I can never find the right words
when wanting to write about you.

My thoughts become your cluttered desk.
My mind, searches,
but cannot find its way over your
plastic paper protectors.
Because you insisted that everything more fragile than skin deserves
a little extra attention.

When wanting to write about you,
my brain becomes dog-eared.

By every play, every novel, and every anthology still on your shelf.
Waiting for your hungry eyes
to return to the adventure.
You have yet to turn the page.

Shakespeare couldn't've prepared anyone
for the hurricane hearts you left behind.

There is no monologue
that can fill a pair of lungs with air,
no poem that can breath for the breathless.

I am a natural disaster trying to write
about the sun.

My head is trying to put words
to the fire you left behind.

I know now,
that California's forests are
nothing compared to an empty stage.
Your flames branded
everything you touched
With the sound of your smile...

For a while,
I wanted nothing more
than to look into your oceanic eyes
one last time.

Then I remembered, that I do,
everyday.

When I walk through that door at 7 a.m.
groaning.
coffee in hand,
ideas for poems in my head.

You are not a sonnet, or a clear sky.
You are not a tomb.

You are
the cow as white as milk,
the cape as red as blood,
the hair as yellow as corn,
and the slipper as pure as gold.

Most importantly,
you are a classroom full of wide-eyed children.
Ready for their lesson in advanced theatre.
Well, not ready, but we'll get there,
with speed and purpose.