I.

Your comment came to me attached to an ad for condoms,
I was so tickled that I saved a picture of the screen,
So obvious a sign and one I was so glad to receive.

II.

When you were angry with me once,
Your message said, "I love you. But-"
I love you. Period. But.
A confession and an admission,
A statement of fact and then a feeling,
And I felt so bad but you loved me. But-,
And that was all I ever asked.

It helps, doesn't it?

God, so much.

I'm still writing poems to you all the time,
Smearing ink off the dry erase board
With the heel of my hand,
So I'll wake up hungover
With black palms and overlapping words
Mapped all over this white board.

In theory all of my feelings for you
Get washed away this way,
Every bottle of wine anew,
But in truth I whisper them in my sleep
And know them still at sunrise
Like it's a surprise after all these years
That I still love you
Like I do

I opened this page as he said,
"Write what you know,"
And I heard a girl whisper,
"You know I heard once
That writers don't write what
They know; they write what they
Wished they did,"
Guilty I lifted my pen
To keep from tracing that first word:
You.