promise me,
you said,
promise you'll be happy*
and I did,
and I promised to love you
and to breathe without you
and whatever else you needed
to hear
and I kept my promises, I did,
but my god, if missing you
could be measured in tears
I could fill
and refill
every ocean.

If I wrote a poem for
      you
              every time you crossed
                 my mind
I would never be without a
           pen in my hand.

But as it stands
        my mind has stopped

   finding words to  put on
      paper

but my heart knows

how
       I feel

and how
                I think
about
     you

every time I
     take an order
             for a Left-hand
                     Milk-Stout
    at the restaurant
         where I now work

I have let human beings become my ruin.

your love is too tainted
[by the memory of a boy
who will never be more
than a memory]
to give anybody else.