When the city speaks in whispers
over the shouting of animals
and ca-cawing of birds
I trace the lines of your face
against the case of my pillow
wondering again why things have taken so long

While life is so short
one quick gulp of the fantasy
now to rest in fluidity too shallow to tread
So I think of you often
and I forget you even more
not for memory because we're timeless
but for my own idea of the calendar

It's based on howls and ghosts
on improperly relaying messages
and what I truly loved most
And what kind of test this is
and incorrectly translating
endless lists of wistfulness

What kind of test is this?

We have lost sharing secrets at midnight
between our shadowed hearts dancing
patterns on black walls

always, we were chasing
darkness and now we have
been caught

up in the balance of time, losing
ourselves momentarily to the
light

Your eyes
are iron cores
of dying stars.

I collapse
under their gravity.

You consume me,
and spit me out
in millionths.

Another day left locked up in the back of your head, but yet,
you forgot to write again.
Drinking leftover whisky and clutching at your throat, oh ****,
you forgot to write again.
Reading a book you found under your bed, you feel alive again,
so you pick up a pen.
The paper is ready and you're unable to breathe, when suddenly,
you remember,
I never knew how to write.
It happened again.
I'm dead.

Could you love me with city lights in my hair
Threatening to go over the edge of our high rise affair
Toes on the railing, sights on something better
Somewhere beyond this eternally empty city

Could you love me with a skyline out in front of you
That's doused in purple and orange, and won't have to sneak out in the morning
To go to a meeting to schedule the meetings that are important
So that I can be prepared to die

Will you love me when I'm just lights in the night sky
Something you'll lose sight of a second time
In the burn of a city that makes you feel
Like you're floating while I'm sinking

Will you ever remember if you loved me
On the streets of a city that can't remember
If I was ever here at all

You keep me in the breast pocket of a heavy winter coat
Tucked away with crumbled receipts
For shaving gel, condoms, and sleeping medication
Hidden close to your heart

You keep me in the pocket of the jeans you keep discarded on the floor
Under collared shirts and a sweatshirt you got from a club you never joined
Damp with the scent of my sweat and poorly made Chinese food
Because playing with you is like playing house, playing me in the kitchen, you in the office
Us in linen sheets

We're harmless
We're impossible (That's what you told me)
We're just a house that's not real, really
And an imagination that I've let run away from me

We're locked away in a box I keep on my desk
On the torn out corner of a note you passed to me from the pocket of your winter coat
We're crammed between ticket stubs and a cherry stem your tongue laced into a knot
In your sloppy cursive, coated with time in my sloppy optimism:
"I love you"

My heart dressed in polka dots and dark shades
Hair and hurt sitting on shoulder blades
Across rose-colored skin,
I brush my fingers over bumps and scarred perfection.

Dance with me in a pit of quicksand, rockabilly babe
And help me understand that I don't need to be afraid

We are children with short attention spans
and short term parents,
and it's apparent, in this short span of time,
I love you.

Blackbirds chuckling in the arbor vita;
Vultures circling high
Against the blue and Sunday sky;
House sparrows scolding in the neighbors' trees;
A robin chorister brings Dickinson to mind,
And I don't mind.

Sunday morning's breakfast's done,
And we have time
To smile a little...
Bashful mornings
Just a little now
Even after thirty years.

Tomorrow storms will come;
Next week a tree will fall;
Shadows must make their surly steps
Even as sun slides down...
It's just the way this old world runs.

But this morning,
This Sunday morning,
Bright and fine,
I rest from all my worrying,
Rest in the love I have with you,
Amazed again to have,
Amazed to hold,
A girl like you.