The other day, I accidentally
spilled moonlight on the shadows
where you used to sleep.
I almost cleaned it up
until I realized it didn’t matter anymore.

I told the clouds they were not
welcome to shed tears
over your side of the bed,
that the rain had to drown me too.

I asked the sunset if
it ever missed the sun,
if vermillion meant farewell,
if the dusky purples hurt
when they were pressed,
if the coming darkness
felt as natural and as effortless
as it looked.

And when the night finally fell
in black oblivion
I found the light you left
in the corners of the room,
under the pillow,
in the spaces between my fingers.
I found it everywhere in the darkness
and nowhere in the daylight
and I hate you for that –

Which is why I started
making room for the moon in my bed
even though he bleaches the sheets.
And I let the clouds lay down their burden
gently, gently over your pillow
in place of my own.
I stopped asking the sunset questions
that I couldn’t answer
and started digging my hands
into the gracefulness of the sky and the ocean and
everything in between.

The other day, I accidentally
spilled moonlight on the shadows
where you used to sleep.
I almost cleaned it up
until I realized it didn’t matter anymore.

I told the clouds they were not
welcome to shed tears
over your side of the bed,
that the rain had to drown me too.

I asked the sunset if
it ever missed the sun,
if vermillion meant farewell,
if the dusky purples hurt
when they were pressed,
if the coming darkness
felt as natural and as effortless
as it looked.

And when the night finally fell
in black oblivion
I found the light you left
in the corners of the room,
under the pillow,
in the spaces between my fingers.
I found it everywhere in the darkness
and nowhere in the daylight
and I hate you for that –

Which is why I started
making room for the moon in my bed
even though he bleaches the sheets.
And I let the clouds lay down their burden
gently, gently over your pillow
in place of my own.
I stopped asking the sunset questions
that I couldn’t answer
and started digging my hands
into the gracefulness of the sky and the ocean and
everything in between.

Lately I have been hanging your voice on my wall.
It came in ten different frames,
and I spent hours adjusting them
until they hugged the wall at the perfect angle,
their gilded bodies pressing against painted emptiness,
whitewashed space.

And when I feel nostalgia
twining around my veins like wild ivy,
I only need to reach out and –

“Hello. My name is –“
“Hello. My name –“
“Hello. (Stop.) My. (Stop.) Name. (Stop.) Is. (Stop.)”
“Hellomynameis –“
Do you remember that?
Did you know my hands shook,
that I tripped over words like I do
with miniscule cracks in the sidewalk,
that my heart stuttered
thumpthump thu thump thuuump thumpthumpthump
and how it hasn’t quite been the same ever since?

“I love you.”
“I love (rewind) – love (rewind) – I love (rewind)– love (rewind)– I love you.”
“I love –“
“Iloveyou.”
You thought you could pry me open
and tear down my walls
and then suddenly you did.
It only took three words to start a hurricane in my heart.
Did you ever notice the aftermath,
the broken homes and homeless souls?
I am still rebuilding.

I hammered this one into my soul,
can still feel the echo of your words
pounding away in my bones:
“Goodbye.”
“Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.”
“Good…(clickclickclick)… bye.”

If I could only express
how fiercely and viscerally
I long to be loved —
Oh, but I have
and it ended badly
and I still have the scars on my
wrists and ribs.
Loneliness is a
cruel and cutting thing.
And I only wish
that I had not
sharpened the blade myself.

My love, it has been getting harder
(and harder)
to hold your heart
and be your shield.
Because your most fatal enemy
is yourself.

I see the way you
fling open your arms –
vulnerability is beautiful,
but cleaning the wounds on your back
stings me more than the initial plunge
of knife through skin and sinew.

I can hear your broken heart late at night.
It is the sound of a fist
shoved in your mouth,
teeth clamped down
on your knuckles as you fight
the pain bubbling up like acid.
And it is the sound of Time
doing his best
to suture what is left of a tattered spirit.
You think I’m asleep,
or that I can’t hear you,
but there is something about the night,
unashamed of whispering horrible truths.

I will never refuse to match your ache,
(wound for wound)
because Love bears all things
but now I am begging you
to set them all down
and heal.

My love, it will get easier
(and easier)
to hold your own heart
and be your own shield.
Because your greatest friend
is myself.

There are some things that hurt more than others:
(i) The moment before a purple-and-yellow bruised sunset
is swallowed up by the horizon in its flaming farewell.
(ii) The concave spaces in the landscape of your lonely body
when nobody is present to fill them in, to wander through.
(iii) The view of someone’s back, an omnipresent reminder
that everyone has to leave at one point or another.

There are some things that heal more than others:
(iv) The rush and ebb of the waves in the ocean,
they know that people leave and things change,
but they come back (and leave), come back (and leave)
until you realize that the return makes the leaving hurt less.
(v) The scars in your skin
which belie the ones on your heart
Not everything is able to form scabs so easily.
(vi) A good hug, the kind that picks you up and spins you around
and squeezes your heart within a fist of love and trust.
The best hugs are the ones that make you feel like
they never let go.

What wonderful
and terrible
things to behold in this life.

The day I left, I forgot to pack self-consciousness.
It was all too easy to reach into the mirror
and pull out my imperfections like saltwater taffy.
Then I ate them.
I wondered as I boarded the plane,
I wondered why my hands weren’t clenched in unrevealing fists,
I wondered why my eyes didn’t flicker to the person
behind me in front of me to my left to my right over here over there.
Perhaps my eyes were now focused on the clouds above and new lands below.

The day I left, I neglected to pack loneliness.
I roamed a new city, so alive, my lungs made room for more crisp
cigarette-infused air and I sat on the steps of a grand opera hall for hours
watching people walk, talk, listen, look, shop, love, learn, pretend, remember.
I understood why my arms did not ache
from the strain of carrying this lonesomeness,
I understood why there was so much beauty
in being a person submerged among thousands of people.
I realized it was a privilege I had been abusing for far too long.

The day I left, I refused to pack fear.
It unsettled my stomach and dampened most of the fun.
I left it there, tucked and stowed neatly away under my plane seat,
sending it back to where I came from and hoping
that the flight attendants would do a thorough cleaning.
I realized why some people got lost on purpose,
that there was fearlessness in not knowing
your north from south from west from east.

The day I came back, I carried
another missing piece of my vagabond heart.
I found it drifting in the strains of a street musician’s Vivaldi,
found it etched into the wooden signs above cafes and bakeries
found it in the spitting passion of lips and linguistics.
I recognized the part of me that was scattered across continents
and I brought it back home.