I said I'd love you forever
and you came back 5 years later
begging me to prove it.
You were adamant that I recall every detail,
as I'd promised.
You asked your favorite color,
if I remembered the way you'd kiss me
one lip at a time.
I reached into the back of my mind,
to the room where I'd kept you
and all your idiosyncrasies
separate from the sun.
I braced myself for the slow burn
that would travel inevitably
through my hand from the doorknob.
Nothing came.
I pushed through the door
to your windowless room,
and found nothing but the dust that you deserved.

I said I'd love you forever.
I'm sorry,
I didn't realize I was lying.

I’m doing so well.
I offered you to Charybdis in exchange for my sanity.
Scylla too, at first, but she seemed too great an evil and I’m over it, I promise.
I’d rather watch you disappear into the maelstrom of my memory than
have to pick six pieces of your body from the crags in my head.

I’m doing so well.
I warned you of the Lotus Eaters
and took ten deep breaths when you peeked inside the bag of winds and blew our love astray.
I told a blind Polyphemus you were sorry for his loss.
He said Nobody is sorry, and I knew that he was right.

I’m doing so well.
I amble through Phoenicia on sidewalks that remember all the stories you told.
I bump into Nausikaa. She asks if I am Circe, and I tell her my name.
She drops her gaze to the pavement before admitting that you never mentioned me.

I’m doing so well.
I don’t spite the olives that dare to grow without our bodies entwined beneath them.
And I don’t mind when Antinous calls me ahead, begging me to finish our shroud - to leave the loom,
and us, behind.

I’m doing so well.
I buried all my anger in Kalypso’s wet sand
And as it followed you out to sea with the tide she came up and commiserated;
You left her once, too.

When I hear the word
Nostalgia;
I think of the trampoline
and how we weren't allowed
to put the sprinkler underneath
it; when anyone was home.
A ******* lab who knew
love
but never manners
and who never
wanted to learn,
especially not from us.
We laughed louder than we cried,
and he must have thought
those kids are doing
something
everything
nothing
right.
Watching my
big brother
land his first and
only kickflip while
discovering dew-wet worlds
in the bamboo shoots
that grew
inexplicably
in our Connecticut backyard.
Eating crab apples,
and never getting
too sick to want
another one.
Sitting in circle time
not knowing
that we were
the only
black kids
but knowing that
our parents loved us enough
to teach us themselves.
Walking outside on
the first day of spring,
and baking on the pavement like
fresh brown bread.
Days that started with
waffles and too much Aunt Jemima,
and ended, invariably,
with Sleepy Time Tea.

We love in a moment
and we marvel at our efficiency,
stretching seconds into years.
The sheer longevity,
the way time whispers her secrets
so that only skin can hear.
In years, I imagine,
I will stand under tepid water
and feel your absence
on the expanse of my rib cage.
Dipping softly into the well
of the sound of your voice before
drowning in it's silence.

In seconds (years), I'll resurface (recover).

Most nights
I want someone
whose hands will find a niche
in the hollows of my silhouette
where my hips kiss my ribs
hello and goodbye
and whose head will rest between *******
that he bared only hours before.

Most nights
I want to wake and say
"Hello, duvet - "
to the dizzy dark haired
man of my dreams.

But tonight,
I will sleep alone -
and not feel it.

Here is my soul, and here she will stay.
She clings to my ribs at the end of each day

She's fragile and small, she refuses to grow.
I'd ask her to leave, but she has nowhere to go.

She's the rush of my blood, the flush from inside
She has nothing to fear, and nothing to hide.

She loves the rain, and the wind from the west
She loved you too before you left.

She speaks to me when I'm alone.
If my body's a castle, she sits on the throne.

She taught me laughter, love, and light.
She never sleeps, although I might.

Sometimes I hate her, she's never wrong.
But I can't stay away for long.

I loved you once, I've loved him thrice,
but it's she who grips me like a vice.

And though I give my heart away,
here is my soul, and here she will stay.

you, are a new you.
and i want to fall asleep when you sleep
and only ever wake
to the sound of your gaze
as it drinks me in like water
and the touch of your wonder,
as it covers me with
the gossamer whisper
of lips grazing skin.