You died on a Monday.

Nobody likes Mondays.
But this day was the first of the longest week there has ever been
or will ever be.
Days dragging their feet like my heart across the pavement.
Please save your questions, comments, and complaints,
I'm trying to wrap my head around dead dreams and saints
Wondering
how the faint cries echoing through my insides
sound
to strangers
and soulmates.

You died on a Tuesday.

Such an unassuming day for departing
Nothing happens on a Tuesday.
Until her phone rang,
We were parked outside of our favorite restaurant
I heard the world flatline to the sound of traffic
We stayed in the car.
Now parked on the roof of patient parking,
Though I had never felt less patient  
wondering
How the ******* sun can shine when you can't even breathe.
I watched my mother cry until she wouldn't in front of you.
we COULDN'T in front of you.
I promised.
But we did.

You died on a Wednesday.

A day like a life, only halfway through and it's forgotten itself.  
Like I had forgotten the heaviest my heart has ever felt
was the night I looked into my sisters eyes
and spoke like doctors,
Wore the words "there's nothing left to do" like they had ever even come close to answering the question
WHY?
Which was the only one she could get out
WHY?
They said he could have up to a year
WHY?
Or as little as a week.

You died on a Thursday.

The day so wrapped up in the promise of tomorrow,
we can only ever think about yesterday.
Throwback to any single moment before this day.
Throwback to 5 days before
watching the irony of a birthday cake in hospice
While I wondered
how many wishes it would take to keep you.
Throwback to the moment that we were alone
when you grabbed me by the collar,
So tight and so close
I could smell heaven on your breath,
As you squeezed a plea into a whisper
Get
Me
Out
Of Here.
I was silent.
But I swear to god I was screaming at the top of my heart.
And I am sorry every single day
that I had no way
to wheel, walk, or wish you out.

You died on a Friday.

I had never been further from TGIF-ing
I was busy wondering why
and begging for your breath back.
You hadn't said a word in days,
your eyelids hung heavy like sheets off an empty bed,
but when mom would whisper our names into your ear
I watched every ounce of strength you had
stand shoulder to shoulder
forcing your eyes open in bursts
like the fourth of july finale
we could hear from your bedroom.
You were a god in each goodbye,
While the blue drained from each your eyes
for us to paint our days with.

You died on a Saturday.

I thought the weekend had a deathwish
showing up like it belonged in our bereavement,
like this week would ever end,
like it hadn't heard the news.
Every night was a silent struggle
we couldn't stay,
but wouldn't go.
The night before we had collapsed into a pile on hard-backed chairs
At the mercy of the nurses who didn't have the heart to make us go,
or just enough
to let us stay.
I didn't sleep a wink that night,
I was busy listening to the human hum of our family set to the slowing beep of your vitals
and wondering,
if the grass you'll lie under will know where it came from.
But this night,
this night there was a quiet compliance
an air of understanding in our war-torn bodies

besides,
nothing happens after midnight.
Until my phone rang.

You died on a Sunday.

You were holier than any day of the year.
I don't know if you let go
or if dying always feels like drowning.
Drowning.
Like I was in every drop of water your skin couldn't hold in anymore.
Like my mother was in disbelief.
Like my grandmother was in desperation.
Like my sister was in sadness.
Our family
drowning
And not one of us moving.


You died every day that week,
and you've died every day since.
You died on her wedding day
and at my graduation
You die on your birthday
and on every anniversary
and every single day that we have to deal
with an absence so great that it deafens.
And all I can do is wonder,
what the time difference is in heaven,
and how many sleeps it will be before I see you again.
I wonder if the angels recognized you.
And how you hid your wings
so well
for so long.

But mostly I wonder,
if you wonder too.

I didn't get to say goodbye.
Again.

Not in the way I wanted to.

Not in the way that made clear as the glass
you shattered,
that this
was temporary.

Not in the way that I could promise you that every firing neuron in that beautiful brain
lights up your eyes
like shooting stars.
You think like the sky.

Not in the way that came anywhere near answering WHY?

Not in the way that stitched every I love you on the tip of my tongue together
into so big a blanket
I could swear,
you would never feel cold.

