did I love you first, or best or most  
only the wind knows  
  
can I track love’s course, measure  
its comings and goings in  
charts and pin marks or  
  
turn back my rotations to weigh  
all my heart’s prized indiscretions  
as if my balances weren't  
strewn with kissed fingerprints  

all I really know is that in  
those hazy dream days  
my answer was yes-  
the best youth knew how  

and when the wind tastes  
like summer honey sweat  
I still miss you

Was it love or desperation?
I can't remember the distinction.  

When you're starved
each crumb feels like grace.

Each small affection
a fervent offering
to a broken beggar.  

But at this point,  
I'll take what little
I can get.

The difference between us is simply this:

If they were to take all of you.
Distill down the essence of your smile
and the imaginative gears that whir
behind your eyes.
Add to it the bits of you scattered over the years-
your writing and art,
the stories of you that others
hold in their hearts,
and press it
into the pages of a book.

Binding you would form a
monstrous and unwieldy volume,
threatening the life of even the most
robust of coffee tables.
It would be called
“Anthology of THE Girl”

And if they did the same for me,
the book would be considerably
smaller,
and plain.
Titled: “poems to **** yourself to”

Ruminating failures
a blender inside my head  

My mind drips down  
into my hands and  
I feel the grit of regrets  
between my fingers;  
slick like oil  
with flecks of sand and glass  
the greasy residue of every moment  
grimy and sharp.  

The ineffable instant  
pooling on my fingertips;  
when fate’s trajectory skews
and twists along my intestines.
Because I know-
that what I’ve done    
cannot be reversed  
or erased.    

That I have created an apex around which  
history will revolve. A fixed point    
in the vastness of eons from which  
every other thing will spin out.  
A collapsing star- whose dying light  
will shine in the black memory of the sky  
for a million  
million  
years.  

So I sit under a sky full of blown out suns  
and feel the glint of dead lights  
between my fingers.

you always made it look easy  
to pry back your corners,  
carve out a piece of your heart  
and transform it into soulsong  
Your words and rhymes laying perfectly over your intentions  

snapshots of your soul  
painted in love and pain and blood,  
whispers in your synonyms and syllables.  
I saw your soul laid bare, and in my heart it was just for me  
each of your tomes a secret glimpse to savor  
so brash to see myself in some  
and cowardly to hope absent from others  

so I wrote.  
stumbling after your eloquence,  
fumbling and unpracticed  
without any of your skill or precision,  
clawing at myself for something  
I could offer, to speak to you  
in your own language  
as if some small piece of you still belonged to me  

which makes you my muse  
of a sort I suppose  
For truly every time that I wrote  
I wrote for you.  
not for you, but to you  
to read me and know me  
my heart pressed between the pages of a book  

and we communed  
as close as 1’s and 0’s would permit  
through lines on a screen  
never able to reach past our fingertips  
a call and response  
in codes and comment boxes.  
A secret conversation between us,  
that not even we spoke about  
until we didn’t speak at all  
but I can still find you in the lines  
and imagine you are talking to me

I cannot love you but I do.  

I cannot hold you or feel you under my fingertips  

I cannot run my hand from your shoulder down your arm,  
slip my fingers into yours and clasp hands  

I cannot quench my lips with yours  
or taste you on my tongue  

I cannot feel your warmth under the sheets on winter nights  
or the cool of your breath on my neck in summer  

I cannot see you in the morning, hair tousled and sleep in your eyes  
or when you walk around the house so casually  
scant, pretending you don't know that it drives me wild  

I cannot find my world in you at the end of the day  
or quicken my heart when I hear your keys in the door  

I cannot wipe your tears or hold you when the world is broken  

I cannot share the joy and sadness in us both, as one  
who understands the scars on your arms and  
on your soul  

I cannot call your name in passion  
or for comfort in the middle of the night  
or see the promise in your eyes as the syllables tumble over my lips

I cannot hear your voice with its bubbly and sultry intonations  
whispering songs and secrets to me  
or get lost in it's sound for hours  

I cannot love you in my arms,  
So I will love you in poems and memories and dreams  
and sing a song for you in the silence

will you come to my funeral?  
I'd like to imagine that you would.
but you probably won't even know that I'm gone  
until months or years have held me underground

it would be fitting
in some morbid irony
to have our many intersections,
always crossing at bad timings or circumstance,
be punctuated with the greatest chasm of all
the last time that you see me

but at least I won't be there to **** it up
Anymore