it's a quiet misery
to know you only by smell,
by what lingers after you leave—
honeysuckle, cigarette smoke,
the faint machine oil from your bike.
I close one eye—
you disappear.
open it again:
an ache low in my abdomen—
want with no coordinates,
nowhere to land.
you look past me so quickly—
honeybee speed,
pollinating other conversations
while I'm still holding
the sentence I practiced.
how did I become data to myself?
cataloging your jaw tension,
the peach you ate once,
how you held the pit after,
the fact you mentioned piano once
and then never again—
as if accumulating facts
could make you solid,
could make you stay.
sometimes the floor tiles
turn into ceiling—
my sense of space breaks,
the room tilts,
and I don't know where I'm supposed to stand
when you're this close.
neuroplasticity makes us strangers
in my dreams—
my brain can't form you accurately,
you're never quite you,
I'm never quite saying
what I came there to say.
I hate that my hands are visible
when all I ache
is to be beneath you,
hidden, held.
so instead:
let’s watch some French cinema.
let me learn how to protest
let’s talk about Truffaut.
let’s sit beside each other
with subtitles between us,
anything to avoid looking at your face
and admitting
I’ve memorized it.
hold me to resist me.
all the facts I've collected
won't teach me
how to touch you.