Each time you’ve stayed over, 
I’ve made conscious efforts
to be silent during *******.
I was not quite sure
how residence worked,
and I did not wish
to disturb anyone.

However,
as I try, for the third time today,
not to hear my neighbour
**** the girlfriend he’s
smuggled into Chapel
(for the sole purpose, I’m sure,
of having her awful ******* laugh
pierce my every ******* thought)
I know
when you return from your sail,
and I can hold you once again,
I will not feel the slightest remorse
for letting
every
sound
slide.

sometimes grandma speaks like a fever dream
she strings words
but doesn’t tie them up
my boyfriend says this is how all old people talk
that they just want to be heard
and i find myself feeling sorry
that i never picked the words up off her car mat
when i let them spill out over me

I feel it in my fingertips
when you tell me how you worry.
I feel it most in my ring finger—
Isn’t that strange?
The sea in my ribcage tosses,
and your Navy boat of which the name I forget rocks upon it.
You are unsure if you’ll be coming home on time.

I watch the waves from the opposite coast,
making note of how tall they are,
how dark,
and suddenly I am in them
as they are within me.
They beat against the undersides of my skin,
so hard that I pray
for the first time in ten years,
asking God to watch over us,
to bless this gorgeous thing we have.

just as you leave me
new people come to my life
i am not losing

man is not the word
i would use to describe you
i realize that now

sometimes i wonder

what it would be like

if we were still together

and it feels like a dream

not a nightmare

there are three things i now know:

1. i know that moving makes me feel like i’m flying,
2. that being alone makes me feel like i'm on fire,
3. and that the hardest thing

is to accept

to let go.

perhaps, you were good for something.