I'm just a young man
With big dreams
And a heart that keeps growing
In size for his young lady,
Who has her own problems-
Dreams notwithstanding.

Yesterday she genuinely smiled
Something that lit the town bright
The way her lips curved to the left
Before the right reminded me
Of the days she never knew you

Tonight, believe it or not, but she laughed
Her laugh could be heard from a mile
It was so loud,
Contagious,
And it whispered the word "content" into the winds
The kind you would hear after you kissed her lips
Or at least when you used to press your lips upon hers

And tomorrow you will see her glow with happiness
The kind you see from a lonely child who finally felt love
Beautiful, exquisite, pulchritudinous, just to name a few
Those are the words that will come across your mind
When you see her pass you by

By then I will feel sorry for you
Because she finally moved on
She finally saw her true worth---her true beauty
And I will look at you and feel sorry
She overlooked your flaws, past, and mistakes.
She forgave you for your stupidity countless times
Accepted your selfishness and narrow mindedness
She made sacrifices for you,
MADE time for you when she had none,
Adjusted her life to make things work for you
To make things work with you
All those things that you could not do for her.

But now, you are nothing but a piece of her past,
A memory that is constantly fading,
An old flame that long disintegrated,
A photograph that has fallen on the back of her desk,
Or maybe you're all of that.

No. You are all of that.
And I feel sorry for you.
So sorry that you lost an amazing person
Someone who accepted every part of you,
Was willing to put up with everything,
Change her ways to make things work,
Someone who didn't give up so easily, and
Someone who would have never given up on you
The way you did with her.

while september cicadas
were singing my neighbors to sleep
i was up walking holes in my shoes
over love once lost
so many poems ago
that the only thing i remember
about the house at 38th & bluestone
is that it reeked of alcohol and is
as i'm sure of it
still saturated in perfume
and abandoned laughter
but that's not the point
give me a minute
what i'm trying to say
is i always thought god
enjoyed watching things leave me
it makes me wonder
what was on his mind
that night in september
when i stooped to cough
or tie my shoelaces
i no longer remember why
but i recall their trajectory
the way gravity cradled my hands
and brought them crashing back to earth like a 747
they landed inches away
from a scrap of crumpled loose leaf
folded in half like the smiles
of my relatives on a holiday truce
you see, lately i've been looking for scars in the newspaper
i find myself checking the obituary
for my former selves since the day i found your suicide letter
maybe that's why i can never explain my obsession with history
maybe archeology is just a funeral
in reverse
maybe hell is just rewinding home movies
or watching confetti
turn back into photographs
i never told anyone
the reason the doors to the gun cabinet in my family's house are locked not because they are afraid
i will take my life
but because sometimes
i sing them birthday songs
on the day you died
it makes me think
of how rooms only echo
when they are empty

*you know
i never echoed until you died

I claim to have empathy
But I also know I'm lacking.
I chuckled when you said
You'd marry him
You're in high school, sweetie
And when it didn't work out
I wasn't at all surprised.
When you ******* about your life
My mind was on mine
When you made every small problem
Bigger than it needed to be
My thoughts immediately said
"It could've been worse"
But my mouth didn't dare.
And then you have the gaul to tell me
That I'm being pessimistic and whiney
After all the times I bit my tongue
In front of you?
Sorry honey,
But I can falsify empathy for you.
If it's sympathy you want
Go look elsewhere.