they say you only dream of things your brain knows,
but i dream of holding your hand
and running my fingers through your hair.
i wake up startled
and struggle to breathe.

never mind.
i dont dream.
i only have nightmares.

a.h.d.

i dreamt you could love me again,
that you had a big studio apartment in the city
and you bought her lots of gifts,
made her go thrifting with you
to buy strange clothes,
but she knew you loved someone else,
she knew you missed me
and that you would always be mine,
and although i woke up
and not a bit of it was true
(because i know you love her
and that you don’t think about me)
it was still nice to live in a world
where your heart had not
forgotten my name.

and here i am again
at the intersection
of pedestrian language
& old wives tales
swallowing gum
like 7 year memories
opening umbrellas inside
cause i can't seem get away
from all of this rain
i ******* with my left hand
cause i was told
back in highschool that
"it feels like someone else is doing it"
it gets me wondering
about the difference between
losing you and finding out
that some one else found you
or my sleep
or lack thereof
its starting to tear me apart
i keep having this dream
where you are in
an unfamiliar body of water
trying to wash my poetry
off of your hands
or the one where
something happens in my chest
every time you sit
on someone else's bed
i'm tired of feeling like something you've misplaced
but don't have the heart
to look for anymore
tired of you saying my name
like you're trying to bury it
i'm tired of wondering
if you can tell the difference
between the absence
of my voice & silence
the other day
i almost started sobbing
at work when a woman
asked me about
our equipment
i was explaining how
things come apart
and almost mentioned your name
it made me think
of how you used to say
things like "what would you do
if i showed up on your doorstep
one day?" now, i haunt
the windows in my house
i don't leave for weeks at a time
i sit on the porch like the dog
you didn't shoot behind the shed
the one that refuses to die
until you come home again
i told somebody once, that
you didn't even know
what my voicemail sounded like
i wonder if they thought
it was because you
are so important that i never
let it ring that many times
before picking up
or if you dont know
what it sounds like
because you've never called
you can't be the ****** weapon
and the search party
i'm tired of all the seats
to the ferris wheel in my chest
being empty
tired of your voice
being the one i look for
in abandoned places
that one sound i beg
to bounce back
down vacant hallways
i just seem to stand there
in all of that quiet
like someone looking for a mistake
on an eviction notice
so i guess the hardest part
isn't letting go
it's forgetting
you ever had a grip
in the first place
and since you've been gone
i wonder if when
you pushed yourself away from me
you used your left hand
so it felt like someone else did it

numbers are either big or small
935 is a big number
considering if you have 935 elephants in your bedroom
but 935 is a small number
considering if there's 935 fish in the sea
and there are far less pencils in your backpack
than 935
and far more mosquitoes in Alberta
than 935
but 935 is an enormous number
counting the miles between me and you
and 935 is a minuscule number
when measuring how much my heart aches when you're gone
and when asked how it feels to miss you
i will always reply with
"like 935 tons weighing on my heart"
'cause if i had the chance,
i would love you 935 times over
and i would choose you
in 935 other lives
and in a crowd of 935 people
i would only look for you
and i would cry 935 tears each night
just for you to love me back

numbers are either big or small
and 935 is neither

a.h.d.