I noticed the shadows
Your eyelashes display.
Your spine the string of a piano
Wound too tight to play

I noticed the words
You never let spill
I could hear the chords
Before you froze them still

I noticed when I yelled
You loved me less
In the distance bells knelled
You watched me undress

I was standing in the airport this morning
and thinking of our first kiss,
When I realized I should write you this letter.
I’ve bought a ticket to somewhere far away
a place I know you won’t follow me,
where no one knows my name.

It’s best if you forgot my name
since by next Tuesday morning
you won’t know where to find me.
You’ll know it’s gone, that kiss
and that I’m even father away.
That’s why I’m writing you this letter.

I imagine you’ll burn the crinkled letter
and curse that you ever asked my name
curse my blush when you asked to go out with me.
How you woke up at dawn that morning
How you brushed chocolate off my lips with a kiss
You’d curse you ever fell in love with me

When you escaped to San Francisco with me
you saw all my writing, the poetry, the letters.
You read a poem about dove’s kissing
and you said you loved me by name.
When we woke up in a hotel that first morning
The world couldn’t have felt farther away

But I had plans to fly away
My future wouldn’t make room for you and me
I couldn’t always wake up to you in the morning
I knew one day I’d have to write this letter
That one day I would try and fail to forget your name
That I’d always feel the pressure of that kiss

God, if I could go back to that first kiss
I would push you away
I would tell you to forget my name
To forget everything you would love about me
So I’d never have to send this letter
and wake up so  a l o n e  in the morning

Kiss the memory of me
away and touch the flame to the letter
Sincerely, a nameless girl you loved yesterday morning

The smell of forest lives in the tangles
of her hair. She smells of thrift store candles.
I can taste strawberry jam on her lips
her low rise jeans hang too loose on her hips

She wraps herself around my existence
and sways me back and forth in dance
Counting the freckles on each of her fingers
she leaves her lips on mine and lingers

She smells of a burnt sun
Her skin’s golden when her shirt’s undone
When she sleeps I listen to her heart
and silently remember, she’s just a piece of art

Your arms and legs are the sky
Full of formations of stars
That used to be clear
When the sun used to shine

But with darkness comes night
And with night comes being alone
Cringing at the sound of silence
So many questions
Now imperfect visions
Of what used to be constellations
Blurred through the telescope

The clocks are backwards turning
Stomach uncomfortably churning
Although it's concerning
That your heart is burning
Those pills mean no returning
From where you're leaning towards going

You can't go down there

Down in the ground
When your body was found  
You seemed to have drowned

The thought of it sends you away
Mind now spinning
Like the Milky Way's silky waves
Swirling in a circle down the drain
The color of crimson red
Or down the toilet
Like your last meal

All you have left
Is the darkness
From your fingertips to your toes
And those dark constellations
Sweeping across your arms and legs
Like the night sky