When you told me you loved me again
you were wearing the same shirt as
when you told me you just wanted to be friends and
I had to stare at the same buttons through the same tears
because I knew it couldn’t be true.

This was after we sat at the same table
where we celebrated a year of memories
after we threw them out only to recreate them now.
And I’m unaware if you had more or less to drink now
than the night you first told me you loved me.
All I know for sure is that you had the same tears in your eyes
as the time you called me wonderful as you call me amazing now.

Wonderful was only enough for the 39 days after you first said you loved me
and amazing was only enough for a suspended five days and I was right.

You asked me to stay knowing you were going to leave
and I should have known because you’re always the one to leave and I’m always the one to stay but as we both drive away from the place that birthed us I can’t be mad at it or
sad for what we lost because there is nothing to return to.
We over stayed our welcome, we wore out what we built by going in circles,
dancing with the same issues,
and orbiting around the same moon and me and you and her.

There’s the expression of beating a dead horse with a stick and we are the horse and the stick,
we were waves that kept hitting the same shore and
we’ve hung ourselves out to dry and
we are now an aftertaste in the back of my mouth.

He would
call me
by my
middle name.
Dance with
me in obscure
places like the
grocery store.

Days starting with
him would be as
good as honey toast.

He would buy
me flowers and
allow me to do
the same.

I’d let him
show me
the moon
like it already
wasn’t mine.

He would
know when
to hold my
hand and
when not to.

I would sit
silently in his
car while he
drives to new places.

He would read
The Great Gatsby
aloud while I fall asleep.

We’d listen to
the sound of
water together
where ever we
can find it.

He would stand
next to the tracks
with me waiting
to feel the rush
of trains passing by.

He would know
when to bring me
orange juice.

He would
give me gold,
but would you?

Last November I said Time Is Dumb
and you said it sounded poetic and
remembering this made me sick to my stomach
because last November you didn’t wear a watch,
the tick of a clock didn’t sound like a dripping faucet
and each turn of a calendar wasn’t an alarm without a snooze.

We had all of us in front of us for the taking
but we threw ourselves into the wind
which took you to warm arms and me to cool kitchen and bathroom floors
and this started the clocks, which haven’t stopped.

I used to count back to everyday in our demise
and when you asked if I still count I said of course
but a second after I realized I don’t
because it doesn’t matter how many days are behind us
or how many are in front of us
because velocity measures distance over time,
it measures the rate at which an object changes it’s position
and as the seasons have  changed so have we.

We meet in spring and fell in fall,
went on wandering winter walks as snow lightly fell,
in spring we sprung our clocks ahead to meet our end
summer was sliced in separation and sadness,
fall was truth and clocks so fast they broke
winter will be wagering within ourselves
I don’t know what spring will bring besides swimming in distance
and in thoughts of what to do with our time.

There are all these clichés about love and timing
but what if you were not suppose to be
my first love, we both had lessons to learn
you needed to flesh out that surface love and
I needed to rebuild walls before inviting you in.

Times isn’t dumb, we are foolish for letting it control us
but we may have learned this a year too late
for we’ve had our distance and we’ve had our time
and they’ve canceled each other out to create now
and it may be all we have.

After this November will be the most dreaded month
not because it was when I lost you
but when I knew it was coming,
looming, and this time lightening wasn’t dancing
in the distance it was creating it.

Collecting moments of you
like storing food in a bomb shelter
for when I’m at war with your new
hand watch for not letting us work.

Every time the hand ticks
it is moving me closer to a time without you
and everyday is watching the hourglass of us run out.

Despite this, if I could live with you
in a calendar filled with Novembers, I would.  

But I can’t so before you go,
will you watch 44 sunsets with me?

dating a writer
is like guessing the weather.
you think you know what you'll get,
but you never do.

you never know
because

she'll create a hero
from your weaknesses

and she'll write a great character,
from every last flaw.

she'll create a thousand plots  
from your worst nightmares.

she'll take every last thing you hate
and create something you'll love.

she'll turn your anger
into confessions of adoration,

and she'll make you,
everything you're not.

but worst of all,
she'll leave you wondering-
is it you she's in love with,
or things she's created from you?

but here's the beauty of it:

if you date a writer,
you'll never die.