There was a sun catcher I painted for my mother
but I couldn't ignore the light in your eyes
with your mouth opened wide
and a tab on your tongue,
eyes reflecting the sun.
From then on I promised
that catcher would get to your hands
but you flew too high up
and you never did land.

On February twenty-fifth
exactly twelve days from today
I'd like to show up
outside your window
with a ukulele and a cake
with frosting that reads "congratulations
baby sweetheart darling lover
you are on in a million
not one in the three-hundred-fifty-something people
in Connecticut who gave up
on themselves and on their lover
darling sweetheart honey
I'll be outside your window always
if only you'd call me.

I have whispered love into lonely quiet shoulders
and shouted from the bottom of a frozen hill.
I have tick-tick-ticked it into messages online
and kept it to myself to ensure the room stay still.
I have scrawled it endlessly onto pink paper,
it's been buried aside "but" and beneath salty tears.
I have hesitated in the Winter. By Spring it was eager.
I'll repeat it to you for years and years and years.

There are phrases spoken that sound a bit like "I no longer need you,"
but through the whistle of the words it comes out like an apology or,
depending on the direction the wind is blowing, a rhetorical question.
There are moments spent walking through snow drifts at noon with
heavy feet and a crackling at the bottom of my throat thinking
this is not your season for me. Your voice was never cold and damp
it was clear even when it broke, calming and clean. There are dreams
that you don't occupy anymore and when the great flood came
and the world was like a giant Roman pool in which the entire population bathed,
you were missing from the scenario. I swam from the steps of my dorm building
all the way to the ocean and when I realized I hadn't found you on the journey,
I turned back around to search. There are nights when bouys look more appealing
than constant breast back butterfly strokes through the sweat and salt
but then there are mornings that remind me
this will make me stronger. This will make me see.

Last night I realized that I ask people the most personal questions
in an attempt to know their depths in a hurry rather than allowing the answers to flow naturally.
I rarely make it underneath the skin.
"What's your middle name" followed by "Have you ever been in love" and
"What was your SAT score?" "Favourite subject?" "Favourite way to hurt yourself?"
Margaret after my great grandmother, but if we're being honest I'd say it were April
and I once fell in love with a man whose eyes I only met for a second on the train
while I was dreading making my way home again only to be scolded for not trying.
I've been scored on how much sweat I'd let out of my pores just to reach the tip top of
your spine, how early I could fall asleep and how many scars you remember me telling about.
The notebook my mother bought me for math is green and filled with fragments of
seventh grade, nail polish and the hope of a small room with someone who'd like to kiss
every single one of my fingers as I count every one of their hairs and eventually,
as we talk about family and falling off swings, we come across the father of your father
whose name is right between your first and last.
Once I've scratched the surface, I stay if I see red.

There's always been something calming about January sweat with the window open
and bruises making home on every inch of my neck.
If anyone were to ask "What's the matter?" I'd like to reply with
"Nothing, it's all vibrations of energy slowed enough to be perceived,
and these marks on my throat haven't been in the shaped of fingers since seventh grade."
I learned how dung beetles use the Milky Way Galaxy to guide themselves
but I take direction from people who shine twice as bright.

There are some silent decisions made at two in the morning
unshaven legs poking out from under the covers and sweaty palms reaching towards fresh air.
This is the time for missing and this is the time to breathe
but everyone whose face I've ever studied for the sole reason of having a better chance of dreaming of them,
they all know that this can't be a time for both.
Balance seems to be the word of the day although I've never quite learned the definition.
Getting by on synonyms like "harmony" and "symmetry" do the trick.