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For me, you are Sunday. Today is Sunday,
and tomorrow will be Sunday. Because I am stuck
in gingham yellow sheets, small white saucers
with matching ceramic cups, cigarette ashes
like a crop circle around them as I sip homemade
coffee. The ***** brown liquid sloshing
in the back of my throat, scorching my insides
as I swallow something not nearly as
painful as looking up for an answer to the crossword
and realizing you are not in fact actually there, and your hand
is not on my thigh, tracing the outline of my knee
with your thumb. I am stuck

like a kid on the monkey bars. Deciphering
between reaching my hand out to grab
the next rung or just allowing myself
to fall into the wood chips, welcome
that scraped skin and soil in the worry lines
of my palms. Because calling you,
reaching out to that line, could end with me
face up on my bed staring at the blades of my fan
trying to pinpoint just one to follow around and around
again. Or I could get your voicemail. Or you could
see my number and decide to hang up. How close
were we really anyway?

Or you could answer and we could talk through
how bad the weather is, how we've been doing,
and then get to the poignant silence, that hum
in the background that coils through the wires
into my ear, down the canal, and sinks into my heart
until the pressure becomes too much. Until
I tell you that its Sunday. That I need the 1994
Tony Award winning musical for 3 across, and hopefully,
you'll give me the right answer.
~~~


reaching hard for words

~~~

enter tip toeing,
the loudest noises off,
save for a silent, seriously-forming smile,
re-designing your face,
while in the orbit of early morn,
mapping your return to the planetary
bed
all the while,
observing her
while closeted, comforted and cloaked,
upon their/his
landing zone bed,
honing your return re-entry voyage
home

the blonde in her traditional,
sleep arms slung in wilding, disarrayed
repose,

and
her breathing stride,
regularized and still,
yet so humanly unpredictable
wild ride

and your are surprised

by surprising yourself,
once again,
that you're in this position,
when an unforced, yet an enforceable,
warm hearted girl-glad,
chest centric?
envelops and coddles
and yet
shocking you,
that this never-expected-gift is capable of being felt

at in over up outside inside
below across beneath above and the
all encompositional prepositional,
throughout

forms of its own accord,
not asking permission,
to exist within

your body that not so long ago,
forgot where it kept
the
how-to manual

and you,
obligatory poet,
noblesse oblige,
try reaching hard for,
top shelf, newly combinated,
adjectival adverbial nouns and
verb words
to encapsulate this
shocking development

but finding none,
save for the the silent, seriously-forming smile,
busy re-designing your face,
quiet like,
it,
thunder claps slaps
in your mind

enough!

your smile is
this time

self-speaking sufficient
and
there is no need
to reach for words


~~~


9:03am
The Sabbath
1-15-16
nyc
I don't know if I loved you,
or if I loved being in love.
Maybe my ego hurt more than my heart,
cause I feel like for you I wasn't enough.
I don't know if I miss your fingers on my skin,
or only being so sweetly touched.
Perhaps you weren't the one,
but just one within much.
I don't know if I was happy with you,
or just glad to be in someone's heart.
It might not be what love was supposed to be,
but in fact, simply a false start.
Dear 13 year old me,
You are no longer sitting in your bathroom imagining your life as an 18 year old.
Instead,  you are 18 sitting in your dorm room.
Did you imagine it like this?
This is a reminder that in 5 years you dyed your hair 5 different  colors,
lost friends you thought would be with you always,
and started University 8 hours from your hometown.
Within those short 5 years you managed to hurt your family repeatedly,
and then attempt to fix what you'd broken.
you discovered your passions, learned a few things about love, and
often times forgot to speak your mind.
When you read this next you may be 20, or 31.
You will think differently at that time, God I hope you do.
Widen your horizons, your perspective.
Please travel, and love even if you don't know how;
imagine things again. Don't be scared but take precautions.
Try and love your family. Please try,
for me.
Dye your hair, pierce things without letting your mom see.
And just please, please try to be happy.
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