i dream about you
when i'm standing up
waiting in line at the grocery store
your freckles are there
dancing circles around my pupils
your laugh echoing
down the ethnic food aisle
& when i get to the checkout
i've subconsciously slipped
a small bag of your favorite candy
into my basket

& it's like the other day
when a ladybug landed
on my enormous ugly nose
& the projector in my head
coughed up your windowsill
covered in those tiny spotted
good luck charms
& my drive that morning
was dedicated to other memories of ours...
barreling down the highway
with your singing voice
spilling from the speakers
& driving blind
with your smile stretched
across the windshield,
billboards blasting past
plastered with ads
about your ankles
as i travel through the tunnels
you are flowing through my veins

& work is worse
oh look
this customer's pinky toe
is about the same size as yours
oh & her name!
it starts with the same letter as yours!
wow what are the odds
you've got ahold of my whole heart
each of the four chambers
is labeled with the letters
of your last name

i'm ******* losing it.

essentially
i am nothing
in the morning
a yawning representation
of a person pretending to be
facing out a window
sipping on a bitter cup
gripping onto the unraveling sanity
that is last night's dreams
you were there
some smiling
spinning
short blur of long hair & happiness
you flowed past me like water
& i was damp with sweat
when i awoke
without you
we are nothing
you keep telling me
we'll never be anything because we can't be
you keep saying
with so much emphasis
on the can't
your jaw clicks like
when you're having those nightmares
i wonder if i'm in them
while you thrash
beside me
i wonder who else
you're trying not to love
right now

i just don't understand
how such a tiny
lil
dainty thing
like
you
could take up SO MUCH space
inside  my  mind  &  even  come
flooding clumsily into my ugly heart...
your ringed
                    fingers forming bridges
across the tread marks
left behind
by earlier attempts to find you
((by other women i mistook for you)),
tiny smoldering campsites
& a persistent rhythm
marking the remnants of relationships
that your eyes help me forget...
yes
when i stretch out on your retinas
the others don't exist
yeah
when i fixate on your freckles
        there's     no       echo o o
                    in             my head.
you've filled it up entirely &
my eyelids keep the image in....
imagine what the ending is
if the beginning blows my mind like this!
we are simply freckles
                      on the face
                          of god
& you won't stick around for long
so i'll just be yours until you're gone.

two months ago
when i tried to kiss you
under the street lamp
like we were under a spotlight
on a stage
the center of the universe
you & i
you wiggled away
to the next scene so swiftly
you left me bathing
in the breath you left behind
& i swear the light followed you
as i lingered
trying to remember
if that was in the script

last month
after some awkward costume changes
another act with a background adjustment
new years eve
we're confessing to our characters
on a side stage
how long we've longed for the other
the inevitable intimacy we equally ache for
& i SAY:
(that line i always forget)
but this time you lean into me
& i don't wiggle
i don't waver
i've been waiting
& it's better than the dress rehearsals
my lips wet from yours
& the rain
anxious to unravel your costume
& bowing for an audience
we never meant to entertain

listen.
just so you know,
i know that you're not alone
in those pictures you post
  ((a table decorated
     by two half-empty
     glasses in a bar
     in the city where we met))
as it slides past my screen
amongst other photos i don't care about.
because you never did anything alone,
really.
not like me
the man you met,
  ((who went to movies alone
     long before he loved you,
     who spent nights scribbling
     over a tiny desk
     in a ***-soaked bedroom))
the man you changed
& then wondered aloud
what the hell happened to him...

& yeah you don't tag anyone
& yeah there's no one even in the photo
but i know
you know
he ******* probably knows
exactly what you're trying to say
  ((he paid for
     the whole thing))
with the dim lighting
& tablecloths
& glasses that aren't mason jars,
this is how you deserve to be treated,
right?

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine

i'm in love with
the air inside your lungs
& the taste buds on your tongue
& the redness of your blood
& a ton of other stuff
but your brain just isn't one.