I am tired of breaking my spine to fit your perfect posture.

egg white clouds
hatched
their young
the
baby chick yellow sun

and should this night find you alone
staring into the abyss
shivering in the chill of hopelessness
fire the candle
dip the quill
and speak to me
for i await your solitary tear
your desperate moment
giving rise to the beauty that cries
deep within the soul
of the poet

do you know
i think of you
in my saddest moments
bittersweet memories
fill my head

but i feel no comfort
with these thoughts of you
only reminders
of where my sadness
was planted.

As the train pulled away
a strikingly familiar note
filled the air
and you were part of me

a part that let
the better version of us live
and yet could keep us whole

the distance settled
in a light precipitation
drenching gray into the day

as I lost sight of the train
and walked back
three miles into a memory
to mark the last page
in our story
the page we failed

You sink holes into my chest,
burning goodbyes into my flesh
with the ends of cigarettes;
little ashy reminders that
people are temporary.
And like the smoke that
curls from your lips,
tracing the very distance
between you and the December sky;
you escape me.