I still wear your t-shirt that I stole
from the backseat of your truck,
underneath some brown paper bags,
few spare cables, and and a crushed beer box.
There was dirt on both sleeves, but we just made love
for the second time, in your best friends bed.
I left without waking you. Just like you left,

farther and faster than I did, with a ****** parting line:
you’ll be fine.
And yeah, I guess I was fine if fine counts as holding
myself together with two pieces of tissue paper
and prayers that started with “Dear God,”
always ending in “why bother.” But I wear

your t-shirt. Have you ever had to weigh
the idea that you haven’t heard my voice
in over a year with all the faces you meet
in the bar, under cheap white Christmas lights,
or any of the girls you send home before breakfast?
Because I have. They’re heavy. Your world

has become so separated

and I’ve found a way to wear my heels to work
even though I walk thirty blocks, and I’ve learned
to sip my coffee before taking a gulp, to reach for things
instead of just expecting them to arrive, but I still wear

your t-shirt. *You’re the strongest person I know.

The glass just is.
In existence.
Not full.
Not empty.

I told my mother I couldn’t imagine dating someone I barely knew
And yet somehow we still found ourselves on the side of the road
With no way home and no desire to be anywhere but together
It was only one week later when I held you for the first time
When we first kissed and you couldn’t keep yourself from smiling
And it was only a matter of time before it began to feel unnatural
For your hand to be anywhere but in mine
I remember feeling homesick without you sitting in my passenger seat
Somedays I still feel that way
The truth is its so hard for someone to come into your life so fast
And leave just as swiftly
Now all I have are these ghosts that haunt my dreams
I swear I won’t let them torment me forever
*~W.C.

On a cafeteria table,
in the middle of February,
the kind where it gets dark at 5pm,
sat eight minature figurines made of shells—
brown, speckled, like a calico cat
with googly eyes on the middle of their heads,
one business man with a black derby,
one with a pretty pink bow,
or even one with blue suspenders,
and all their chubby bellies
rounding out over their pants. The woman

with her iridescent nails, bony fingers,
the skin pressed thin against her knuckles,
lines them up in a perfect row, tilting
their heads into one another as if
they are having a tiny conversation
admist the numbers being called—
B14! She stamps in red. B14!
A man pushes a cart around the tables,
like one mows grass around graves,
with fifty cent candy bars and potato chips
on flimsy paper plates. He asks the woman
if she wants ice in her Pepsi, but she just blows
a long sigh of smoke and flicks the sparks
behind her back. He doesn’t ask her to pay.

G56! She touches the head of the figurine
with the mustache. G56! I’ve lost count
of how many numbers I’ve missed,
but then there’s you, your hand on my thigh,
creeping, your fingers pushing
my cotton skirt up, up, and up—
O74!
We play with acrylic chips instead of stampers.
We’d like to win the lottery tickets,
maybe cash them in at the gas station
after we drink a couple iced teas and snack
on Mentos cause we ran out of money
two bottles ago.

The figurine with the fishing pole has one pupil
that lies at the bottom of the eye,
lop-sided, and staring at me while I pretend
that I have G47! or pretend that this isn’t
the first time you’ve brought me here, G47!
instead of a real date. Or pretend
that I can’t hear the woman cough, and cough,
and cough as she switches stampers between every ten calls
or touch this figurine or move that one, just slightly,
this way or that or

N44! She doesn’t have it. N44!
I don’t have it.
Don’t worry, child, you’ll have it all someday,
she whispers, sideways from her mouth,
with your thumb making circles around my hipbones,
and the man pushing the cart, the squeak of the wheels
B7! But I don’t have it. B7! I don’t have it.
I don’t have it.