there is this   candle that i keep
in a box and i save it for nights
when i want to think   of  y o u,
when the summer air is too hot
a n d   i  can  imagine  that  you
would   have  turned  o u r   air
conditioning  up so high  t h a t
i would   have had  to put  on a
sweater     while    you stripped
downtonearlynothing.i wonder
if  we  would  have  had   those
gardens you talked about   or if
you would    have taught me to
tolerate beer. i usedto think you
were the  s o l e  orchestrator of
every sunset i had ever     seen,
that you  m u s t  have bartered
some  part  of   y o u r    soul  in
exchange for that laugh       you
had, that all of the absolute ****
i had gone through was simply
there  t o   l e a d   m e   t o  you.
but you did not love me     t h e
same way, you  d i d  n o t  love
m e     the       s a m e           way.

This poem is called text her back because
I'm not sure why I reached out to befriend
you, but you taught me how to swing dance
beneath the lone concert awning in the middle
of Veteran's park at 9:00 pm.  Is that how they
do it in Texas? The niceties of i-don't-quite-know-you
and I'm avoiding telling you my age because I'm
worried I'm such a baby.

This poem is called text her back because I thought
calling you a blessing was a bit of a stretch for we've-
only-known-each-other-for-a-week, I don't know the
details, drowned out in nuances,
afraid of "I'm sorry, you
thought differently,
it was just a
dance."

i have let you keep me up at night for
too long. there used to be a limit to what i
would allow myself to do- how much i would
allow myself to think of you, to remember your
temperaments and the sound of your footsteps-
but i think i've forgotten what and where that
line was. lately i've been scared to be another
placeholder, scared to get attached to someone
new, scared to understand someone else's hand
gestures. i used to love the way you could paint
our future with your fingertips across the air,
across my skin, across my skin.