it’s during the numbing hours of the day
where time lingers the longest
it’s the moments where you can’t quite ever
flee to certain solace
you’d stay some place, nor in or out
and cling to proverbial silence
but as you grasp, and stagger, and shake
you’ll never find it timeless

sometimes these thoughts intrude my mind.
like a sudden drop of coffee from a swill of brown
slurring the words i've already compiled into blobs of ink.
though rarely any of them scratch the surface,
bleeding into the margins.

but they usually ooze into the bottom of the page,
since i lost count chiliads ago.

i took your eraser and rubbed the poem i wrote for you away.

it was near dawn when i wrote our "i love you" on both sides.

i still haven't given it back.

.
.
.

maybe next period.

it's weird, now
i can sleep when i'm tired

"partridge foot," she'd say, hiding her smile with a book.
"partridge foot," i'd say back, bringing a coffee cup to my grin.

i asked you, a wordless thought with endless shape
you said yes, and my heart sang.

i quite like it when the world stills
and i'm its only movement
but i like it most when i still
and nothing in the world stops to watch

the thought of you
reminds me of when we went walking to the library near the berry bushes

there was a sign
stood behind chain link

“i wonder what it says,” i said, pointing to its metal back
you didn’t regard the muse
and advanced forward,
back toward me

not unlike the sign that stood behind chain link
back toward me