I think of you
like hands think of folding;
like birds think of singing.
I think of you
without meaning,
in the middle of my sentence;
while I'm standing in line.
I think of you
and my heart sounds off
dangerous rhythms
reminiscent of your words.

I think of you
and I wilt in remembrance
of something like love
that we beat to death
with words like sledgehammers
and glances like knives.

I think of you,
and I try not to miss you
too much.

I'm growing weary
of wayward glances
and haphazard fingers.
I crave hands that grip
and fold around my edges,
if only so that I can tear them away.

I'm growing weary
of false prophets and
kisses that are sweet
as wild raspberries.
Give me words that scald
and love that makes me question
everything I've ever wanted.

I'm growing old
and still feeling like a child.
Fickle and temperamental,
I brush away men like flies
to waste away in a mirage
of my own creation.

You stitched your name
upon the black walls
of my mind,
casting shadows
of folded hands
and unmentionable
fallacies
over the wide open spaces
in the whites of my eyes.

and I cringed
at your fingertips;
wilting
like the frost bitten crocuses
in my neglected garden;
receding into the relative safety
of silence,
soft as the echo
of an empty room,
bitter as a bird
who has forgotten
how to sing,
enduring
as the memories
of your hands
around my throat.

I can see right through you;
the cogs turning
within your chest
as though your flesh
were naught but
glass and mirrors.

I can see those things
that you wanted to keep
shut up inside of you-
the black melancholia
that pulls at your skin
and the voices
you keep trying to hush.

I can see through you,
all of you,
into landscapes
less numinous
when superimposed
over barren ground
and eyes that glint
like topaz.

Listless airwaves
wreak havoc across
my sun scorched
landscape.

I bend into
snapdragon
position,
lilt like August wheat
and regroup,
regenerate
my amphibious
limbs.

But I am not bold
or strong
or any of those things
that you said
when you were trying
to talk me back
from the precipice
of my jagged mind.

I am pigeon toed
and meek,
stuffing sticky sweet
secrets
into the cracks
of my palms
and turning my face away
from the lights.

I am not,
I am not
any of those things
that you said,

but I'm trying;

You come and you go,
repetitive dream motions
driving a picture of
your face
into my little mouse heart.

Apparition of sleepless nights,
you smile- drop your bags
on my bedroom floor.
I nursed your broken bones
and kissed your fingertips,
crushing the passage of
time in my small hands
like so many impatiens.

And then came the storm clouds,
and you traveling north-
leaving no trace
of what once was;

only memories
like ashes
dissolving
in the rain.

and suddenly it was as though
all of those fleeting moments
that I had been grasping for,
all of those feelings
slipping through my periphery,
all of those things
that I could never quite
taste-
they came rushing into me.

And suddenly, I understood
what it was that was escaping me.
I knew exactly what it felt like
to see my heart beating
in someone else's body;
I heard my thoughts
spilling across your lovely lips
and saw my spark
reflected in your eyes,
speaking languages
that I wanted to learn.

I spilled forth all of the rusted,
mildewed things that were hiding
in the recesses of my memories,
and I held them up to the light
and let you touch them,
turn them over and hold them.

And that old feeling
in the helplessness of
my naked soul
was replaced with
a lucid sense of weightlessness.

I found you, and I thought
that you might be able
to know me,
to really know me,
without turning away.