That darkness we talked about
The place you’d said
I’d never be alone
That you’d be by my side
I’m going into now
Without you
I’ll leave a trail
For you to find me
Even though you’ve been gone
For quite awhile now
Hope I see you there
Someday

Do you remember the 3:14am train
From across town growing up?
I’d turn on the radio and someone
Had changed it
Those mornings would play some AM station out of North Dakota
Fuzzy
But it would come in
The horn of the train would
Blast
One last time five minutes
Later
And I’d drift off to sleep again
Wake
To find the radio was turned off
Attic
Cleaned it out when I was 12
Plastic Flowers
Had no dust upon them
In that attic
It’s when I saw the ghost
Of her
Put it all together as an
Adult
She
Was the one who changed
The station and turned off
My radio after I fell back asleep
She loved her jazz
Her
Duke Ellington

I can’t wait sometimes
For this life to end
So I can ask
God
Allah
Buddha
Great Spirit
Hey Zeus
Steve McQueen
Jack Kerouac
Coronado Cortez
All those *******
Just why
Why
They gave you to me
To love for only
A small amount of time

The only answer I’ll accept
The only answer I’ll believe
From any of those *******
Would be:
‘Because I just felt like ******* with your heart...’

In All sincerety
Modesty
Accolades
And so on so forth

I hope you find a singular
Voice
Underneath all that rubble
Of life
That single
Spark in the forest
That brings it all down
The gold brick
In the Great Wall
Titanium pebble
In the Saharas
Extinct prehistoric fish
Swimming freely in the
Aegean
I hope you find
Your voice
Your stature
Your lungs
Your foothold
Amongst the selfish selfies
The boss
The Instafaces
Greedy
Nonchalants
Unenigmatic
Drunkards and Takeaways
You’ll know them
You’ll break Bread with them
You’ll dance with them
When you’re younger
Know when to get up from
The table
And feast upon yourself

You ask if I’m jealous
That you’ve had lovers
One night stands
Men who never asked
For your name

To which I reply
‘I’ve had you 1000 times...
‘And plan on a million more...
‘You’ve never seen a heart like mine...
‘Nor has the 1000 bodies between us...

A man at 40
I can honestly say
Still in love with the woman
From when I was 20
Two decades
Twenty years past
10+10
Drive past the house you grew up in
Hoping
Praying
That you’ll come out of it
Our tree is still here
Our initials too
EK
EL
What’s gone
That restaurant we held hands in
That gravel road we made love on
Is paved now
Your old phone number
Just rings and rings
That shirt you bought me
On my 21st
Probably in a landfill
That shoebox full of our Polaroids
1998
Selfies
Gone too...
But you
So far away
Close to my heart
On good days
Are gone too