You're probably laying on your back staring at your inviting ceiling, slightly transparent,
Swirling together your collected pool of hopes and dreams
Just like me
At this very moment.
You are listening to indie music,
And so am I.
Sometimes I imagine we are listening to the same song simultaneously
So we can think the same things together,
Disregarding the time zone difference.


I just wanted to tell you that I would have walked across the gym with you at graduation,
You would have cried with me,
We would have hugged and held hands,
And we would have celebrated until our eyelids puffed and our hands became pruny
From our laughter infused tears.
We would have drank soda and not beer after the ceremony,
Because we never needed anything but ourselves, and maybe a camera, to have fun.
We would have changed out of dresses into sweatpants and flip flops, because we never needed to impress each other.
We would have driven in my car and screamed out the windows
Until someone called the cops and we ran away into my bedroom for safety.
My mother would have had a hug waiting for you,
A cake for us,
And a smile for eternity.

We would have made our way upstairs
To lay on the cheep Home Depot carpet and stair at my own ceiling, just as inviting as yours,
Counting the stars through the drywall we pretend to be invisible.
In the background,
Distanced enough for thoughts to still process,
A playlist of us beats in a fuzzy muffle from the dying iPod dock,
The kind of music you can't help but get high from.
We would talk of our plans and our futures and pretend they weren't separate,
Dreaming of sky scraping homes and earth-bounding trips to Asia and Europe,
Finding our destinies and origins here and there,
Then coming together to share our experiences.
And when things get too sad we would just enjoy the music and remember everything we had, everything we have, and everything we will lose.

I guess what I'm trying to say is listening to good music makes me miss you more than my poetry can begin to express,
And I'm so selfish for wishing you never left me,
Because I know you're happy there and I'm happy here without you,
But I'd be happier if we were listening to music under the same invisible ceiling.

I've been thinking about our hug you left me with yesterday,
The one that convulsed my shoulder muscles and made my ribs cry just a little,
But a good cry, like the happy tears after holding a new puppy.
You said in that way,
As you have made a habit of
With sarcasm and sincerity,
"You'll always be my sweetheart",
And then you said that you won't call me your sweetheart in public.
That makes me so angry,
And you think I'm joking,
But I'm not.
Because I can't stop thinking about how those hugs and "sweethearts" are dwindling,
How each time you leave for a winter in the southern states
I cringe at the thought that I may never greet you for Easter next year.
And every time we find you asleep,
Open mouthed on the couch
We only panic for a second as to whether you will wake up this time.

You stand like a family monument,
So unique in composition,
With your structured titanium back and chiseled limestone arms that threw me playfully and carried me as your cowgirl,
And transformed our red, wooden house to sophisticated tan siding when I was too young to remember,
With your skin so dark from perma-tan I thought you were black when I was 6,
With your infinite woodworking skills and artistic envisions with architecture
That crafted dollhouses and swing sets for me at 8,
With your callused hands beyond remission and your ever bruising fingernails that paddled us down the Ausable at 13,
With your steel toed boots sewn into your feet that allowed me to dance on them till I was 15,
With your artificial heart valve and five open heart surgeries.
Once I thought it was instrumental, magical, the watch nestled under your ribs.
But now every time I get that gut squeezing hug as a goodbye I can hear that valve faintly tick,
And I pretend it's not your clock,
Trembling with each diastolic and Systolic murmur,
Gears cracking and eroding inside your kindled muscles,
Struggling to keep up with its more natural brothers inside that engulfing muscle,
That which reminds your family of
Your selfless and infinitely giving persona.
But it only reminds me that your days of rock polishing
And dentured smiles are ending rapidly.