Not in the way that apologizes for maps making miles into inches
that should only equal minutes
But you realize once you're in it,
wading through the hearts that could never find their way,
objects on maps are further than they appear.
Much like the face that i see in the mirror.

I wish I was there.
I wish you were here.

I hope you don't hate me

But I'm grateful to the sea.

For catching you gently
before rocking you to sleep
in the arms of a stranger
who in saving you,
saved me.

Like I am grateful to light
and time
and airbags
and the dark side of miracles.  

I am not a religious person.

But if you dont believe in guardian angels,
then I have to believe in mine.

Because I,
sellfishly,
cannot lose you
one
more
time.

My heart knows my throat like the inside of it's cage
because that is where it found you,
where I find it when I sit
and I miss you,
warming the words I always said I'd say.

So until I do,

stay.

If it makes the space seem smaller,
I have written you so many unsent letters
that if I lay every word down end to end
I could build you a bridge
that wrapped three times around the moon
So we could at least pretend,
I'd see you soon.

A bridge,
strong enough to hold you
and the fifty tons of memories
that ware you like waves,
Crashing against your ribs
in a storm
Where no heart is safe.

I'm sorry you wake in sandy sheets
That no matter how high you climb
there's a beach at your feet.

But not a single broken piece of you
will ever be sand
no part of your spirit
was made from this land.

You are one hundred percent sky
spread between two precious hands

And I'm just a star,
who followed a bridge to the moon.
I'll see you soon.
I'll see you soon.

You've destroyed me too many times
For me to allow you to poke through the rubble

Again.

Her first words were poetry,
Painting passion into people
like every soul was a self-portrait titled
"Kindness".

As a child she gave each color words that they
could only ever scream,
She gave a voice that flowed like water,
A symphony of dreams.

She grew like fondness,
Towering above us at five foot everything
but forever looking up
like we were the night sky holding starlight in our eyelids
like secrets.

She waits.
Soaking in silence, still
Waiting.
Like the world is whispering
and she's trying to hear it.

Her own whisper floats like falling snow
that melts on your eyelashes
so that it might retrace the steps
of the last tear you cried
just in case,
It's not too late to catch it.

She is a million moments of lightness,
A thousand "I'm sorry's" for the wrongdoings of others.
She is one hundred sleepless nights
of someone else's nightmares,
Kept up with gallons of fresh-ground giving
wanting nothing in return but to know
She means it.

She's got big in her fingertips
like the sun setting and rising into itself,
Until it burns the whole sky down.

She is a quiet presence with an absence
that deafens.
Planting patience into moments
like flowers.
So that you can watch them grow
into a billion brilliant bulbs
of every miss you've ever made,
But were too scared to hope for.

She paints life onto the ordinary
until it knows that it was never anything
but beautiful.

Forever expanding the vocabulary
of the colors she breathed words into
in a children's coloring book
whose lines could Never keep her in.

While the whole world waits,
Just hoping to hear them.

I used to be your morning.

Back stretched,
arms reaching,
asking the day its first question.

You always slept on the left side of the bed.
Our left.
My right, now.
But then.
And now,
My right has never felt more wrong.

Your eyes were always soft at sunrise.
Lids lifting like lungs and falling
like feathers.

You loved the smell of coffee
and the taste of special k.
Though I never understood why.

You never watched the news
because it was always
heart breaking
breaking news
news worthy
never worthy of your worry
so early in the morning.

I used to be your afternoons.

Your smile always felt like the summer,
when I met you.

You wore a white dress
and a warning label.
I wore heart stained sleeves
and a nervous smile.

I'm glad I didn't listen.
Most of the time.
You lived like flowers.

Toes planted in the grass,
always greener.

catching rain like a break,
light like your breath.
Impossible to keep
but never the less,
you were beautiful.  

Beautiful in the way you took naps,
in the way you brushed your hair
while complaining it was too straight.
Beautiful in the way you would sway
To any music that I'd play,
I couldn't say it then but it's too late now
so,
stay.

Beautiful.
Always.
And in the way you'd get excited
when I would pick you up
but somehow, I let you down.
And I'm sorry.

Your eyes rivaled every sunset,
But the light always leaves with a promise,
you left with a suitcase.  

I used to be your nighttime.

