teach me how to make emotions out of words.
show me with your hands how much you regretted letting go.
or do you even regret it at all?
the way it felt to have them slip right through your fingers,
does the memory of it still haunt you?
do you still get phantom pains
because their shadow isn't where it always was
on the sidewalk next to yours?
show me with your chest just where you wish
you could feel their touch again.
everything you would trade for the pictures
to turn back into memories.
or for the memories to turn back into moments.
show me with your eyes all that you have been through.
how you've noticed the detail of the tile on your bathroom floor
more in the last two months
than you have your whole life.
show me with your lips
that blowing out the candles only gets harder every year
when you look across the table at an empty seat.
use them to tell me everything you have seen
from the depths of the ocean to the heights of heaven
& i will not rest until i've watched every memory
you own emerge from within your head.
& also, tell me, do you ever get tired of living in
perpetual shades of blue?
i could watch you speak endlessly,
now show me with your heart
everything you are & everything you are not.
lastly, show me just how much you miss me

without using your voice.


g.b.