If I’m being
Completely honest
The days sometimes feel like years
Since I’ve seen your
Smile, the kind that lit up the room
And saved me from the darkness
Wound tight ‘round my heart
Like stiff, bloodied bandages
From a war never resolved.
Sometimes
When the sunlight streams
Through my dusty blinds
While the heat releases a
Shuddering exhale
The room feels like
A forgotten tomb
And I am the wailing ghost
Knocking on my door –
And who can hear me
But my knocking heart?

But if I’m being
Completely honest
You should know that
I can blink and
Find myself in Paris
Among the scarves and berets
On darting, frenzied bodies
And I will have
Nicotine on my tongue
And a dark coffee in hand
With soft-spoken sounds of
Electric words
Ringing in my ears.
But when I
-blink-
I’m in Barcelona
Where the language lifts you up
And dances around you
In a thick cloud of intoxicating beauty
While you’re
Tangled up in words
Until I
-blink-
And, there I am,
Spread-eagle
At the top of the Empire State –
At the top of the world,
On the land we once conquered
In the name of a deity
That once conquered us.
And then I
-blink-
And I am in
California,
In a city far away,
Where rows of brightly colored houses
Remind me of you
Because houses can be home
And you are always where my heart is.
And the door will have flowers
Tucked into the windowsill
And there will always be a candle
Burning,
Pining
For you.
And sometimes I wish
I never learned to
-blink-
At all
Because the only place I ever wanted to be
Is next to you.
And I
-blink-
And there you are
In your multitude of colors
And clothes and attitudes,
With your disheveled hair and
Hatred of mornings and your
Smeared eyeliner from
That time I saw you cry
When I wasn’t supposed to,
When I didn’t think about the future
And I didn’t fear the present,
But I was still running from the past
As I filled the holes in my shoes
With weary feet,
And the holes in my heart
With you.
I want to
-blink-
And open up to you
For the first or
Second time
So you can pour
Into me
And fill the empty parts
Left so long to neglect

But instead
I will
-blink-
And I will find myself in Spain
And I will get drunk on
Wine and words
And find myself in verse
And I will fill myself
With heady fumes
And a nightly muse
And a shorter fuse …

Anything at
The thought of you.