I sleep in the same spot that you left me in.
But wake up in the middle.
one arm outstretched,
hand hiding beneath your pillow.
our.
My. pillow.

My fingers are foolish,
still thinking they'll find you.

Like myself when in sleep.

How do you tell your memories to close their eyes
when you dream?
when the only world I am aware of
is the one that I've been keeping,
saving, holding, tending to
my mind is a garden,
growing dreams, still, for you.

I suppose one day,
I'll run out of seeds.
The soil will spoil,
I'll be knee deep in weeds.

But until then
every bud in my brain blooms in bed,
vines and fields of flowers
fill every inch of my head.
So long as I keep my eyes closed,
shades drawn,
room too dark to invite the dawn
that hits the fields like winter.

I used to be yours.

I don't know what you dream of now,
who slows you down when the world spins
faster than your stillness can stand,
how many times a day you find your hand
wandering to where I've been.

Though I tried hard not to say it,
I know that you knew.
I didn't mind how you felt,
but I always
loved
you.

All I have now are used to be's
to keep these,
my own hands,
hopeful.
Hoping.
That happiness finds you happy
and freedom finds me free.

But until they arrive
Every morning,
noon,
and night
I'll know nothing of you
And one thing of me,
we used to be,
I used to be.

And in that moment
The world was wrapped around my heart
like a hug
Until the beat
became a hum

That sounded just like our song.

My fingers felt like feathers
at the end of a five foot wing span
that suddenly seemed boundless

as I reached towards forever
and you.

I bent my legs like the rules
to lean into the memories of you
I had promised not to keep.

I only ever wade in them,
It's not safe to go too deep.

My feet hung like dream catchers
Heavy with hope
that they might catch you

wandering the space between my eyelids
and the night sky.

My hands were nomads
tracing the maps on each your palms
trying to remember their way home.

You held worlds like water
and me.

Only ever taking sips
so your thirst stays hungry
while it drips

between fingers spread too wide
from wear.

I found god between your ankles
Shaking like shackles
as I kneeled.

We only spoke in whispers
every broken word was healed.

The world rocked
when you walked away
My arms spread wide
Like a plea to stay.

But your wrists were teathered
to a feathered dream
That wouldn't come true

Unless you left me,
unless I let you.

My eyes were crystal *****
watching you go
in the only way you knew how

over and over
again.

And in that moment,
I was a hurricane in your hands,
I was the ocean at your feet.
But you could only ever wade in me,

It wasn't safe to go to deep.

All I could do
was all I had done.

I followed you

like the night,
chases after the sun.

I chased you

like a wave,
reaches out to the shore.

I reached you

like the end,
and can now do no more.

My lips were still parted

as I walked heavy hearted
dragging my feet
like darkness,
across a dimly lit street.

I stopped 4 times.

Four times
between the security gates
and the bed
your scent still slept in.

1
You turned to walk away.
I couldn't breathe,
like my lungs had learned
your leaving.

I begged you to turn around,
in whispers,
through heaving.

I wondered if they had run me through
the x ray machine,

the way they did the rest of your baggage,

would they have been able to see it break me.

The rungs of my ribs
collapsing
under each step we took apart.

my heart sinking in my chest,
like treasure.

My hands clenched around each other
if not out of loneliness,
than in prayer
for you,
for yours.

(Walk)

2
I didn't know where I was going
at first,
I thought my moving, madness.
See?
You wouldn't really go.


I didn't make it to the elevator.

Nothing about me in that moment,
could fit into a box
I couldn't be brought down any further
I couldn't watch the doors close
on the only forever I ever had.

Too much symbolism will get to you like that.

The way I see you in
clocks and calendars,
still clinging to a countdown
your watch would stop short of.

I can still hear mine tick.

The way I smell you in
cocoa butter and ocean mist,
our love belonged on a beach
but swam too far from shore.

The way I taste you in
red wine and cigarettes,
I was drunk on your stare,
But you know those things will **** you.

The way I feel you in
poetry and panic,
praying into my palms
until my body felt holy.

Sometimes I write to your God.

(Take the stairs)

3
I'm outside.
The air is lit like a cigarette.
My body,
frayed
like a fuse.

Im bursting at the seems
of a skin that has never quite fit me.
Pounding on the doors of a mind
who can't remember
why?

