You’d read Dickenson and glance over at my sketches in progress
Short quips about my tendency to bite my tongue as I worked
How I forget to censor the tines I mumble to myself

Are you still reading that same book?
Or have you finished it?
Placed it on your bookshelf
Next to your grandmother’s music box and jar of bottle caps?

I miss watching you read
I miss noticing you twist your hair around your fingers when the plot is stagnant
and furrow your brows when it isn’t

I had to draw your eyes because when I close mine they’re all I can see
I thought by letting them sleep between the warm pages of my notebook I could get some myself

At 3 am I scramble out of bed
Bathed in nightmares
I peek between the sheets
of pages to see if you’re still there
staring back up at me with those eyes that look like a symphony