I Like You the Most

I like you the most when your
Hands are on my neck.
Your fingers are large and cold and
Mold perfectly to the
Small nape that directs a narrow
Pathway to the
Rest of me.

And,
I hate myself for being hopeful.
I pretend to be
Busying myself with books and papers and pens,
When really,
I am only waiting for the
Light to hit your eyes and
Electrify me.

And,
I am empty when
It doesn’t.
I accept the unwholesome absence of your
Pale arms leaning against
My door frame.
My neck feels cold,
Because I like you the most when your
Hands are on my neck –

Feeling for eternity.

You wonder how long that
White-haired man has been
Making waffles to give to other people.
You wonder how long the other
Has been slicing ham under
That immeasurably hot, metal light for;
Only to pass the pieces out to
Children who may just throw them away.

You wonder how long their
Hair has been white.
You wonder when
Yours will be.

You think that –
When I am eighty,
I sure as Hell will not be
Serving food to
Unappreciative
Strangers.

But, maybe,
That white-haired man gets up
Two extra minutes early on the
First Sunday of each month,
Probably alone,
To make the same waffles for the
Same people as last month.

And the man whose
Fingers don’t even shake as he
Slices your ham and
Tells you a joke at the same time
Might even be happy to
See the same people as last month,

Yes,
he definitely is.

Those men made more than
One child smile this morning.
And even though it’s
Easter Sunday, and that child
Probably doesn’t understand what that means,
Well, neither do I.
But I imagine it resembles something like this.

White haired men
Serving waffles and
Ham,
Telling jokes,
Not much different from
Last Sunday.

Not much different at all.

The backs of my ears are wet with
your tongue,
traveling gingerly along the edges leaving a
tingling in my side

And, I like you
but I am thinking of him.

There is a hollowness inside me
and no matter what I eat
it doesn't leave

Knocking on the door of my mind,
of my heart,
it reminds me that
someone is missing.

I try to replace your hands,
small and white and
sweet
with a pair much
larger and more familiar.
This pair is rough and calloused,
but they spoke through my skin
and now they are gone.

But,
I like you
You have kind eyes and a
round face
You apologize when you mean it.

Still,
I am hollow and oh so
            heavy
at the same time

There's something that's changed -
I always wanted someone to sleep next to at night
and now that I have
I'd rather be alone

It felt so unnatural,
holding you in that
dimly lit room.

The cupboards were stained with
water and scratched -
other people's trails left
behind
now yours

We could've lived in that cupboard -
together,
and it we couldn't fit we would have
simply
hidden away the parts of ourselves that we
no longer got along with

We could've lived in that cupboard -
together,
you and me and our best selves,
and we could've held a flashlight underneath
each other's faces,
and make up stories about the weather or
what was for dinner that night.

But,
that wasn't what we did

We held each other in that
dimly lit room and it
felt so unnatural because

your face was twisted with the words
"goodbye"

but the weather was nice,
and we ate dinner alone.

I read a poem about
Scars telling stories

Writing letters

You can hardly see the one
On my cheek

When I’m forty I will forget it’s there

It is in the shape of a flag and I got it from
Falling off the ledge in the back yard I was running
Too
Fast

I have another on
The back of my ankle
I found it a few years ago and have no recollection of
Receiving it, which, I suppose,
Is a good thing.

And the others
Are lined up

They tell their story,
Write a letter to myself
About life and love and

Brokenness.

God knows what else.

You only say "I miss you"
at the end of conversations.
Like you're sneaking it in with one breath, or
like it's something that shouldn't be heard by anyone else because it's a
secret well kept that

yes,
you do feel.

And this bothers me -
that you try to hide what is so obvious to me in the backs of your eyes.
It's in your palms and your chin but you still say it like you are
breaking a silence.

And it bothers me that we can't say
"I love you" anymore
because, **** it,
I know we aren't supposed to be "in love" right now -
everything is so taboo -
but if you were to get hit by a bus tomorrow morning,
I would want you to die knowing that my heart goes so much deeper than just
a list of things I did today or a list of things I might do tomorrow

because there is more than just
physical distance between us, now
over these thousand or so miles
we still share our skin and we still share every single moment that lives in between our
fingers.
And that's not the kind of stuff that you can just
shove in the back of your closet and come back to later -
unless of course, you want it to be.

But - you don't. And I know this, because I know you.
I've seen your face twist with tears and
I know the color of your heart when your face gets angry.
Mostly, I know the color of your heart when your face
doesn't change,
but everything else does.

You think you can keep a secret -
but I feel how you feel.
You say "i miss you"
with a lower case i,
like you didn't have the time to fix it
because you are in such a hurry to get the words out like they are
gosspip that you might giggle over but shouldn't, like they are
a box behind a door you shouldn't open, like they are
straight from somewhere so deep inside you,
only I have seen

and let me tell you something
I miss you, too.

So now it's your turn -
tell me
why are we still hiding?

and what, *******,
what
are we so afraid of?

Lately I have been so bitter,
Like the surprising taste of metallic blood in your mouth when you’re
Not even sure where you’re bleeding from.

It’s hard to imagine age,
If it is relative to wisdom,
Or if that is only a fable, too,
Just as so many things seem to be.

Every day I am expecting myself to look older
Or at least angrier

It is peculiar.

I am not unhappy; not even close.
Yet there is always something pulling at my coattails,
Telling me
“Keep looking –
Keep searching”

Lately I have been so bitter,
I have realized that those I seem to hate the most are
Those who are the most similar to myself.

Lately I have been wondering
What is it I am searching for?