I recalled every moment
you held forever in your eyelids,
then blinked.
When suddenly it hit me,
what if this time you really meant
goodbye?

I was trapped in wide open space.
Like the ones between my fingers.
like the one growing in my stomach,
like the one on the other side of the bed.

I guess I should have mentioned,
It would **** me if you left.

(walk)

4
I didn't leave a note this time.

But I promise
I had a million words to say to you,

I typed them up,
I wrote them down.
Watching each one
rise at my fingertips
and fall at your feet.

The way I did.

You spoke like family.
You felt like the pages
of my favorite book
when I ran my fingers up your spine.

I kept every note I wrote,
this time.

I couldn't hide another word
in the soft folds of your suitcase.

Secrets never travel well.

(Shhh)

I touched the door you'd touched before me.

Empty rooms are like a boxing ring,
My back was against the ropes
while my eyes fell to the drapes
tracking take-offs like ticket sales.

We packed the house.
Our home.

As time huffed and puffed
and blew the whole thing
down.

I stopped four times.

Each time I'd turn back
but when I started,
I'd remember the last time you left
while I watched, heavy hearted.
My lips were still parted.

Our lips were still parted.

Your whisper sounds like
squealing tires
and tastes like motor oil

By the way.

My tongue is thick
with goodbyes

But that day,

You spoke like strangers.

The kind you find familiar
when they hold up signs
and out hands

while their eyes lie low
Building castles on the sidewalk,

Sand castles.
Waiting for the tide of feet,
too eager to mind the monarchy.

But take a quarter for your troubles.
"And track marks"

They think I'm thinking.

But I was busy wondering
If their god smelled
like burnt rubber.

And the last drop of cologne
In the bottle they nursed from.

I wondered if their god
could dance
with two left feet between fate
and fantasy.

And if there are ash trays in heaven.

I walk through their kingdom
like eggshells,

While you watched

Praying for an omelette.

I remember it being cold that night.

It was the first time I had walked away
and worried I was leaving something.

It wasn't the kind of cold that
cut
and made itself at home in your bones.

It wasn't even the kind of cold
That strained every breath to feel like your last.

But I could feel the wind biting at and hanging from my ears
while it whispered.

But my mind was moving too fast to make memories,
It seems to never have the time anymore.
But it saves pictures
like polaroids.

Fast flashes of things passed
like whiplashes and mass stashes
of three picture days
of everything
and you.

Flash:
Legs around mine, light jeans, fluorescent lighting.
My heartbeat heats at the thought of it.
My back feels numb.

Flash:
Your smile in my headband, *******'re beautiful.
I think you threw your head back and laughed.
My arm tingles where you touched it.

Flash:
The sky was slate. Your eyes were asking me their first question.
I wished I had chalk.
But you already knew the answer.

I try to tell you now what you already were then,
But there aren't enough words in the world to tell you.

To tell you that your eyes looked like lifesavers.

To tell you that if I could,
I would develop my dreams at the nearest hour
drop shop and lay each frame out
like a quilt
and a collage.

(Because my mind is full
of a kind of mess that is never less
than warming.)

I would tell you that I hold your words under my tongue
To make sure they're always delivered warm.

And that if I leave them in there long enough
the fire starts.
My words melt into mercury
like ice in boiling water.

And I tell myself,
That if anyone really knew the heat,
They would stay the hell out of the kitchen.

But I made you something.

Forgetting is…

Forgetting is being told you've had two birthdays, for the fourth time,

Talk about a surprise party.

Forgetting is calling a number that has been disconnected for nearly three years and still expecting an answer.

Can I leave a message?

Forgetting is family portraits with a stranger in each one whom you cannot help but miss.

They say you have his smile.

Forgetting is not being able to close your eyes for longer than 8 seconds without thinking yourself 800 miles away.

How did I get here?

Forgetting is waking up from nightmares 7 times a night,

Right into another one.

Forgetting is the feeling of walking into a room and not remembering what you came for,

All the time.

Forgetting is wondering why the words "I love you" sit perched on your lips ready to take off,

When they have nowhere to land.

Forgetting is coming to in a room you don't recognize and slowly realizing that it's yours.

Welcome home.


