
and we looked at each other,
and you gave me that smirk.

after i finish beating myself
up I remember
that time we sat on your bed
and you said "affection shuts me down"
and i rubbed your head
and i said goodbye–
i checked my phone
to see if you had made a mistake;
to call me back
to talk to you,
to kiss you,
to *******.
the screen just smirked back.

I stood
vastly alone in the center of a massive torrent of people and chewing-gum-stained walkways.
I looked
up at the red brick behemoths with metallic teeth dripping freon-compressed drool onto unsuspecting charlatans.
I wondered
what life was like in this storm before their gentle hum breathed life into each apartment, all while the sun scorched the windows.

the ceiling above me is an egg shell white.
i know this because i painted it.

at night,
thanks to the glow of my twenty-first-century typewriter,
it is gray.

but not the ghastly gray of a winter's sky––
not the reminding gray of an old man's hair––
the gray of charcoal from a pencil that writes too faintly.
faint enough that you squint to force it out against the pure white behind it and the blue line below it.
and when it appears to you, formed and shaped and sounded out,
it tells you everything you needed to hear.

shouting is usually the first thought
-- A fit of wonton rage at your inexplicable beauty and charm that my fragile feeble and all together fickle mind can't contain.
But I step back.

That's insane.

So I admire.
From afar.

Because that's easier, after all.

"totally one with nature."
she typed into her iPhone.

it hit me sometime later that graduation is life's greatest metaphor.

you show up early confused about where to go
you stand in a line that you're not sure you belong in
you march, following your peers, hoping you're going the right way
you fill out a form so someone older than you can correctly pronounce your name
you sit around and listen to adults talk, but you don't really pay too much attention
your name is called, a few people clap
then it's over.  

and you stand outside and ask:

"what now?"