how does it feel
to make love to the
middle of the week?

to be a perfect stranger
to the one that makes you meek?

to kiss me in a peculiar fashion,
to miss me in the smallest of rations,
to touch me with the maddest passion?

how does it feel
to have left with reason
but still want more,
more throughout the season?

everyone tells me that the reason we ended just means that something better is waiting for me...but i don't see how someone could be any more perfect than you were, darling? were we just stepping stones necessary to get us to where we are really meant to be? . . .

i remember writing that we fell into each other in july

do you recall when i read to you that i hoped we would fall in love in october?

it's november now, the world a dazzling gallery of crimson, gold, & rust...

i sent an invite to your new address for a rooftop rendezvous

glasses of peach wine & dozens of little red cards

a requested reminiscing...an appointed questionnaire in regard to our past life spent like impulsive racehorse bets

the leaves fall from damp branches to the dark earth like new loves blooming, but everyone knows nothing new blooms during the autumn

"meet me on the rooftop when the jack-o-lanterns turn to cornucopias but before the first frost nips at your fingertips"

and we can catch up & remember the memories, we can laugh and watch the condensation from our breath rise up to the gray autumn sky in clouds like chimney smoke from the rooftops

"meet me on the rooftop when the thought of us no longer makes me cry but before i forget what it felt like to care too much"

and we can scream our favorite songs & recall the times i tripped over every crack in the ground, we can talk for hours about anything, everything & how pineapple belongs on pizza, as we watch the families eat dinner around their tables & create elaborate fiction about their cookie-cutter lives...

"meet me on the rooftop when the autumn leaves are wind-driven but before they are a distant memory as they rest beneath the soft white winter blanket . . .before i forget what you look like...before i forget your middle name...before i forget the sound of your voice" . . .

you said good morning
& smiled that butterfly-inducing smile
knowing you would break my heart
just hours later...

you approached my car that night
knowing you would break my heart
just minutes later...

you embraced me into your big arms
& squeezed tightly
even though you knew you'd let me go
just moments from then...

you stood there with a sad glaze in your eyes,
an agenda & dressed in your best funeral suit...
skinny jeans & a denim jacket, i can still see it...

did you know all along that you would eventually
not want me?
don't say i didn't warn you...

you made a fool out of me as i stood there in front of you,
heart full of hope, eyes full of light & hands holding
a birthday cake i baked just for you...
but little did i know it wouldn't be eaten
at a birthday party, but rather for my funeral

you walked me around the mall
christmas lights & the stars twinkling
all around us like magic...
i was such a fool to think you'd choose me...
i kept my right hand unoccupied & fallen to my side
in case you wanted to hold it again...
but you never did...hands in your pocket
& handing me back the photo of us in the little golden locket...

i know you didn't want to, i know you didn't mean
for your words to take the light right out of my eyes
but you took my heart out of my chest, showed it to me
& crushed it in front of everyone walking past us in a blur...
it fell to the ground & the shattered pieces scattered across the cobblestone pavement beneath your winter boots

i fell to the ground with tears
turning my brown eyes into kaleidoscopes of despair...
the world spun as i struggled to find the words to get you to
stay stay stay . . .

instead to trying at all, all i could say was "that's okay..."
but you knew it wasn't...you knew it wasn't.
you knew i wanted us to work but you couldn't just leave the
knife in, you had to twist it too...

i told you i was so happy with you...but all you could say was, "i'm sorry i have to be the one to take that happiness away"...but i hoped you'd one day return it to me only to realize it was always mine to have but never mine to keep...

i watched as you got back into your car
with your cake in your hands
dressed in your best funeral suit,
smiling as i told you "i'll be okay"

i sat & watched as your car got smaller in the distance
as you drove home like you just ran an errand...

skinny jeans & a denim jacket,
i can still see it...
i can still hear it...
i can still feel it . . .