Trying to remember is...  

Trying to remember is running face first into a brick wall that you used to know was there,

Didn't you?

Trying to remember is riding a bike up a hill without any pedals.

Remember that time?

Trying to remember is being waterboarded in a bucket of question marks and memory fragments.

How do you feel?

Trying to remember is looking back at what you had written only moments before and being convinced that someone is in your house

And they have your handwriting.

Who's there?

Remembering is…

Something I've forgotten.

I want to know you (now).
On this day,
At this time.

(I want to
Know you).

Now
I want to show you how
gentle hands can feel
around a face they find so beautiful,
They question if it's real.

I want to show you how
Your smile is worth its weight in miles
of the world's most gorgeous words
laid across the earth like tiles.

So that if you should ever doubt
the words you've read,
you could trace each, like crumbs of bread
Until it led you back to what feels now to be
the world's most empty bed.

I want to know you now.

I want to feel your heart;
beat
kicking like a bass drum,
before anyone tries to rough it up
like the small kid on the playground
caught day dreaming under a gloomy sky,
picking out the biggest cloud,
and begging it to cry.

I want to know you now
Before "leaving" sounds like "LOVE" to you.

I want that word to hum to you,

Risk its vowels to come to you,

Let you know that all it ever wants
is one to run to you.

(I want to know you)

Now,
I want to show you how
gentle hands can feel
when they whisper words into your skin,
so soft,
you wonder if it's real.

While I was growing up
The world was growing down.
I am so sorry that we left it for you,
in pieces.

See the world can be one giant
bipartisan madhouse of land
versus water.
Land that I would walk a million miles of
to make you smile.
Water that will know better than to hurt you,
Because if it does, I will hop scotch every star in the sky
until I can grab hold of the sun to get it close enough to every ocean
to dry every tear
you've ever cried
Until it is raining backwards
Hitting stars like bullseyes.

And on the barren world below,
long distance lovers will run ear to ear across the face of the earth
Into each other.
Please remember that.

Remember too, that the world can be a crazy place
But it beats like a billion broken hearts,
hurt but doing
It breathes like a dusty record player,
on repeat
It smiles in every spot the sun shines,
Always knowing
That there is light around every corner
of the sunrise.

I don't know what you'll know then.
Science is forever poking around in dream filled attics
Hoping to sweep out every last myth and story.
Hold on to the mysteries.
Like you will your first set of keys.

Keep them in the basement,
pass your dreams down
like heirlooms.
Hang your thoughts on a golden chain and give it to your daughter,
Put your hopes into an album,
Drip your wishes into wax and light a candle,
Put your soul inside the cookie jar,
And when you give words don't throw, but hand them.

If you find ears that love your voice
The way you love sunlight
and snowfall,
Get close enough to whisper
And let them hear you.
Even if your heart has a voice
That always sounds like goodbye.

That's just our echo.

I know that we left you a world in pieces.
But theres a light in you that is so blinding,
That as you grow up,
The world will have no choice but to follow.
You have magic in your fingertips,
You have passion in your pores,
And you will always be
everything.

You had me.
Wrapped around your finger
Like a yo-yo
Hanging and spinning
Desperate to unwind
At your feet.

You let go.
Broken hearts like promises

And silence.

You always did.
Too impatient to undo the knots
That you had tied
Just shy of my chin.
Loose enough to make it slow
But tight enough
to let you win.

You walked in slowly and stood there
staring.
and I am the ******* who just wouldn't look.
You stomped,
heavy-footed with your soft voice
blaring,
I sat, heart heaving, with my head in a book.
You said,
"I'm leaving" then some other words followed
I stopped,
The first two were all that it took.

I left.
Then you left all the clothes you had borrowed.
You left.
And you left me to hang on this hook.

I came home
to a house whose foundation was shaken
I came home
to a house, whose foundation you shook.

I left my home
and came back.
And came back to a house.


A house with no owner,
A house forsook.

Although it is lovely
to make your acquaintance,
I really must admit
I feel like I have known you now
For what seems
like quite a bit.

I believe that our souls met before,
In a lifetime now long past.
And it feels like they were hoping,
That in this one we would last.
Because I feel this love of ours,
Is older than our names,
It's longer than our story,
It's bigger than our frames.

