No matter where you were
or who you left me to
Who you left me for
or why;
I’ve written us down.

I’ve remembered every sound
every word, every curve
of your lips and
your waist.
I wrote it down.

We share a bad habit
of always coming back here
after all of our disasters;
and we spill into each other
as crimson ink
on the tattered pages
of a borrowed book.
It stands out.

I replaced our lapse in time
with a project of a girl,
a down in dumps
lost and lonesome soul —
a fixer-upper.
And still I wrote to you
and of you.

I wrote how
we’d tread lightly on new ground
each time, safe
at a distance
carefully timing the old dance
that we do twice a year
never missing a step
but still missing.

And these pages go back
quite a way,
to the first shy hello
and the first lie we told
to everyone
and to ourselves.
Sometimes the sentiment
raw and explicit,
sometimes read between
lines and lovers
Even still, our story
seems destined
to rewrite us.

When I focus on one star
it begins to dance.

My imagination and the universe are the same.

If I had wings, surely I would
Loose my heart to a bird or the sun in the sky.
I would give myself to a gust of wind, and
Disturb the grounds where angels fly.
 
I could whisk away from my world,
Go and dance on a silver cloud.
Immerse my self in the winds that swirl;
Listen as they whistle aloud.
 
When it rains I’ll be there laughing,
Cascading amongst the falling drops.
I will go, and be there singing,
Thunder, my drums, to back me up.
 
In quiet times, I’d spread my wings,
Floating, sleeping, on breezes still.
Never thinking of love or hate,
This New World would be my fill

Give me just a single moment to figure myself out
I’ve blanketed myself with my own dark curtains of doubt
I blocked out all the sunny rays
To search for many darker days
Though now I’ve lost myself to find a different route


I can’t find the right shade or hue of white that I could match
The words long to be sadder but a filter’s there to catch
All the brighter, whiter words,
Filtered through the different worlds
Of bluer skies that I've learned not to latch

Something tells me that I’m not truly at my best
When striking the bass guitar to play on higher frets
You said I sounded at my peak
When the lowest chords had gone too weak
So the longest note was the one that you had stressed


I can only play so high for you on my better days
But somehow you were fine with thinking other ways
Plastered a smile to my face
And held the last fret on my bass
And began to play your best song in a haze


I’d never heard a song that was more cheerful than this
You filled the missing measures with the chords that I had missed
And brighter days were sure to come
If I were not twice as glum
Her melody was a recipe for bliss

At my high school reunion
Years from now
In the old gym
They'll ask, whatever happened to us anyway
I won't have an answer for them
It'll be a shoulder shrug
Upward palms
And a colon backslash face
They'll move on to my son
Or work
Or school
Or some distant memory which will undoubtadly begin with, "remember that time"
And most likely end with, "those were the days"
And while they move on with their conversations
I will still have a colon backslash face
And my mind will be in a completely different time machine than the prom queen and the class clown
I will
By the end of it all
Have devoted what I can only imagine to be significantly more time than alotted
Thinking about what did ever happen to us anyway
And when I go home to what I anticipate being a beautiful, intellegent, loving wife, girlfriend, fiancee thing
She will
For a moment
Or possibly two moments
Not measure up to you
And I hope she won't notice my colon backslash face
That she'll end up smiling until she falls asleep

The morning after my high school reunion
I will stand in front of my mirror
And for much longer than two moments
I will not measure up
To the man you could have made me
And I will notice
I will start by ******* in my gut
Running my hands through my hair to try and imagine myself with a different style
I will analyze my wardrobe
And half way through auditing my music collection I will fall to the floor
I will cry
And with you in the forefront of my mind
I will
In true movie scene fashion
Whisper to no one
Whatever happened to us anyway
And worse than not having an answer at the reunion
I won't have an answer for myself
In an empty living room
Because I really don't know whatever happened to us anyway
One day we were
The next day we weren't
It was so adult
I was so civil
Even our break-up will be the best I ever had

The day before my high school reunion
I will cut my hair
Trim my arm pits
And clip my beard
I will iron a suit
Pick a good tie
And I imagine
In front of a mirrror
I will
Be proud of the man I have become

In the years going forward
And leading up to that high school reunion
I will
As a matter of life's course
Have no other occasion
To ask myself
Whatever happened to us anyways
But never the less
One night
Years from now
That question
Will leave me paralyzed
Scared
Heartbroken
Lonely
And even if
I am not alone
My pillow will remember
For one night
Or maybe even two nights
How to smell like you
And my arms
If only for a half a moment
Or possibly one whole moment
Will
With no luck
Reach for you

You make me feel
like Badger brew’s caramel apple cider is free
but only for me because I see things

like how you fiddle with your pen before a test
–who uses a pen in math anyway?-
or the way your eyes are flecked with green
You make me feel, for once, that I’m only 17

We can have a conversation
in whispers and doodles
when the teacher’s not looking
or sing old-time rock out of key
and sometimes we can just sit
and be

You are my fixation,
my liberation, devastation, temptation, stimulation

Bring it on Lex! I’ve got superman by my side
He’ll blow you away with his laser-beam eyes
We’ll travel the world
with each postcard we spy as we walk down the pier
When you’re around death isn’t as near

But the sad thing is
by this time next year
you’ll be out east while I’m
stuck right here.
But I will have no tears to shed

The worst part?
That you’ll have no clue
that this poem is one I wrote
for you.

What is music?  The heart rendered?  What life
Is to a dream?  The eyes object in rapture?
What is the soul's shell, but a half note hollow
Contained with music?  Art is cold—
Echo, mute repetition, poor traits for nine
Dead muses of memory, a fiction after
The fact, nor can there be a shelf for credence
Without cadence.  And though the painter's eyes
Remember rainbows colour, his hands forget
All, save black and white.  Though the sculptor sees
The vein of nudes within the sparkled rock
That stone, still, looks back with grieving half-
Heartedness.
                         The chambered heart is beating,
The droning gales are sighing, but like the one bird
Who flies three ways— before and after song,
My middling wings pronounce two kingdoms part
Music.  The felt fingers of rain consort with well-
Tempered earthly quays and everywhere there is
There is the bright organic instrument—
And actuality is sidled with dead metaphors.
Music is but purest feeling given air to,
The mind soothed, the spirit seduced and a quell
For ache of heart, music is pure making—
Existence itself, another plain, a well dressed
Traveler, a border with life—
Body and spirit, who hand in hand and each
With each, are bound as wings are paired;
One flyer soaring.