Every Monday morning,
My teacher repeats the same command.
"Look alive" she says,
Even though, I already feel dead.
Along with all the other days of the week too.
And add to that list,
The past few weeks,
And since you've been gone,
Go ahead and add the past year too.

It's that moment I wanted to talk to you
It's that moment you told me a secret
It's that moment you said "no"
It's that moment I figured out I was really moving
It's that moment I didn't say goodbye
It's that moment you called me again
It's that moment I came to visit
It's that moment I watched you moving on
It's that moment I realized that "this place isn't going to work out"
It's that moment of my homecoming
It's that moment we started talking again
It's that moment I fell hard
It's that moment I realized my friends were an out
It's that moment I told you "I love you" and I cried
It's that moment you didn't leave or drift away
It's that moment when we kissed
It's that moment I lied with you all night
It's that moment we watched a movie
It's that moment I cried on the way home
It's that moment I started writing ****** poems
It's that moment I stared at my hands and thought nothing at all
It's  now and I don't want to end this with a cliché

A precariously warm night
I held my breath in your room with all my might
It grew later and our bodies more tired
We laid side by side
You in my arms and I in yours
Your arms were all I felt
You were breathing ever so lightly
compared to my nervous breath and beat
These were the only sounds I could hear
My face was nestled in your hair
It's sweet essence was all I could smell
I tasted my breath getting sour with sleep
Your eyes were closed and so were mine
Mine were closed for different reasons
Your eyes were closed for sleep
Mine were closed for the memory to keep

There's a scientific reason to everything
Butterflies in your stomach
as you watch them approach
Is just adrenaline taking blood from your stomach
Sweaty palms and nervous fingers
as you lie right next to them
Is just your increased body heat with anxiousness
Increased heart rate
as they tell you something new, only to you
Is just your body compensating for increased brain activity
The fact that you make me do these things?
Well that should mean something

I am surrounded by remnants
of you. Every morning I wake
and drink my coffee with
your cup, your spoon,
your opinion that coffee
should be burnt and strong
and crude.

I even eat meals
among your fallen soldiers
of furniture, the ones
that got left behind. The
ottoman you never could say
goodbye to, the one
that you have nightmares about, you
wonder where
he is now.

I walk up the stairway
of your fibers, old hairs and
samples of your DNA
are mixed in with mine
in the layers of sediment
carpet. Your toe nail clippings
petrified into the
concrete.

I avoid mirrors because
my ghost image
reminds me of you,
something false, a reflection
that I will stare at
for the rest of my life
and still never
truly see.

Little accidents,
like the purple umbrella
on my bookshelf that
you bought me many months
ago, to keep me dry on
one of our many
rainy days. Now
you'll keep me
dry forever.

This is not a poem
about the weather.
This is a poem about the
ruins of you,
the staples
that hold me
together.

We build bridges.

Like links of hope

between strangers

who wish to have known each other better.

Like ways to write a letter

even if we are lost out and within the sea

when she is not so calm.

Waves break against my edges.

Solid, crash filled, and lighter than none.

When the stillness is all we are after

I clutch to the shipwrecks we made;

shifting through memories

and trying to find anything that still matters

left floating on these scattered life raft tatters.


Way out, away from the centering moon

I call to you

between dark waves and

stretched out in all ways and directions

with every bit of space for breath I have

just to see if you will long for me;

bent breaths with loose lungs expand and

Call to me, just to tell me,

“I Love you too."

Because that’s all it takes to pull me through

the icy shadows that lunge for me.

Part the space between the waves and run for me

so that I can watch the sunset

ignite spirit and burst fire in your eyes;

a cosmic light to burn through the lies.

Again for the last time.

Until the next time

you come home to my lips

and the way they crash waves with yours.

Enough that we build bridges

to find our way back to the shores

that made us wish so much for the ocean.


Right now,

I’m acknowledging the fact that

I may be just some dock that your heart can find home in for a little while.

While you’re in the gravity of my soul

Like the tides our lips pull together.

Far away from forever,

but I know it for a measure,

in your cyclical return...