There was life
before I met you,
Like there was time before the watch.
There was light before a bulb could hold it,
There were peaks before the notch.

There will be life
though I have left you,
Like there are shocks after the quakes,
There are days that follow darkness,

There is glue after the breaks.

Perhaps then, in the next life,
If my soul should find
this earth again.
If my heart still ticks like
passing time.
If my hands still ache to take
the pen.

Perhaps, then, when
our time is here,
I'll know it's face,
You'll know its near.

But if our only hope is
maybe when…
My only vow is
Maybe then.

I stayed,
Like a bird who remains in her cage
When the door is left open.

Always more present
Than the occasion calls for.

I'd sit and wait,
Hoping that our bond was stronger
Than the urge to fly
And that the door
Was left open
By accident.

Then you stopped feeding me.

I'm filling up
like a landfill
my heart is starting to feel
like an anvil
And I'm starting to think that maybe,

Maybe this world's not meant for me
or me for it
or us for each other like in a
"mutual" break up
which is an idiom,
because love is never quite

symmetrical.
See, love is like a heart drawn by a
fifth grader.
It's never quite the same
on either side
and if you ever told them they were wrong
for drawing it that way
you lied.
Because that:
lop sided
sloppy
hunched over heart,

that:
innocent
delicate
Beautiful heart,

Is exactly what love is.

When we're older,
we learn to draw straighter lines
to hide our shaking hands.

Don't let them know you're nervous.

We learn to whisper what we don't want heard,
To make silent our thoughts,
in public.
Fights were meant for closed doors and walls
that are never quite thick enough
to keep words that hard, from breaking them down.
Even the fights,
that you fought against someone
who looks much too like you.

When, then, can I open my mind like a book
for only them to read.
When can I open my chest like a puzzle box
for them to put together.
When can I apologize for having before,
what I only ever wanted with them?

I just didnt know it yet.

I am a fifth graders heart
that beats five times heavier
than healthy.
Being colored in
with too deep a red.

I'm filling up
like a landfill.
My heart has reached a
stand still.
And I'm starting to think that maybe,

Maybe a square peg can find comfort
in a round hole.

I have a million words to say to you
Words that I love the way I love my mother
Words that watched me grow into a synthesis of souls
Words that tucked me in at night and scared the monsters out from under my bed when memories weren’t all I had to fight the nightmares
Words that saw me broken and busted bleeding on the floor begging, “please don’t cry”
Please
Don’t
Cry
3 words.
It seems that all of my most powerful words come in threes
I love you, I want you, I need you
The most important to me
The most important because they start with I and end with you.
That is all that I want.
You and I with nothing but love and want and need between us
Rather than the miles that divide us now.
There are only three letters between you and I
3 letters is only about an inch and a half in length unless you’re using really big font
But even the biggest font is better than the actual 1646.2 miles that separate us now
That’s 2649.3 kilometers
Which means that my feet would have to strike street 8,691,936 times before my hands could hold yours and my heart could beat normal again
That is 7,691,936 more steps than words I have to say
Words that I love the way I love you
Words that planted love in my chest and let it grow like weeds, no crevice safe, love grows like vines through my rib cage
Words that slipped themselves in between my fingers and squeezed
Words that kissed my cuts and scars slit thick on my hips whispering “please don’t”
Please
Don’t
2 words.
It seems that the hardest words to say come in twos
I can’t. Just go. It’s over.
The most important to me because I started them and ended us.
But 3 words always beats 2.
So even though I can’t, I love you
And although I should just go, I want you
And “it’s over” never ended us because I need you.
I love you, I want you, I need you.
The most important to me
Because, like this poem, they start with I and end with you

If actions speak louder than words,
Then the quieter I get
the louder I become.

Soon I'll be screaming

At the bottom of my lungs.

Until even my whisper deafens.

With the wave of my hand,
I'll be louder than a freight train.

Every step I take,
Will sound like a stampede.

The further I go,
The closer it will seem.

Maybe then,
When each step shakes the pictures from your walls,
Every look left and then right rips the door from the frame you're standing under,
And my deepest breath blows the whole house down

You'll hear me.

