i told you the verymost secret truth to ease the parting blow. so you'd forgive me that the only blow was parting, that the bookshelf wasn't big enough for us both. when i told you all those other truths you thought i'd be the leatherbound dictionary that stays the digital age but i let you in on the verymost secret one and now you're not so sure, huh. you're not so sure. i'm not so sure. the definition marked by post-it is a word that is not officially recognized. the english language never was so much my thing; i stumbled all over it in nerves and inescapable sincerity that was too close together on the cookie sheet and came out wrong and stomach-aching. i stumbled all over in nerves. i roll back my shoulders and i say "good, how are you!" and i make lists and lists and lists to plan my heartwarming. i sit in the sun and i write on my hand how much i love the sun but my hand doesn't say anything back, that was your thing. the sun might not be real, now, even though it's warm. 

i am really very good, i think. but i don't know unless i tell you. what i tell you might be all that is real, and that might be why the verymost secret truth is all that blurs my vision now. i roll my shoulders back and i say that i am really very good. and they say, good! but the parting blow was all i could give you, so i can't tell you good, and the secret truth is the one that stays, and the digital age crawls forward, and the leather cracks, and i miss you.

The metal makeshift flowerpot sat in the middle of the sundrenched floor, and she breathed deeply.
She was hot to the touch, but nobody did, and her metal shoulders were loose, and she smiled (as a flowerpot could).
Linda came in one morning, stepped to block the window, arms full of magnetic reeds.
The metal makeshift flowerpot sighed. Oh.

For afternoons that piled, she sat in heavy dark,
Immobile from the magnet arms and blind from her favorite time of day.
Linda thought she looked so pretty, and the room was as she had imagined.

The metal makeshift flowerpot was glad to help the house’s market value, but she couldn’t hold the magnets any longer
So she held her breath instead
And Linda never knew the difference.

a man without a country is what he called himself, but this was his country, make no mistake. a man without a home, is what he meant. he overheard two girls joking a few years ago, they were saying what if we just lived in the tunnel, then we wouldn’t have to worry their voices bounced off the bricks, louder in that tunnel, where he was, where they wouldn’t have to worry but he did. he sighed into tobacco-yellow fingers. a few years ago, this was. a few years of rain and relentless seasons’ change and the kindness of strangers fewer and farther between and kids that will never be that way, that pretend they don’t hear him and they don’t see him and maybe they don’t. a few years of that’ll really take it out of you. his voice is deeper now from underuse and cold air and tobacco and being just so ******* tired. the kindness of strangers stops short of his hard palms most of the time. winter’s end just doesn’t feel like much anymore. a few years of that’ll really take it out of you.

a t-shirt loose framing my hips
i am typecast the antithesis
of your tight *** and your
grenadine lips
tight too for your own back but open
so open
for everyone else's business.

four years you've been together (he's so sweet)
you ignore his hard red hand and his tattoo--
he's all you've got
and you **** it up and smile and you drink till you're interesting
because they wouldn't like you if they knew you weren't
interesting and you'll never be more
than what you are, Small Town.

your eyes are surface-only and the brown that no one notices
except on you because you're better (you tell yourself)
you give hell to yourself
baby you could tell yourself the truth (but don't tell him)

                and you look at me like i am nothing.

but i'm buoyant, you know, the antithesis of
your solid sinking rock heart

                i look back like i am everything.

grenadine smiles only sick-sweet and those
surface eyes make sad effort to hide infernos
i'm on fire, though
and to put it bluntly
it is brighter than yours.

the t-shirt's loose around my hips,
but they are there, underneath (where are yours?)
and my lips are tight only when you're here.
you look at me like i am nothing. i am everything, and
no words will break you (more than you are already broken).

                my eyes are blue and my smile is real, and
                no words will break me either.

"i'm tired and god
**** it i just want this day to be done.
that girl in the blue sweater makes too much noise
and i'm tired, okay? i'm tired."


"she is beautiful, just beautiful, and you can tell she doesn't
know it. i'm glad she can't see me staring and god, the way
her curls fall down her back like she dropped them there by accident.
she probably did."


"the great depression was a real *****."


"'thank god she's talking to me again. does this shirt make me
look fat? would she be ****** if i distracted her?
i don't think she even likes wuthering heights, anyway."


"i miss dancing so much. i love this book but not enough
to make up for the pain that's not in my feet anymore."


"i lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering
among the heath and hare-bells;
listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet
slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth."

mid-march sun kisses your shoulderblade but then it rains
and your equilibrium is temporary it collapses somewhere out of frame
and the voice that has been everything says you’re doing something wrong before it dissipates
and different palms on your back say you’ll be okay but I know it hurts
and he almost understands
and they almost understand
almost.

mid-march sun used to drop in every once in a while but now
the ten day forecast says rain rain rain and now
there's no one to blame
and no one to tell.

the evening when you have-to-realize
your voice is steady soft but your eyes give you up and
he holds you closer (just because) because you let him, now
nothing-to-lose while you lose him, now
and your eyes give you up while your voice--
This Is What You Wanted.
and he touches your jawbone featherlight with strong hands
instead of talking

the last days the most beautiful, per always
and tears on call for a drop of coffee on your jeans
or nothing
or writing in your datebook with the pen that was his--
This Is What You Wanted
the room to move your elbows,
and level ground

and the scratch of his chin on your forehead for
not-quite-the-last-time
and remembering before you memorized his cheekbones
and fingertips and the song he didn’t know would make you sad
remembering when you shook hands and talked television, siblings, weather

you wake up for the new dawn and the
It Will Be Okay, but first, it won’t

in four, three, two

one