if i keep the receipts i can pretend
that we’re still going out to lunch together,
that your phantom arm is around me at night,
that you’re still here.

i can pretend that you’re not in new york,
and me, i’m not here.
i hoard the receipts and the tickets and
the programs and the take out menus.

i sleep with your sweatshirt under my body
and i, i remember each breath we took in unison.
i imagine that you’re not away
because we are both universal, anyway.

i never cried at the bus stop,
or the train station.
instead i hoarded the tears until i was so full
of water that i broke.

because we can pretend that this is easy
and worth it, it will be,
but at the end of the night
i’m still clutching papers and cloth

with all of my might.

it started about a year ago,
starry-eyed,
lost on a campus and lost on a
cerebral field of land mines.

i didn’t expect much,
you were haloed and far away,
something specked on
the distance. lust.

but you were more,
a neon angel in the rain
and a yellow light
in a bus plaza i knew so well.

i can’t look at it the same way again.
the rain didn’t phase me
like it always did before.
i like the sun, i love you more.

i didn’t expect much,
probably awkward, bumping teeth
and feet,
but as if a painting from the RISD

stepped out of their frame,
and i was not the same.
and you were soft, soft, soft,
in words and hands and i

was safe after i stowed the
scared little girl away,
comforted her in a way,
i’m not scared to grow up

or be in love
or leave home
or be me
anymore.