Feeling of being lifted running through my legs,
Train on bridge looks the only way it can:
Like suspended seconds holding for unison
Above a hundred feet of air ending in water.

Lights with on stuck switches twitch,
People watch as I look out the window nervously,
Sleights of hand go noticed
And hiding is never as easy as not being seen.

Lifting feeling rises to my sides while still struck
To think that this is all somewhere,
To someone,
Right?

Is nowhere ever just that cut clean?

Even with train on ground I feel left there.
Shoulders tensed, eyes cautiously cast down;
I am waiting, waiting, waiting.

Dear Etta,

I will stay awake for you.
And as you sleep my prying eyes
Will keep the silence and the stillness.
And when you wake I will take your hand in mine,
We will walk and you will lead.
And, oh, I have seen your chest rise
Again yet again and, oh, I have seen
Your subtle movements before.
But there is one who now knows you better than I,
We had such a short time together
I will not be able to forget and still,
I will stay awake for you.

In the sun, in July, it looks the same outside.
But only if you squint.
I memorized the floor plans,
Of where everything should go,
           Should’ve gone,

Superimposed memories of the hallways,
They line the bedrooms, and
Panic attack if it doesn’t all fit
      if these aren’t the right people
      if the furniture has changed.

Want to put it all back the way it used to be,
Needs to be, or should be, and
Panic attack if I think about ghosts too long
      if I think about winter too much
      if I accept it is not the same
      and never will be.

What can I do about this body
Except feel no right to be wanted,
With the clouds outside mirroring my feelings.

What I would do to your body
Has never actually passed my lips,
But has played over in my mind
At least a hundred times.

You said I cared more about the people on posters than myself,
Posters that I had in my room, of people now dead
or those that never existed (of those I wanted to be).
At least that is what I imagine you saying
Played over a hundred times yes, it may be true.

But honestly I care less about those on the wall around my bed
And more about the people I dream of in it.

Nine a.m. at travel stance;
Shave, then shower, packing by ten.
Travel stance is stuck in a seat for two hundred miles;
Two days later and another two hundred, then again.

Bags always near, clothes always everywhere.
Travel Stance is looking nice everywhere else except where you sleep.

and there were the flowers that hung above us
outside the cafeteria, the quad. There was the
first warm day of the year and the walk we took,
and there was the wind. There was the month in
winter when we did nothing but talk; there was
the rain, then summer, then the falling leaves.
There was the trip to San Diego, the trip to
Germany and Austria, there was the cabin

and there was the night in August when
I decided I could not sleep so instead I wrote.
There was a moment I remember when I began
to feel that I was nothing but my memories,
and there was the morning we went to breakfast
instead of going to class. There were the nights
when I had panic attacks and you would come
and talk and I would feel better

and there was orchestra, there were the notes
written back and forth. There were the chords
we learned and put to good use, the needless
trips to stores, every item I own is a Symbol
of a memory I can not live again. There was
the grass and music playing off in the distance,
there are the goodbyes too painful but always
in my mind, the hours devoted to practicing.

There were eighteen years and then there was this.

and after you there was another friend
but her hair was not brown but blonde instead.
And after my first there was no one for a while,
but I’m sure there will be another boy
with a swimmer’s build and that look in his eye.
And there will be another and another
until I die. And even if I’m surrounded by
you and all the ones I love and loved I
will be alone, truly surrounded by only my
memories. And I will remember that
there were the moments when I smiled

and there was hope, I am not just my
memories I hope I am not. There is water
and love, I can not end until I end.
I will be what is after this. And after
that I will be whatever that is. And after
and after until I end. And after

Sometimes in the morning I hear a birdsong out our kitchen window,
But when I look nothing is ever there.
With you gone I get so faded
That I don’t even know the name of the state I’m in.

I feel you in my skin, carrying you everywhere I go.
With you, I know my blood is not bounded
By the lines or curves of my body.

At night I would imagine when we would be breathless,
Thinking of the mere molecules of space between us.
Unconscious, I am shapeless until you,
Intersections of flesh and bodylines.

I had never told anyone that I didn’t think the sea was beautiful,
Or dreamt the Atlantic Ocean had swallowed me whole.
I did not choose my blood but it chose my body,
Bounded birdsong of something missing, unnatural.

One day my bodylines will burst,
Wings will tear out this back and block the sun.
Say Wind, feel the weight of my face on your porous surface
Like water but thinner.
Where it feels like open space,
I’ll stay until I see your face again.