I go out to dinner with a near stranger
we sit on the same side of the booth and
I think about how you're the only one who
knows how much I hate that

I drink a drink with ***** and lime and
***** and it almost makes me feel like
I know who I am when I'm with someone else

I don't think of you often but last night I did
I remembered how your arms are the
only place where I am not self-conscious

I lie next to him on my balcony and
there are a lot of stars above us but
I'm the only one who notices

he is thinking about what I look like naked and
I'm counting how many hours of sleep
I will get if he leaves before 2

there is not an absence of feeling,
just a different kind than I'm used to
he touches my hand and I smile in
a way that doesn't feel forced

I spend a day with a near stranger and realize
there is so much he does not know about me,
so much he doesn't care to

like how I got my nose pierced at 14 or
the amount of time I spend in the mirror each morning
picking myself into something I can carry only semi-confidently

he only learns I can't ride a bike when he asks if I want to
he has no idea that my blonde is shielding a deep brown or
when I got the freckle above my lip or
the inch long scar underneath my chin

he doesn't care and that's okay
when he leaves we say I miss you but
in a different way than I'm used to

it is not a pain swelling to be morphined
nor is it a pulling from the gut but instead
it is the ever temporary desire to fill the excess lonely

we say I miss you and still mean it but
it is not the missing that a body feels for
a phantom limb

I am with him now and probably will be again but
moving on doesn't mean I don't miss you
it only means I'm trying not to

just because I'm all right doesn't mean
I don't wonder how you are
I can still be happy with the existence of a quiet ache

but yes I do
miss you,
I will until the day I can sleep without having to count sheep
I will miss you even if there are no stars in the sky to remind me

I don't think of you but last night I did
the moon was too bright and
I was the only one
who noticed

~

If I were
  a yoyo,
   there’d be
  no need
     to wait
for me to
  come back up…
   because
  I’d never
     leave your
         *hand

~

The moon
  cast shadows
on my
       heart
  
Your smile
   hides them
     from my
    view

And though
  this night
we are
  apart

   My evening
glows
    because of
       *you

-

I heard her
melodic voice
   this morning
as the sun rose
   and my heart
    felt the
dawning of
    *perfect harmony

_

In a lemon zest field
of goldenrod and lavender,
where butterflies frolic
in calm breezes
on a warm springtime afternoon
and shade trees cool the day
with outstretched arms of nature,

an aphonic cloud approaches,
menacing in proportions,
clinging to a frightened sky
Swirling leaves and mingled debris
like shrapnel of days long gone

Beneath life ceases to exist
as frayed discolored blooms
litter the now vacant wasteland
and roots exposed on a parched
desolate earth burn
in umber tinted weepings,
coughing of dust bowl deliveries,
while cataclysmic calamities
bring forth the wrath
of the end

And as the cloud finally passes,
dissipating in a mist of forgotten fears
making its way to a darker universe
now waiting on
the other side of hope,

sunlight returns from pale blue skies
slowly breathing, exhaling the past,
inhaling the future…    
a lone butterfly appears
fluttering amidst tiny green sprouts
peeking through a new born soil
*and so it begins…again