i
because instead of slipping away,
i can feel you
stretching away
through the lines of electricity that
used to run from
hand to hand finger to finger
seamlessly clasped and lightning touch
but now, the distinct, archaic
electricity wires;
through the state line that makes
144 miles
2.5 hours in a car with traffic,
3.5 hours in a train with horizons
seem like the years that we spent
not knowing each other;
through the lines of shadow that
keep me up in the middle of the night,
pulling me down when
i’m short enough already, thanks;
through the line that was once binding us,
which was only there to make separate forms
somewhat distinct—
the line which now feels
like us dissolving
thinning,
holes becoming gaps becoming gasps,
then melting into
tarred and feathered feelings,
and the knowledge that even
poetry
can’t make me feel what you felt today.
life line, my ass.
ii
some days, i feel
like a goddamn camel.
not only because i have to
stumble bleak miles over
thankless tundra under the
blue sky of distinct impossibility
that in reality is heaven on earth,
but in reality doesn’t have your smile;
not only because i have to do this with
memories of you stored
like water in humps—
the way you look when we press up
nose to nose and laugh,
the way you feel like something new
and something never-ending
the way you conduct lightning though my spine
and make thunder sound in my ears
all of which has faded to a distant sloshing;
not only because sometimes
i see a mirage, that
palm tree lake luau oasis,
that glimpse of the curve of your jaw or
whisper of the sound of your voice
that makes me turn around
but is really another sand dune;
but because when i see other couples
with their hands interlocked and their
eyes aligned and their feet in step like
their life is a stage and their world is a musical,
i want to fucking spit.
iii.
but sometimes i realize
that stretching is growth is elasticity;
that because the kinetic momentum of matter
is the fusion of what i want to want
with what i need to need,
it doesn’t matter
because either way,
i can’t complain.
that because i’m at home in the sound of your voice
and because i haven’t been homesick at all, but
lovesick and yousick and
healthier than ever because of it—
it makes me smile whenever, at the end of every conversation, we say:
i love you
i miss you.