I dressed my core in flannel garb
Even though its 90 out
Shaded my eyes with thick rimmed, large framed Ray Bans
Because I can
I’m wearing skinny jeans
But I bought them before they were cool
There’s a hole in the knee where I was burned with a parliament at a poetry club
It didn’t hurt
I spell Vintage U-R-B-A-N
My shoes look like I pulled them out of Fred Astair’s closet
Because I did
I am too cool to care.
But do not call me a hipster.
It’s too mainstream.

They'll pay a penny for my thoughts,
I'd pay a dollar if they'd keep them.
I could sell them by the pound,

I can promise I don't need them.

I'd put each thought in a box,
And each box on a shelf.
And I wouldn't take them down,

Til' they belonged to someone else.

A penny for your thoughts,
Or I'd be glad to trade.
If you had a dream of sunshine,

And you longed for one of shade.

A penny for your thoughts,
How much for memories?
I'll only take the light ones,

The ones that fall like leaves

I would hold each one so softly,
Til' they were stolen by the breeze.
Then I'd sit and stare for hours,

While your thoughts blew through the trees.

I imagine they'd be beautiful,
A thought in every hue,
From a time of love all dressed in red,

To a time more present, blue.

My thoughts aren't worth a penny,
But I would gladly pay for yours.
My thoughts aren't worth a penny,

My thoughts are merely chores.

I'll lock the door when I go,
Don't say, "don't forget me"
You know that I won't.
I know you won't let me.

I'll lock the door when I go,
Once I've boxed my belongings,
I'll pack up my heavy,
My sorrow, my longings.

I'll lock the door when I go,
But I'm leaving behind,
Every last promise,
The best parts of my mind.

I'll lock the door when I go,
To forbid other's entry,
Though I know they'll come knocking,
I do hope that it's gently.

I'll lock the door when I go,
But I'll leave you the key,
I'll lock the door when I go,
To keep you from me.

I want you to know that I miss you.
I want you to know that I have heated the coldest corners of my mind,
So you would have a warm place to sleep.

I want you to know that my heart still clings to your now wide-open palms,
my chest tightens when you pray.

I feel weak in the knees at the thought of you.
So much so that it gets hard to move

Sometimes

I stop dead, wondering.

I hope that you don't think of me.
(I hope that you do)
I hope that you know what you've done.
(I hope I never let you)

That we don't speak is deafening.
That I don't scream, a wish.

Sometimes I worry that my thoughts will grow so loud and desperate that you'll hear them.
It's loud inside my head.

But now,
even my words are whispers
lost somewhere between my lips and a million
gray
miles.

I could have said those words a thousand times a day
I could have screamed them at the top of my lungs

I could have dropped them at your feet between my knees
Until the the words wrapped the city surrounding us
Like a present.

But you still would not have known how much I meant
"I love you."

It felt like we had been driving for hours,
Because we had been.
I kept my eyes focused on the horizon
That only seemed far because we were chasing after daylight,
like time.
I could feel her next to me,
The way I always did.
Still,
like a rabbit caught by a farmer with a pitchfork.
It was always too late for flight,
how often, though, you fled.

My body felt heavy next to hers,
Too present for the occasion.
I moved.
She sighed.
I stopped.
Her sigh landed on my buckling shoulders
And made itself comfortable.

On the other side of her window
Colors dripped from the sky
Into so beautiful a mess,
It could not possibly last.

I thought,
Quietly as I could,
As she watched the colors collapse onto each other,
until the darkness chased away
the last echo of the sunset.

Fixated yet forlorn,
The way I stare at clocks
And calendars.
Minutes and days collapsing onto each other like fire,
on the burning desert sand.
Only to be chased away,
By a farmer with a pitchfork
In his ticking hands.

You were jovial,
Effortlessly happy and
Forever wanting.
I was Christmas morning,
A time so covered in lights and bows
That even darkness gets gift-wrapped.
It hides behind frames
Made empty by time
And beneath the hats of red-clad  alcoholics
Making empty promises
To wide-eyed little strangers who swear...
They've been extra good this year.

A reprieve so emotive
That it could only ever be temporary.
Like the love for that toy you begged for for months
And only played with for five minutes.

A memory so fond it hurts.
Thrown into the back of your mind
With all the other lost toys.