When I say "I miss you"
it's not just an automatic response
like when people say
How are you I'mfine
or
It wasn't my fault
or
You have the right to remain silent!
These are just normal, day-to-day conversations
and I forget we need them sometimes
But
I do not have the right to remain silent
when after I write ten times how much I miss you,
and that I think about you every time I check the mail,
or make a peanutbutter sandwich,
and all you write is a lousy "Lol. K."
I do NOT have the right to remain silent
when how much I miss you is as big as the rain,
the rainbow, and the *** of gold at the end of it,
when how much I miss you hurts so much
that it makes me wonder what it feels like to not feel like this,
I will not remain silent when you just say,
'miss u 2'
because I miss you in that stalker-ish way
that the waiter misses serving you your morning coffee
because he thinks you're kinda cute
or the way that girl always finds a way to walk by you
even though you rejected her other other night
and she clearly isn't over you...
When I'm sick of how "I miss you"
doesn't make the universe
implode
and it's disappointing when you don't hear everyone in the world screaming "Yes" at
the same time
I want you to hear the silence
when you see me off at the airport, train station, wherever,
I want "I miss you" backwards to spell "Because, that's why"
instead of having a reason why I called you.
I want to not run out of things to say when I finally
call you
I want "I miss you" to mean
everything again, including, I love you, you're so awesome,
what does your new haircut look like, and unfortunately
our own lives are so messy
that distance no longer makes sense
But,
hey,
I guess our memories were worth it.

we have direct associations of
things long past and no
way to connect random
words. I wonder, then, why I always  think of peanut
butter when someone says winter
or I taste eggs when someone
mentions Christmas. I don't
even celebrate Christmas and
I taste caramel popcorn
and crisp wintermint and
what a cloud would taste
like. why is that? where do
our words go? others would taste fish when they hear
the word tooth
paste, or crave oranges when their feet first
hit pavement. if you're trying to fit the
words together, and see
why the bitter taste of chicory
is reminisced with coppery blood and
love, and you are sure your own word associations are
completely logical, one day you'll come across
the skeletons in closets, the snake slithering in the
greenest grass, things that mean
so little to you yet are bright points
of deep connection. you try to
fit the words together and
suddenly, you'll know. then.

I’ve had this long distance relationship for
a while, now
since sleep-
overs were a thing, literally, sleep – overs, when
I was just 8,
the flicker of my friend’s basement
TV taunting me to dare it to come
back, seeing
daylight hours I never
knew existed before,
and it intensified in
college, as you could
imagine, I’ve missed it
so much since it’s been gone
I know when I had it,
when it wasn’t hours away,
I let it
kiss my eyelashes
right before the moon rose
and hold me tighter than
any secret I’ve
kept (on purpose). without it now,
I’ve never
felt so abandoned-helpless.
In college,
especially in college, it
was a constant that
everyone in a relationship
couldn’t relate to, they’d go
out late at night, and I’d
go, too, missing it
missing sleep.
Sleep.
How I’ve missed you
Wished to
embrace you
every night that
everyone who didn’t bother
took for granted, greedily stuffing
themselves with it,
but insomnia
pushes sleep out
onto an ocean voyage to nowhere,
reminding me of my first sleepover, when
everyone but me lay silently on the floor,
while my exhaustion crept around the corners, drowning in the
moonlight,
and it’s like I can only hear
the ocean waves long enough
to taunt me back awake

I’m never sure. it’s sad. I know.
I want to be honest.
sometimes I’m too honest, honestly,
and in the wrong way. the worst way.
I want to be good. good at something
anything, really. I don’t know what.
maybe I’d be a good barista
or a good waitress. I don’t know.
sushi chef maybe? is that even
something that I’d want to do?
I hate when people say they do
“computers”. That’s not even DOING
something. That’s just a noun.
Can I say I do “books”??
Is your job too complicated to
explain to simple old me?
I need to work on being logical
with my heart. I need to start
believing in chances. I have a
poet’s eye, so why can’t I have
her ever-breaking heart? her
softasskin soul? her longing for
cold winters and sunbright lemonaid
her love of love?
I have a bitter feel of love. it’s
twisted into a harsh hatred. It’s
eaten by doubt. It doesn’t smile,
it blushes, it hides. I need to
re-coax love into existence.
so that when it opens up, it
recreates the boundaries
of safety that I so crave.
I want to be the fearless poet
that Frost examines in his woods
I want the flawed ***-ful poet
that Bukowski loves to paint
I want the darkest raven-breasted poet
that Poe tearfully wrote
or I want to be my own poet,
lost in thick dusty second-hand
bookstores, full of soggy stories
too heavy sometimes
to re-tell.

this summer was like
lucid dreaming an exorcism,
watching the little skeleton rise and scream and shatter
I bit into a mouthful of summer, expecting
sugar, and buttery love, but instead got a mouthful of
blood and broken teeth and shattered souls

but I’m playing my favorite song for you I know
you can’t hear it cuz you’re
too far away I sink into
the beats and my arms are
solid blocks Moving hurts from
missing
you
it’s my turn to stay now, and gently flip
my heart over, a warm toasted
color like the burnt amber
taste aspen leaves get at the end of spring
missing you is the white hot color
of fire yet the bubbles
of yesterday pop
their ice on my eyes You’re chuckling softly
I’m the words and melodies of our simple
bytimes, when you were here, once
singing and burning and becoming

new year isn't really
new it's a new cycle of all the
old in the world
old rotations of earth-sun-moon-stars-
old fruits to sprout & die at the breath of hope
old places trodden over by
new feet, worn by the curious who are conquering their fears.
old sounds permeate my senses & I wonder at a
time when they meant something
old year is a crouching beast, he is standing tip-toed in a liminal space between
new & new; old new and freshly
new, ink on parchment,
signs & names sealed and permanently set
the world cycles & returns.
people walk the earth & hold their hearts out for me to inspect
nothing is new here
just gone.