lingering
like a memory
but fresher--
the scent of your cologne
absorbed by my skin.

one a.m. headlights
and two strangers pass--
the rumble of your idle car
beneath the gray clouds
and beside our embracing forms.

just three minutes longer,
that's all i ask,
as i pull you closer and
hold you tighter.

i'll miss you,
we whisper.

only the breeze
hears.

Nothing on the floor--
greens and blues and lighter shades of pale
stretched out in stripes from the sun
shining through the curtains.

Solace in a puddle on the floor--
drip, drip, from the bloated ceiling tiles
browning from the rain.

Somewhere, down the garden path,
past the Easter lilies and scattered ferns,
a butterfly drinks the nectar
of a honeydew blossom.

I am here to hurt you.

Hand me your heart,
bleeding and succulent
and young,
and I will show you what it means
to have loved and lost.

I am here to love you.

Hand me your soul,
singing and blossoming
and pure,
and I will show you what it means
to ascend to heaven.

Embrace my smile.
Surrender to my eyes.

Convince yourself
that everything that is wrong in my head
is something you can fix.

Everything--
except you,
represented in the emptiness
of a nighttime landscape.

The suburbs glittering
and in the distance the refineries
I found one day with--

Why does the half-darkness
remind me of you?

If we never spent a night together,
never saw the lights suspended within
steel structures and burning fires,
why is it that I regret you now,

beneath the glare of buzzing light pollution
on the top floor of a garage?

Your name is beautiful.
Your name is so ******* beautiful,
and I want to cry.
Something about the z,
or perhaps the sch
that makes me think of
hurricanes and daisies.

It's all dreams now;
tornado pastures amidst
raindrops
s(h)ifting like a fog
where the light is thin.

But you don't live here anymore.
Your bed is empty and
the sheets lie neatly.
And when your air conditioner kicks on
the air it breathes
no longer smells of you.
I think I'll sneak in through your window
to sleep in your bed
beside the soft pillowed impression
of the memory of you.

The sand lies thin on
the carpeted floor;
acrylic-painted seashells
for housing hermit *****
rest beside the television
empty.
Within the walls
hallucinations of your voice
and on the keys of the piano
the indentations of your fingers.

The hammers are broken.
Still your melody plays.

But you don't live here anymore.
At 2 a.m. I wipe the condensation
from your window pane
and shine the flashlight into your eyes--
just my reflection in the glass.
My fingerprints are fresher than yours
and where my feet fall
the dust from your shoes will be late to meet.
I think I'll lie naked between your sheets
so maybe the mattress will remember
that you felt different than I do.

Your name is beautiful.
Something about the phr,
or the nia...

Under the streetlights shining silver stars into puddles
and throwing shadows at roaches
I wait patiently for my not-quite-charming prince to drive up
in his silver-armoured vehicle
and take me away.

I was being lazy again, but I wasn’t thinking of you until
the movie ended and I was left with the sound of
someone else’s happiness and someone else’s name.
I couldn’t help but notice how the colors blended to form
the memory of a café with eyes hanging from the ceiling by strings
and your eyes sparkling in the light.
I fell in love with you when you sang something I had hoped was for me
but whether or not it was I never asked.
The lyrics you sang were foreign to me and the thoughts you provoked
were lost upon my ears.
Too busy to listen I was mesmerized by your smile
never fading under the glare of fluorescents or in
the presence of my unabashed stare.
You left me happily confused in the front seat of my car
as you blew a kiss and waved goodbye.

I wonder if you still call me beautiful.

It’s midnight now and I want to punch walls
because I have to make everything complicated.
I’m more confused than ever and more angry than confused
and more than anything I’m still in love with who you are and what we were.
I wish I could talk to you but there’s too much you could find;
I’m not the same girl you fell in love with eight months ago.
There’s less of me here now and more reasons to hate me
and upon my shoulders more of the ever-present unhappiness
I’ve become more masochistic about carrying.

I wonder if you found someone better.

I hated myself then and because of that
I hated you for loving me.
The closer we grew the more I couldn’t accept your seventeen years
and the way you seemed to know that everything would be okay.
I hated your optimism and the way you made me happy
and I hated myself for hating you.
I didn’t make sense and I don’t make sense
because I miss you despite how I felt then.
My restless mind couldn’t stop looking for reasons to condescend;
everything I dislike about you is a lie.
I wanted nothing more than to tell you I still loved you,
but I couldn’t, and I shouldn’t.
In that hour I wanted to make you love me again and
I wanted to be in your arms.

I wonder if you ever think of me.

Someday I’ll find that movie you lent me and I’ll watch it again.
It’ll be like loving you, and I’ll feel your presence next to me
even though you’d be ignorant completely of my thinking of you.
In the night I’ll talk to the stars and it’ll be like whispering to you
and only the window will know how pathetic I am.
The world is crumbling like stale dessert
falling in pieces at my feet, but only in my head.
I keep over-thinking everything and my brain can’t take it anymore
and I just want to curl up in your embrace to your philosophy that
everything is going to be okay.
I wouldn’t believe you and I’d probably end up ruining things on my own,
but it’s moments of perfection like that one I strive to encounter.

I wonder if you’re still awake.

It’s getting late now and I’m still naked between
the sheets and consciousness.
I’ll wake up later today and maybe I’ll remember this.
My dreams might consist of you making me feel happy again
or maybe you’ll finally reject me.
In any case I hope you haven’t written a song about how much
I’ve messed up yet.
I’m sure you will someday but give me some time to get used to
the side of you that’s moved on.
Until then I’ll dream about cake and music and everything else we loved
when we loved each other then.