you can't remove a piece of clothing -
        not a sweater,
  not a shirt,
    not a pair of ******* socks -
without thinking of them,
picturing them, you know?
like,
  not even in your bed or on your bed or anywhere near your bed.
      just thinking of them,
because you get to this point where it's like,
the whole reason you take off your clothes,
is so that this one person, who you love, more than anything
can touch you better
or see you better
or so that you can feel them with things that aren't your hands.
  it's ******, i guess. for some people. for me. that whole skin-to-skin thing.
but anyway
it isn't about *** - wanting people, i mean.
   it's just that you're doing something
   in their absence
    that you normally do,
      or sometimes do,
      or have done,
     in their presence
and it feels weird
and it makes you feel weird,
and then you miss them,
and you write poems like this one.
or whatever this is.

it's pretty embarrassing, as a cycle.

and on the cusp of it something happened
(a two-people-one-bed sort of something,
  so happy ******* new year, everybody)

it's not what it usually is.
     you're no more and no less tragic than anyone else.
     you do not need to be fixed.
     maybe you're a little ****** up, but that's the norm now anyways.
        
        (and I suspect there are things you don't tell me
               in terms of your home and your history
               just like there are things i don't tell you,
                 but everything comes out eventually.)

i guess it's just how you look at me
and how it seems like our souls are the same.
sometimes it really is that simple.
and it's weird to say
and it's a cliche, and it's stupid,
but i genuinely love the way you think
( plus
     you have this type of kindness
      that i really think most people have forgotten.
it's the kind where you look in people's eyes even if they're unpopular or weird
                 or a stranger
                   or an *******
                      or your girlfriend's ex boyfriend
                         and remember that you're both people)
and so I guess that's why,
or at least that's part of why.

by the way, this poem is about why i like you
                    and maybe love you,
               but we don't say that yet.

just in case you didn't get it.

If you gave me a thousand years
I would not be able to express to you
how irritating it is
   that I am not wearing this coat
     but I can feel it.
It' s just sitting
in the chair
behind me
scrunched under my back
and the ******* zipper
is digging into my elbow
     and it is the most bothersome thing.
I love this coat
because it's yours
   and wearing it reminds me that I'm yours, too.
But right now I swear -
I will destroy this ****.

dear noah,
you beautiful boy. you were the youngest,
and you were so bright.
you're a star now, sweet boy, above everything and
so bright.
your sisters and your mother will remember you,
your smile,
and your left-behind half, she'll have parts of you with her her whole life.
you're not forgotten, you beautiful boy,
gone as you are.
you're a star now, sweet boy, and we wish for you to be back.
your blood and your body are
still
and stopped
but your spirit?
eternal
and your forever-smile
is what they'll all see when they close their eyes.
your mother and your sisters will love you,
like we do -
all we strangers
who feel like we know you
just from looking into your shining photograph-eyes.
dear noah,
you beautiful boy,
you've left the world so soon after you came into it.
you beautiful boy,
how it will remember you.

so they'll stand where they stand,
   the whipping man,
      the bleeding faced and skin-tossed man,
and they'll hold you in their crippled hands and they'll tell you,
                            "life's for this."

and you'll hear them in the whipping sand,
   the storm-tossed seas and reaching hands,
                  and know it from the whipping man, and you'll say,
                           "it's all there is."

and you'll dance it and you'll sing it and you'll cast it out to sea
       you'll shoot it through your ****** veins and never think of me

and you'll forget the things i told you
     and the things you've always known.

                                you'll give to the winds until i come
                                             to lead you home.