the new cat litter box
sits alone
in the corner by the door

where you last left
for good

with your shoes
and your cat
and some potatoes
I cooked for you

I am too neurotic
you said
thoughtless and rude

the perpetual thinker of the
unimportant

obsessing over how big a one cm
canker sore is and is it maybe cancer instead

and it's true
I worry constantly

for the past ten years
while we played out this game
of cat and mouse
I worried I'd never see you again

never have you here
never feed you
never laugh with you
never hear you tell me
don't worry honey
my little worry wart
you are okay
don't worry so much
I'm here...

but the truth is
you are not

you were more annoyed
than amused
more angered than empathetic
more certain than not

so you took the cat
and my dreams
and you left

at some point
I'll clean out the litter box
and crawl under my bed
to find the little stuffed white
mouse
I bought for Billie Holiday

and I'll put it away
save it somewhere
to find in a year or two
on some quiet gray Sunday
afternoon
and maybe for that moment
forget to worry about anything
at all

sometimes i like to pretend
that if you had bound books
in some life before this,
i was the story
you (again and again)
continued to stitch.

and when i was finished,
you would brush my spine softly
then unravel me,
just to piece me
back together again.

you told me to stop chasing,
but you didn't say to give up.
since then i have stopped
clawing my way through the galaxies
to get to you--

instead, i hooked myself to the last star
you painted your name on
(and i will never stop waiting there
for you to return).

all i ever want to do
is stay up all night
and play guitar with you.

it'll be easy to forget you
                                   (he said)
i would have preferred a simple
                  ********
            instead.

we could have fallen in love.

under different circumstances
(if i were there or
you were here)
we would have been something
                                           beautiful,
because you're the boy
who writes me poetry that
makes me feel
not so alone,
and i'm the only girl who's ever felt
so sure about a boy like
you.

it's a shame distance is the only line
i don't know how to cross.

one that burns too fast
  one that burns to last