you are leaving again.
i find myself saddened without tangible reason.
and i know that with my sadness should come some joy,
and if not joy, 
then relief,
because when you are half the world away,
it becomes just a bit easier
to forget the times when you were so painfully closer.
i can look up at the moon — a pale phantom sliver —
and know that you do not gaze upon it at that same time.
in that moment,
the moon is mine.
i do not mind that the sun rises for you
so long as i cannot see it.
so i should breathe easy;
your absence gives me a little more room to love myself.

and yet —
there is always an “and yet” with you — 
when the easier breathing begs for entrance to my lungs,
i turn it away.
to forget you would mean to forgo grieving,
and god knows i live for a good ache.

so i think of you,
faultless in the dim yellow glow.
images i shouldn't call upon.
small, soft moments when you seemed to see me.
i remember the time when you crowned me with a halo, deemed me an angel.
i imagine that you are the only one who could ever make me believe that i fit the part.

glowing.
i don't know if you were but i was.
glowing.
if we have to share the moon, then so be it.

i find myself saddened without tangible reason.
this is the part where you come in.

but you are leaving again.
i could ask myself if you were ever truly "here,"
but it always hurts the most to ask the questions i already know the answers to.
so i think, instead,
of you,
faultless in the dim yellow glow.
the pain is a little bit more bearable.
i imagine that maybe you were glowing, too.

(a.m.)

.
Your dream that you just told me about,
where we went dancing on a frozen lake
in the middle of July
watching fireworks explode
beneath a canopy of linen scarves
raking leaves of orange and red
while new daisies bloomed
under the fresh fallen snow
coating the sandcastles we had built earlier in the day
beyond the dunes and circled in flip flop prints
in the fresh concrete sidewalk
poured outside of your neighbor’s house
on a Saturday in the rain,
catching candy thrown from a parade float
of paper flowers and moving dragonflies
parked along side the dinner
as we shared a chocolate milkshake
and a slice of pie?

Did we kiss at anytime during your dream?

If not, can we fall back asleep again?