I search for you in everything I see
everything I have
making you seem almost tangible
present
and when all I find are pieces of hair and the shirt you left in my closet
I'll collapse in a heap on the floor
holding your shirt to my chest
as I sing the words you sang to me that Sunday night
on the ridge
telling me you couldn't love me anymore than you did in that moment

and you repeated those words
everyday
until one day you stopped saying it
stopped murmuring I love you in my ear
stopped speaking to me altogether
kicking me to the curb like I was the garbage on Thursday's
shutting the door in my face as I cry out to you
until the voice leaves my throat and I'm
torn

you are in every single fiber of me
like the blood running in my veins I feel you pressing against me
the warmth of you
invading my body and taking homage
in every single cell
until I become you
absorbing the way you laugh and the way you sound at 5 in the morning

I search for you in all the stars of the sky
finding your face in the constellations
hearing your voice in the crickets chirping wildly
as if singing a forbidden song they can't help but repeat constantly
my mumbled words to you get lost in the chirping
not knowing if somewhere
somehow
you can hear me

I hope you do

When I die, dear Mother
don't give my body away
to science.

I'd rather have it given away to poetry.

I want people to cut me open
and observe
how my bones were riddled with
melancholic verses of joyful pasts.

They have to see
the scarlet of my blood was the hue
I stole from the sunsets of
wishful thoughts.

Dear Mother,
give my body away
to the art of writing:
for they have to look past
everything they have ever learned.

They must know
of how much I loved and I lost,
and how that made the twine of my ribs
a story to tell.