You bought me sunflowers last Saturday
because you like the yellow orchestra we can
listen to, but you do not have to direct.
It plays a private concert only for you.
I play a few notes here and there too,
but nothing can compare to sunflowers.

I compare lots of things to
flowers,
like your eyes.
You do something to my insides
I cannot explain
in a metaphor to flowers.

You planted a gilded seed.
It grew faster than any ****;
more delicious than homemade irish mead.

Sun shining, birds chirping, children playing-
all of this-
sounds like life’s decaying
because you’re not next to me.

You make oxygen more than a box on the periodic table.

I’m not suggesting I’m unable
to perform tasks without you.
I’m used to ashes in my coffee cup.
Your presence seems to open up
cold sunflowers.
You set ablaze the sun’s powers.
I could go on like this for hours
about the love you built;
iridescent solid sunflowers

Is the mind usually a place that will darken your soul?
Or are poets simply looking through the wrong places?
Why is it that death trends more than life.
Why is it that depression trends more than happiness.
Is there really something wrong with sleeping at a bed full or roses
and a cup of tea?
Why do those roses always have to have thorns,
and why does that tea always have to be poison?

he was my favorite song
set on repeat
played over and over
until I embedded every word
into my mind
and no matter how long
or how frequently I heard it
it’s as if it were the first time.

good morning
I love you
hello beautiful
I miss you
good night

until the day came when
I could no longer play
the track without that
404 message indicating
his location has been moved
asking me if I could locate him again-
I had no idea how to reply

you are a habit
a routine
affecting me
hopelessly

you are the sky
always there
above me
     what do you see?

you are a bird
wanderlust
and free
without me

Prophets in suits spell your name across the rails

in black-and-white pictures, hung up like wet laundry

Afraid of drying, the words in your last breath climb

towards the approaching train lights.

At sunrise, I hurry to pick up the vowels, but they bite my hands,

cursing me for hoping you’ll burn

slowly, for attempting to steal your voice

so you wouldn’t die screaming

i have racked my mind
trying to figure this whole thing out
the staying, the going
the threads we claim hold us here
& the people who've stopped to play a tune on them
i sometimes relate it
to waking up in waist deep snow
in our former selves
the us we wish we could give one another
the children we've sat on the shelves
trapped, like the looks
we leave behind in snow globes
i sometimes imagine ships
dragging the bottom to the sea of "me"
for sleep & pieces of my old self
to sell to the new one
like history doesn't repeat itself
it gets me wondering
if you too want an apology from the rain
or if you dream of burning family photo albums
and wearing the ashes like perfume
if you're anything like me
how i hope god chokes
on memories of me blowing out candles as a child
i know i shouldn't reference my reader  
but don't you know, the only difference
between alone & lonely is you?
that if my hands could talk
the only thing they'd be able to say
is "dear god we've missed you"
and how can you tell me it isn't love
when even the rain refuses to fall
in places where i've kissed you
i remember the day
you found my smile at a yard sale
it reminds me of how you'll leave
i wonder if when you go
you'll tell yourself
the person in the rear view mirror
is closer than they appear