you smile
and it is then that i realize that you will be what kills me

not cancer
or car wreck
or nuclear winter

you
green eyes and patchwork smiles, knobby wrists and good intentions
you will **** me.

i spend the next three months writing my eulogy.

We
Elegantly juxtaposed
Against the backdrop
Of the stars that obstruct.
The space between you and I
Trembles.

it was unseasonably warm for a january morning, and
as a result, the front windows of your car were left
cracked open to the lazy morning air

and i saw them hanging there
like open mouths poised to spill their secrets

i searched for a pen.

i thought about writing down all the things i love about you
every time you took my breath away
every fever dream of you and every time i wished i could undress you right then and there
and i was honestly so close.
your windows were open, and i could slip it easily onto your passenger's seat.

but no one was parked on the other side of you,
and i would quite certainly give myself away.
so i didn't risk it, and i'll have to be content
with hoping you wanted to undress me, too

but i don't understand how i'm supposed to sleep when nothing will be the same when i wake up
how am i supposed to lie down and stop existing for a fleeting lifetime while the seasons spin around me
why do i have to stop to let time pass when no thing stops for me so i can pass
and why do things have to change anyway


forgetting happens but it happens too late but it happens too soon
and soon and lately you can't remember what he smelled like or what his shirt felt like against your saltwater skin or his hands on your face but you remember that he pretended not to know you the last time you saw him and you remember the girlfriend that you pretended didn't exist and you remember that you are a ******* idiot for still remembering these things but the color of his eyes is gone, gone like the summer sky and the salty air that he kissed your temples under and the trees and the song and the muddy sides of the mountain and waterfalls and uke lessons, fireworks and roadkill and you are gone somewhere without a name

you are gone somewhere just past consciousness but just within belief

the belief that maybe you honestly didn't see me walking right past you and this is all just a mistake and soon you will send me another sleepy message with all the periods in the wrong places and when i call you out on it you will respond earnestly and sincerely sorry and when you've lost me nearly i will mention the movie that i really want to see and you will take me and share popcorn and fingertips and nervous giggles and maybe this will end with the linen sheets and cold coffee and soft acoustic caresses and the eyes that remember to shine green in the golden afternoon glowing through the miniblinds of your dorm room that i have imagined a million times over


be calm and be brave because these things will work out and none of this will even matter in 10 years time
i said these things but i never said be patient because none of this will even matter in 10 years time
if you make it 10 years
if you make it through the night

what i said:
"you sound rough this morning."


what i meant:
"your voice is lavender and honey and tea time and supernovas colliding with gentle breezes and if i could wake up to it, just once, cocooned in a tangle of your arms and couch cushions and that blanket you keep in the back of your car, i swear by the stars in my eyes no one on this godforsaken planet would be out of earshot of my singing

i hope that tonight when i dream of you--it is no longer a matter of uncertainty, but anticipation--you speak like you've just overslept your alarm and frantically motored yourself to where i am, like is the case today.

i wish you had chosen me but if i could only listen to you speak to me, about anything--rivers or math homework or football or belonging or music or even your girlfriend--i promise i would listen with the beating urgency of a swimmer in a frozen stream, i would savor each word from your lips, like they were the spring and i was the underground daisy waiting for your kiss.

and in precisely three days i will have an essay to compose about a beautiful topic that would consume me thoroughly were it not for the memory of your groggy morning voice, so full of raspy complacency i can't breathe but instead of fulfilling my obligations i will be hashing out halfway comprehensible poetry about you and crying about how i cannot recreate the sound of your voice with any combination of hollowly clicking keys.

you are so beautiful that i could spend the remainder of my life with a five-subject notebook, scrawling 'your eyes. your smile. your hands. your voice' over and over endlessly and die feeling as though i had lived a thousand years of quiet adventure.

you are so much and too much for me and i have no idea why you see as much in me as you do but i will not question it, for fear that if i were to come too close to you, to run my fingers along the marvel of your face you would shrivel and unfurl into nonexistence, like the leaf in the fire."


and also:
"why can't your voice always sound like this?"

and finally:
"******* you're attractive"

what a shame to think that the world
might end in only eight days' time
and i have never kissed
you except in
dreaming