i know what you wanted
under the light of the moon

the summer of summers,
a lifetime cut short too soon

that night that you kissed me
after the circus,
it felt like i finally had a purpose

your lips, my lips
one touch & i'm left wordless

parking lot seagulls,
but we rose above the flock,
swooning, swooping, & flying high like eagles

i don't normally just say things out of the blue
but with you it's natural, with you i just do

i don't normally like rollercoasters
but darling, with you i'd ride them forever
like a teenager loves her boy band posters

now that you're gone
i can't help but think i've done something wrong,
if i wrote all that i feel
this song would be way too long

i don't normally drink
don't allow myself to even think,
i don't normally drink
but darling, i'm wasted on you

sharing bites of mac & cheese
love, i'd let you back in
all you have to say is please

if i can't have you by my side,
i'd end up dreaming of us each night

i don't have you by my side,
they say i'm living, but i call that dying

i can't have you by my side,
if i told them you were, i'd be lying

getting tipsy 'til i'm dizzy
off the wine we once bought,
even while everything's a blur
it's only you i never forgot

i close my eyes
& can still remember the taste
of peach on your tongue,
when i'm old i swear i'll look back
& still remember when we were young

i don't normally drink
don't allow myself to even think,
i don't normally drink
but darling, i'm wasted on you

you left me for your darker days,
but darling tell me
were they brighter with me in them?

i thought we were fighting,
but it turned out we were just dying
tell me how it's somehow worse
that we were never playing or lying?

you had to go
when i wanted us to grow,
i wondered what we'd be like in the snow,
i'll never have a christmas with you
so i guess we'll never know

i don't normally drink
don't allow myself to even think,
i don't normally drink
but darling, i'm wasted on you

top off the glass,
"the sorrow won't last",
you should be here with me
laughing & dancing beneath this northern rain,
with nothing to lose & everything to gain

nothing feels right
knowing you were going to be here
until you decided you shouldn't,
how is that worse than the fact that you couldn't?

one...three...ten or thirteen,
whisky & wine
until i say "i'm fine, i'm fine..."

i don't normally drink
don't allow myself to even think,
i don't normally drink
but darling, i'm wasted on you

i ran from the cabin & into the woods,
i thought i saw us among the trees
what we once had, they never understood

running, chasing, searching, falling...
my friends had to stop me
& tell me it was nothing

i don't normally drink
don't allow myself to even think,
i don't normally drink
but darling, i'm wasted on you

i don't normally drink
don't allow myself to even think,
i don't normally drink
but darling, i'm wasted on you

summer of sprinklers & sparklers

empty, sullen, somber autumn air

dark gray is the only color left

as the sky weeps like our loved ones

who question why...why...why did they have to go?...

when i can't sleep at night i still ask myself the same thing.

it isn't exactly comfortable enough to dream here in this 3 x 7 oak box.

this isn't how i want to remember us.

the yellow rose was a fallacy...the roses left at our grave are wilting & oozing black tears...

no one has visited in a while or changed out the water let alone leave new flowers

only brown leaves swirl in circles, dancing across the damp earth, intertwined with the mist & fog from the bog

i wish i could at least dance with your ghost but you haven't come out, not once.

i roam the grounds alone, staring up at the stars wondering if i could have spared us this grim ending...

and this isn't how i want to remember us.

my tears nurture this soil, making baby's breath bloom everywhere they fall beneath my bare frostbitten toes.

even though our fire dimmed to death these bones still ache for it's warmth

i swear i was going to love you...and i could swear you did too...

it was an open casket, you lied there with your eyes closed but darling i was still looking at you...searching for a sign of reversal...

did you see the look of shock & dismay on their faces at our wake?...or how many tears were shed at our burial?

no one saw this coming, not even us...not even you.

that may be the worst part.

i may have been a poet but not even i could have rewritten our narrative,
no amount of adjectives or metaphors could have resurrected our story.

but this is not how i want to remember us.

our headstone remains unwritten as they move your body to the countryside...my cheeks sink in & limbs all decay

and though we're long gone, they can still see me with a shovel at 11:11 when the moon illuminates the earth...weeping with the sky... still trying to resurrect what we used to be . . .