you are inches
measured by miles away
bulldozing oriental food
you don't intend on eating
around your plate
and i am imagining
the translation of asking
for a broom in a foreign language
for when you shatter over small talk
or the first sentence to start with "so"
breaks you into shaking
that i can feel from across the table
and i am thinking now
about tectonics and how you must be daydreaming of being submerged in a book
back home or gripping tightly
to bedsheets begging for familiar warmth
i can tell by the way you are looking at me
that you are feigning our salutation embrace
seconds drowned in ankle deep water and i wonder if you see my hands
as jackhammers and if the reason
why you hug so hard
but only for a moment
is to be as sharp as possible
so that i do not smell your perfume
or notice that you aren't wearing any and why
there are few suprises
in the safe you claim is a mouth
where shades of plush pink
hide a sickly pallor
and i continue to look over
brick & mortar borders
and think how maybe
she is thinking of kissing
but certainly not me
not these apologies nailed to my face
i give myself a moment
of benefitted doubt that you sometimes
picture your frame under mine
and if your clavicles would crack
if i were to touch them
i am sorry that i am a victim of imagination
but i swear i chalk it up
as the forgotten feeling
for when you look up
and the person you are looking
at is gazing directly at you
you have painted yourself
as a mosaic in my mind
as a mess of dust & incoherent words
that all sound like please in my ears
but that doesn't explain why
my hands are the ones that are shaking
when i imagine you
imagining me
in the spaces of yourself
where you've forgotten
you could put someone

Nobody sat me down before it was too late
And told me that this world was going to be like it is.
Nobody said to me,
"There will be days that feel like wet woolen blankets
And settle over your mouth and keep the fresh air out.
There will be days when you feel each second like a razorblade,
And days when the minutes blur by in blissful softness.
There will be days that feel, indeed, exactly the way it feels to step out
Into the sunlight on a clear summer morning,
And there will be days- whether good or bad- for which there are simply no words at all,
And those days will always scare you the most because
They can't be captured or understood.
There will be countless days that feel like leaden weights attached to your ankles
At the bottom of a cold sea
And many that slip by like grains of sand through your fingers,
Rough and smooth at once, neither warm nor frigid.
And there will come a day,
Every so often,
When you can see that your days are wearing thin,
The way that a sock wears thin when you have walked a long way in it over the years,
And the threads begin to fray.
These days will make your heart constrict because
No matter how many more you can see marching towards you in the distance
You know there could never possibly be enough of them to save you."
Nobody told me these things.
Nobody explained that it would be this way,
That every day would have its own feeling,
And I would have to learn anew to cope each morning.
Nobody explained to me that there is no cure for living,
For the ache in your stomach that makes you want to give up
Or for the ache in your heart that is so sweetly, electrically terrible you can't stand it.
There is no medication to treat how each day treats you.
I wish someone would have told me.
But,
Then again,
What exactly could I have done
If somebody had?