she drank slow but had this skip in her dance.
she ordered me a gin and tonic on the rocks.
she eyed me across the street (i’m losing track of time).
she marched in front of me, leading me
to an apartment. the walls were painted black and the
lights were a shade of blue rain.
there were two floors in the penthouse.
she giggled when i told her how nervous i was.
i felt my glass shake, this mixture of pale ale and oranges
resembled a tsunami.
my eyes convulsed like cracked sidewalks during
earthquakes; my teeth were grinding, (not like a dance to ******
but rather the last lick of hope for the protagonist
in slasher flicks screaming for help).
she told me everything would be okay.
she undressed herself and told me god doesn’t
watch her when she sleeps; rather, he
takes the night off and works overtime in the morning.

i fell in love on the second floor of her apartment,
i don’t know why it took me two stories to tell her.

i spotted her across 72nd street
wearing a red flannel and
jeans that ripped right below her knees.
i fell in love with the idea
she called herself queen and
managed to smiled with only the upper half
of her mouth, slightly biting her lip
as if she was nervous but excited to tell
you about how she sees stars revolve around your head.
i told her years back about how he was just a
phase yet i was a lifetime
while she laid her head on my shoulder to the
rhythm of subway tracks at 72mph.
she wrote about me (i hope) on her palms
with a pen, she called it her very own style of
palm reading (i call her my future).

we were eleven years old in her childhood room.
she pulled a pink dollhouse from her closet, similar
to the color of my cheeks; i swear i tried my hardest
to hide it from her. the front door **** was
covered in angel tears, or so she called it. i asked her
where our room was and she
pointed to a red and white door.

“this is my hiding spot. i like to imagine during
school that when we run away together, doors just won’t exist.
i don’t want anything opening and closing other than your
mouth when you speak haikus into my veins.”

my heart races around 85mph sometimes but dear, you
had me going 100 and i don’t know whether or not to stop saying the words i am and my sentences aren’t haikus, but rather sonnets now and -

“just open the door, my lovestruck poet, come inside, take off the
door ****, and live through me. my favorite flowers
are gerbera daisies, they come in all colors like this house, but
you’ll always be my favorite,” she whispered, afraid of her mother
hearing this midnight confession. her door was pink;
she held a doorknob in her hand.

it began with her eyes, green like the trees
outside 72nd and broadway.
she asked me for the time in verdi square,
but seconds felt like hours the way she caught me.
it began when my heart broke for the 7th time (i’m tired
of trying to put it back together,
i may just leave it a mess for someone else to fix this time).

it began with her kissing my nose.
it began with the way she says my name
(my tastebuds are filled to the brim with her).
it began with a crease in her lips, she smiles
like the moon (maybe i can be her sun).
it began with her breath in my lungs.
it began when her eyelashes strung together
like a violin, and every time she blinks, i swear i
hear “all of the lights” (it’s dark in here and
i’m scared that sometime soon i’ll find a light).

it began the moment i saw her.
it began the moment i told her i loved her.

at 4 years old, she rode a horse for the first time and
felt this sensation  she thought only a book could give her.
at 7 years old, she caught her dad coming in the house
with someone else’s lips on his neck and all she
could remember was how red they were, similar to the roses he
brought home on valentines day every year
(he only brought home seven, the other five were hidden).
at 15 years old, she told a boy she loved him,
but she was talking to someone else.
at 16 years old, she chose me.
at 16 years old, she gave me herself for the first time.
at 16 years old, we got caught by the cops.
at 16 years old, i told her i loved her.
at 18 years old, she cried her eyes out because i didn’t love her
anymore (or so she thought).
at 19 years old, she chose someone else.
at 25 years old, i think she married him.
at 32 years old, i think she was looking for me in the deepest parts of her
mind, but she forced herself to forget how my voice sounded
at 6am when i woke up from her shoulders fourteen years ago.

i think she wanted to me to write this,
but its become a prayer to me how i’ve said her name
under my breath when a priest passes me by.
i think my lips are the same color as the women your
father cheated with, but they’ve been stained with blood
because i don’t want to lose the way you said i love you.
i think too much, and i lost perception on what’s a dream anymore.
god doesn’t wake up in time at 4am to answer my prayers anymore.

every morning at 8:13am, she texts me
“the birds by my window keep my mind running
at 5:20am, just like the way you’ve captured me.
every thought at 2:57am sounds like a prayer if
i think hard enough, but i’m afraid god is gonna hear
me this time. i have this obsession with circles and
i don’t think my life is on the right path.”

but all my mother ever taught me to answer was:
“maybe god will hear me this time because lately,
my heart’s been playing jump rope whenever
i see your name light up on my phone. i pray every
night at 2:56 in the morning so maybe one day,
i’ll be in your mind and god will hear you say my
name in your voice.”
the birds are a present from me, i’m sorry.

she sat next to me near the window
at starbucks on
41st and madison with a journal
covered in pastel lines and a black backdrop.
on the top center read “2011 was the year i screamed
**** life’ and ‘**** me”
as a running header. she ran
through my head, tilting this little snippet
of her brain
towards me and i swear that she looked at me
but all i could do was make the sign of the cross
hoping god heard my muffled voice, drowned out by
the sounds of yellow taxis on the crosswalk and
whispers of angels on the corners asking for my pockets.
i’ve never tasted sixty miles
per hour but i can imagine it’s the same
as when she writes “your shirt looks like my thoughts”;
i’m falling in love too easily.
i want to read every inch of your body; your arms
have the bible etched in your veins and a fifth of my poems
are scribbled on your aortas; my mother’s wedding vows
are in my right eye and my father,
my father just takes care of himself. i don’t think my eyesight is
getting any better, you slid the note two spaces down
and i think i shed a tear but i can’t remember whether
you were smiling for joy or the fact you missed my hand.