I want to live the high I get from lines embedded in your scalp
Received from the contact of my fingertips messing through your sawdust hair
Lacking a frothy shower, smelling of pure human,
Not some artificial musk.
I want the real you,
The sweat,
The blood,
The tears painting Native American designs on your belly button.
All 5'11" of your unique composition, including
Your esophagus spitting colloquial rhythms,
Brain stem communicating your radical ideals,
And trachea resonating hypnotic gregorian chants.
I want to nuzzle in the space where your heart belongs
And cuddle your muscles under my chin.
I want to exist inside of the real you,
Under the throat you swallowed me down,
Behind the jugular that gives me shelter.
And every evening while I drink your smiles to sleep
I'll polish your teeth for morning
To showcase your perfected beauty,
To educate others on my addiction for every edge,
Every corner of your soul and that which it resides in.

We walked down the sidewalk with our eyes set towards the elongated skyscrapers, while we stumbled and lost our footing in gaping sidewalk potholes. Each extinguished and singed our disheveled sneakers.

A bird, perched on the stoplight, found my gaze and sawed in half the barrier between our minds with all eight talons, hungry for a sturdier connection.

The car horns synchronized their stammering chants and buckled our ankles like marionette horses. They escalated until we could see each vibration pulse from the windows, liquefying the glass and homogenizing salad vinaigrettes.

The waters, collected in the sewers, began to rush into their respective reservoirs and pool at increasing velocities. The excess bubbled up through the drain covers, costing our feet in fresh rain from yesterday's storm.

Every vent coaxed heated steam through its pours and the condensed warmth reached our fingers, yearning to steal the precious gemstones encased in our jewelry.

We were invited to become the new asphalt, to replace the neglected pieces begging to retire to the gravel pits outside of town, recycling them into new beings and begin again the birthing cycle of the city.

Chicago,

Your energy rumbles up my knees and out my esophagus.
I speak your language with each vibration,
And while others find it annoyance purely,
I treat it tenderly and loop it through each tooth,
Threading the words you teach me.
While your speech turns to sentences I come to understand your purpose, why we are here
On this gravity defying sidewalk.

I feel your kinesthetics with every breath I take,
Whooping back out cigarette tar and gasoline vapor.
The river, long and un-obstructive, flows down to the base
Of the brain stem which you funnel your strength and wisdom through.
The geese tickling your nerve endings in the water
Never realized this liquid is no longer their home,
It was taken hostage a century before.

This city,
With its echoing winds and cloud scraping apartments
Understands me.
A symbiotic sphere.
It sees the future while others greedily pull the veil over their faces,
But He is unwilling to accept the imaginary.
Someday the stars will no longer glisten,
While every building, innocent and newly ******,
Loses the fluttering heartbeat it once composed.
The windows will project no faces,
Only empty chairs and tables
Collecting dust and milky residue of the putridity its children once carried in lungs.

Paddling my ****** canoe down the whispering waters
With my fishing rod in hand,
I acknowledge the persevering tree buds,
The attention seeking trilliums,
Dazzling all eyes and intoxicating logocentric thinkers.
The perch and bluegill aim to impress my lures,
And wish to give my martyrdom-like worms salvation in the highest sense.
Into the ocean I proceed, jumping ship to swim the length of my beaches,
My spaces of leisure and relaxation.
The May flies clench my shirt in their microscopic fists,
Dropping me cleanly into the nook of the reading tree,
Where I monkey-swing down through the branches,
Onto my napping hammock-
This I cannot call my own, but I act as such.
Yet before I drift,
And the sun begs for bedtime,
I climb, dog leash in hand,
To the top of my mountain,
Where I coo our Star to sleep
And bid the moon good morning.
But too quickly does my rule end of these kindled nights,
As another power swoops up under my running shoes,
At the same time blanketing me in my parka,
My cave until the kayaks hum and vibrate again.
My mountain sheeted in snow,
I resort to observing this complete different beauty
Through the hood of my oversized coat,
While from above my ski poles click into their fitted sockets on my hands,
The only way left to triumph over this land mass I call my own.

For me these seasons progress too quickly,
Yet been it this way for centuries.
Mother Nature shows off her powers as she extinguishes my campfire
With a wintery gust of thinning atmosphere,
And little do the birds complain as they frantically scratch at every remaining frost-lacking beetle.
Life goes on just as planned
While the Does and Coyotes huddle for warmth in their newly knitted sweaters.