Lying embedded in velvet gloom and night,
You and I are gazing up the northern hemisphere.
Within the sea of darkness is the stars' stained light.

Hidden inside the fabric of interstellar space,
Might be a kind of universal truth
That answers all the questions of human race.

Sensing the pull of the universe
I feel like we're lost between the infinite vastness
That none of us could ever dream to traverse.

Suddenly you get up on your knees -
Head in the sky and feet on the ground.
“Perhaps the stars only made us feel lost,
because we both wanted to be found.”

Sometimes you have no reason to stay,
and realize that's a perfect argument to go.
And that taking an entirely new way,
is the sore but single method to grow.

If you're washed-on abeyance's bight,
and you feel decision's heavy heft:
To choose the left where nothing's right,
or go to the right where nothing's left.

Remember it matters not where you proceed,
or which mountain you want to ascend.
It does not matter whether you succeed,
it is the journey that matters in the end.

place your head on my lap, love
and I'll read you Baudelaire
you'll drink wine on the grass
my fingers dancing through your hair

your eyes could never betray
the feelings that you hold
they whisper to me thoughts
of what we've left untold

I want to bathe in your golden warmth
drink the elixir of your lips
please allow our love to flourish
if only in the wilds of our scripts

your eyes, your lips, your words
slake my growing thirst
while my very soul sails forward
the seas of your attraction submerse

so lay down with me, my love
and I'll read you Baudelaire
my passion for you
is found everywhere

monogamy means I am a thing
an object possessed by someone else
their trophy, their conquest
their maid and chef, too

I want to be loved, not owned
held loosely and with courage
treasured, valued, and desired
instead of confined to chains

monogamy is stifling
monogamy is jealous
monogamy is cruel
monogamy is immuring

I have always been your everything
rather than comforting, it's exhausting
love is complex but not binding
and sometimes love isn't enough

fifty years down the road
will I regret the time I've spent
being inauthentic and forced
living someone else's dream?

I talk to you as though you're still here
in the room with me, watching me work
I tell you about all of the things you've missed:
my acceptance to grad school and thesis
how I've started watercolour painting
and learning Japanese
reading Rilke and writing poetry again
you would've loved that

and I tell you about grief and loss and death
how I should've stayed with you that day
I saw your heart shatter and break
you were gone just a week later
I had never seen anyone in so much pain
but when I held your hand and said I was there
I swear I felt you try to squeeze it back still
even through your dyspnea and delirium

I still see you, you know?
when I look in the mirror it's not my face
but yours looking back at me
and when I write they are not my words
but yours reflected back on the page
and sometimes, when I am quiet enough
I can hear your replies to me, too
and you talk to me, as though you're still here

I'M MAKING nachos in your toaster oven. The chips fall in the pan without a problem. Beans, evenly distributed (if I do say so myself.) Salsa- good to go. Then the cheese. Generic brand shredded cheese blend. I dangle my (washed) fingers into the zip-lock bag, grab a generous pinch and rain mild cheddar down on my gourmet meal. And I feel the tears building. "No," my conscious scolds, "you will not cry over shredded cheese." I add another pinch for flavor, then another to assert dominance. I slide the pan into the tiny oven- triumphant! But the next task breaks me. I freeze when I try to adjust the heat setting. I hear your voice so clearly, like you're still calling from the next room: "you have to press the TOAST button, it cooks much faster."  The tears start to roll. I think about how excited you were when cheese bubbled perfectly- "just a little brown, ever so slightly crispy." We would joke about your persnickety preferences, likely a product of your superior taste. Of course, you would have appreciated anything I made for you, but it was always better when the dish matched the idea in your head...when I made it like you would have made it (if you were only well enough to cook for yourself again.) In the present, I poke the TOAST button and flee the kitchen as to not cry in front of the smothered chips. I sit on the sofa and break down, gasping in childish sobs. "I miss her," I wail to an empty house. Warm tears coat my cheeks in the air-conditioned room. I feel so small. I feel so foolish for crying over stupid, little things. I feel so... so... A bell dings in the kitchen. I wipe my sleeve across my face and traipse back to the toaster. Hand into oven mitt, mitt onto pan, pan onto table. I grab the plastic tubs of sour cream and guacamole from the fridge and a spoon from the drawer that sticks a little when you try to open it. I pick the non-wilted bits off the head of lettuce and rinse them under the faucet. I finish the recipe. I pull out a chair. I sit down to nachos for one.

is there a plan to this design
constraint within space and time
the clouds, the flowers, the trees, and sea
cannot be made for only me

so tell me please what do you know
when we die do our souls flow
become stardust in the sky
or has that been just a lie

maybe we're all in a dream
and nothing is as it seems
and when my body becomes slack
and my world fades to black

I want to believe there might be more
only one lifetime with you I deplore
a thousand lifetimes may be enough
but having just one makes it tough

in case this is my lone chance
I cannot leave life to circumstance
I know I wish to hold you dear
and have you in my life year after year