glowing under fluorescent light,
end of shift, day emerging from night,
fingers bent gently at the edges of a book,
i should take a photo to remember,
but i’ll settle just to look
at the wrinkles of my knuckles,
always had a thing for hands,
callouses and broken skin
can tell you a lot on who someone is,
where they’re going, where they’ve been

i wonder what my hands portray,
(although i do not care)
in this light, on my thigh,
they remind me of a simpler time:
gripping my mother’s fingers,
watching her stir a ***,
or a cigarette held between;
but i reminisce quietly,
for my mother i am not.

i will probably not go blind or lose my way of listening,
i will probably not run away into the sunset to see the water glistening,
i might not ever get to see the world, or write a song with whistling,
but loving you is the only thing that i’ve ever worried of missing.

i’m not sure
what the statistical probability of me
getting into some terrible accident
that causes me to go deaf and blind would be,
and i’m not sure how to research into it.

so my hypothesis remains,
that it’s probably a very small percent.
maybe it’s bigger than i think it is,
i’m not sure.
i never claimed
to be good at numbers.

but in this possibly
very small or very big percentage
of this reality coming true,
i want to make sure that i have, in advance,
memorized every inch,
every crack,
every hidden part
of you.

i want to touch your hands for hours and remember every curve and dip of your fingerprints,

and i want to kiss your lips for days to ingrain in me their taste and the feeling of your breaths.

i want to lay in the crevice of your neck for weeks, to make sure i have studied your scent,

and i want to rub my fingers through your curls for months, so much so that i could recite this poem, even in the after-death.

i want to feel your cheek against mine for years, so that i am able to describe the warmth of it through nothing but colors and love,

and i hope that i can just spend my whole life with you, learning more everyday that not everything is meant to fall.

i cashed in all of my karma for this one,
this feeling of coming up for air.
you’re like the first taste of sunlight in the morning,
the first hit of a cigarette, the first step into the ocean.
a solar eclipse, a dark night in the country,
a mcdonald’s sweet tea at 2 in the morning.

i love this, god, i love it,
and i hope one day i can have the privilege,
the refreshment,
the every morning rush of euphoria,
of loving you.
of saying that,
of meaning it with every ounce and nerve ending of my being.
infinitely small but overwhelmed by a feeling that is bigger than either of us.

“i can’t wait for more” i say,
but what i really mean is that i will wait,
as long as i need to,
to savor every moment,
every drop of sweet tea,
every star in the southern kentucky sky,
every cigarette, every sunrise,
of living this little slice of life with you.

standing in my kitchen at 12:11 in the morning
eating frost bitten ice cream in my neon pink underwear
staring at the coffee stains that plague my cream white counters
and thinking about christmas and how fast it passed this year

no, really i’m thinking about you
and how if you were still mine, we’d be on the phone right now
or even better, i wouldn’t be staring at the coffee stains on my counter,
because i’d be curled up in your arms, listening to your breathing
and thinking about all the reasons i love you so much

or we’d be out driving around, eating chicfila or tacos from that place we loved
you’d be telling me about a movie you just watched
and your hand would probably be on my thigh
you’d make fun of the way i hold the steering wheel,
and i’d tell you that you can talk when you finally learn to drive

and we’d stop somewhere
and i’d kiss you on the cheek
but i can’t imagine a time when things weren’t bad, so in this scenario
i’d also be thinking about all of my insecurities
but you would see it on my face
and you’d say “hey,
i love you, and there’s no ‘but’s or ‘anyway’s”

and i’d probably work less
so i’d have more time to spend with you
i’d deal with the smaller paychecks by loving you instead
but you’d probably work with me too, and i’d give you rides to and from
and i’d love that we shared something like that together
because of the places from where we both grew up

you always told me you loved shopping together
because it made us feel so real
and like we had our own house, with a big bed and a dog
and a garage full of cars, and a garden to grow from

but the reality hit too soon
we couldn’t handle the stress of it all
and i guess we tried to work it out, but on cue
i realized nothing is really ‘meant to be’

so here i am
now at 12:23 am
eating frost bitten orange sherbet
and crying thinking of all the things that i just said
wishing you were the one i was saying them to.

it used to feel so absolutely suffocating
to reflect on a time when i didn’t love you
to think of all the wasted moments before
i was graced with your presence in my world

but now it burns to remember the feelings
of falling asleep in your arms,
of crying into your chest,
of kissing you goodbye.

i was never one who even believed in love
so it took me a couple of tries to realize
just how real it all was

of course, just when i got comfortable
things fell hard, and everything went south.
and now every time i hear, read, or say your name
all i’m left with afterwards is a bitter taste in my mouth.

if it was my choice i would’ve never fallen in love with you in the first place
well, you know,
i say that.
you showed me an intimacy i never thought i’d get to experience
and maybe if i was a little more trusting in the universe to give us all what we can choke down
i would’ve said “i know you love me”
instead of “prove it to me”
and right now i’d be saying “if it’s meant to be, it’ll be”
and not begging the gods to give you back to me.