Sep 2015
We don’t talk anymore.
Your name is still at the top of my contact list even though we haven’t said
hi in a few months.
Each time I try, the blinking cursor reminds me of when you brought me pecan ice cream
because I broke up with my boyfriend.
I don’t think I ever paid you back like I promised to.
I’m measuring this life in heartbeats and torn atlas pages
and miles of dusty country road,
The space before the inhale of breath
Feels like my lungs are freezing or burning or rotting away
I’ve been pacing through the friendless emptiness of this room for so long that
I think the floor boards are beginning to form fault lines
Over the cracks in my heart
and some nights I miss you with the magnitude of an earthquake.
Can you miss someone who never realized you’d miss them?
I’m digging trenches to outline my ribs because
my chest is more useful as a garden than a graveyard and
I don't want to let your memories be buried here under the
fragments of shattered mirrors you cleaned up in my heart,
Bits of bloodied tissues on your kitchen floor that night I
forgot to love myself because I was too busy
loving the way you laughed behind the velvet curtains
Loneliness is just knowing that the people around me
Won’t hug me when I’m breaking like you did
Your eyes would tear galaxies into my bones, bracing them with
The DNA of a friendship
Your smile haunts my thoughts like a song I’ll never remember
Even long after you’ve forgotten my name,
I don't think I will ever forget you,
Not when I see your face in the strangers on the street and the
ordinary letters of your name
Sometimes people drift out of your life and there is no way that I know
to make the loss of a friend
nostalgic, or poetic, or romantic.
They have their life and I have mine, and I wish it was somehow
closer to their late-night stories and too many drinks under the moon
The worst part is I’m not missing a kiss or brush of hand against your arm
Because we never touched like that,
Just a brushing of souls at the quiet light-speed of understanding.
I cry because the last time I cried like this you brought me pecan ice cream,
And I know that you don’t know that my favorite flavor
Is chocolate now.
Your name is still at the top of my contact list even though we haven’t said
hi in a few months.
Each time I try, the blinking cursor reminds me of when you brought me pecan ice cream
because I broke up with my boyfriend.
I don’t think I ever paid you back like I promised to.
I’m measuring this life in heartbeats and torn atlas pages
and miles of dusty country road,
The space before the inhale of breath
Feels like my lungs are freezing or burning or rotting away
I’ve been pacing through the friendless emptiness of this room for so long that
I think the floor boards are beginning to form fault lines
Over the cracks in my heart
and some nights I miss you with the magnitude of an earthquake.
Can you miss someone who never realized you’d miss them?
I’m digging trenches to outline my ribs because
my chest is more useful as a garden than a graveyard and
I don't want to let your memories be buried here under the
fragments of shattered mirrors you cleaned up in my heart,
Bits of bloodied tissues on your kitchen floor that night I
forgot to love myself because I was too busy
loving the way you laughed behind the velvet curtains
Loneliness is just knowing that the people around me
Won’t hug me when I’m breaking like you did
Your eyes would tear galaxies into my bones, bracing them with
The DNA of a friendship
Your smile haunts my thoughts like a song I’ll never remember
Even long after you’ve forgotten my name,
I don't think I will ever forget you,
Not when I see your face in the strangers on the street and the
ordinary letters of your name
Sometimes people drift out of your life and there is no way that I know
to make the loss of a friend
nostalgic, or poetic, or romantic.
They have their life and I have mine, and I wish it was somehow
closer to their late-night stories and too many drinks under the moon
The worst part is I’m not missing a kiss or brush of hand against your arm
Because we never touched like that,
Just a brushing of souls at the quiet light-speed of understanding.
I cry because the last time I cried like this you brought me pecan ice cream,
And I know that you don’t know that my favorite flavor
Is chocolate now.
