The truth is
I stopped believing in you months ago
but the heartbeats that you lay
on your mattress are the most beautiful
sounds that I have ever heard -
so I wait for you to reach
for me through the dark,
I wait for the press between
your ******* and sigh into my own -
I dream that we will stop
doing what we’re told
and live in a land where
sadness is only a visitor
and I can love you until our tongues
are tired and our stomachs are fed.

& when I think of your hands
nervous around a coffee cup
somewhere in Ridgewood, Queens,
I understand what it feels like
to grieve;
I know what it means to set aside
the most fragile things
like they aren't worth anything,
even when they are.

I will light
a cigarette on a sunny morning,
musing about my own mortality.
And you
still child,
will roam about the earth
unknowing of the venom spreading.
They
will try to put out the light,
sixteen years of grass-playing
stomach-laughing,
beautiful caress of the Earth
felt wholly by myself.
There is no doubt
that when you leave,
I will follow along
wherever you lead.

I am living
and each moment is a reminder
of my fragile strength
and loving you in lengths,
uneven and lovely
all the same.
I want to read to you,
sing to you,
to scratch for you at the door.
I want to stick you to all the boards
in my kitchen,
to see through you
and into you like a breath.
I want to paint you in this moment
so I'll never forget
the lights on your hollows
and the teeth in your vowels.
But you are miles away,
living with a different name -
no longer named lover,
now just a friend.
I am greedy
waiting for our cycle to end -
when I can kiss you
on the mouth
and turn you inside out
once again.