dusk, mid-august
the bayside air hangs in the moonlight,
broken street lamps scattered around the neighborhood drive
only one is lit as we walk to the dock.

the light at the very edge of the beach looks inviting,
looks like it's saying "come home",
looks like it wants us to hold each other there

we walk carelessly up the winding sidewalk,
nearly tripping over rocks lodged in the cracks
we stop as we reach the glow of the lamp

i remember the way it felt to hold him as the sun went down
and came back up
suddenly my feet are resting against his
and
we are swaying.

he cannot dance. neither can i.
but we are doing our best and we are swaying
and there is no music
but i know we are perfectly in tune with something.
and we are laughing,
we are dancing.

sometimes, when i hear your laugh
it's as if i know this time
we got it right
we got everything right

god is smiling and
we are smiling
and the angels are dancing
and suddenly we are dancing
too

i need you to know
you are the holiest war i ever fought in
you are
the only battle i ever won
the only peaceful resolution
the only eternal ceasefire
the only calm after the storm
the only peace i ever felt

i promise
to love you so soft
that even the angels
become jealous,
to love you so long
that god
will rethink the word "eternal"

i miss pieces of you that you never let me see,
the parts that you buried inside your graveyard chest
all bone and lost feelings and mourning

your mouth tastes like ash, though you swear you never lit a cigarette
i am foolish enough to go grave robbing
in the absence of your love,
in the no man's land plagued with pictures of us

in the valley of despair and up the mountain of missing you
tumultuous thunder claps that bring angels to their knees,
death laughing every time I look at you
and you turn the other way

the funeral procession is long over but i cannot get my feet
to stop dragging
i cannot look up from the ground we are buried in

it's as if when your love died, i died of a collapsed lung,
of suffocating under the weight of what we could have been
but never were
they took me to the hospital but no doctor could figure out what was wrong with me
neither could i.

the collapsing in my chest, the way i gripped the sterile sheets and said
god take me home,
god take me to him,
god if you exist make him love me again

god if you exist raise me like lazarus and make him come running to me

the dizziness, the flowers they laid  in my ribcage, the graves that look the same

god, if you exist, take me home

this morning I woke
and for a short, tender
moment
I swore I could feel your breath
against my back.
I remembered once again
that someone else
with rose petal lips and
piano piece hands
was waking up to your heartbeat.
I wondered
if you ever had moments
where you believed I was still
under your skin
and if it ever felt alien
when her piano hands played
stripped back versions of songs,
even though her rose petal lips
couldn't kiss the most vulnerable parts
of you.

all of these letters I write. all of these thoughts I think. all of these feelings I feel. all of these dreams I dream. all of these things you can't find it in you to care about. all my hopes for the future. all yours that never included me. all of these songs that skip on the word “stay”. all of the lyrics that should have reminded you of me. the tv that's never going to have the right channel. the bed that’s never going to be made. the heart that’s never getting the chance to be loved. the sky that's never going to stop raining. the rain that never fell on you. the way everything fell on me. all at once. just like the way an avalanche slides down a mountain. just like the way the fan is still spinning in mid december. the way I'm still trying. the way you don't want me to. the way forgetting feels like leaving. the way you wouldn't know the difference. the hands on the clock. they keep ticking. my hands. they keep shaking. you're not here to hold them. I bury my memories under flat pillows. you bury yours in the backyard. this sinking feeling. this dream. this nightmare. this game. the way I lose you. the way you never wanted me to win. the batting cages. the batter. the home run. the base. none of it being me. the way this feels too beginning to be an end. the way you don't care either way.

i've gone to war with my own skin.
-
i'm sorry i never bloomed. leave all the things i wish i was on top of here.
-
i never grew wings.
-
you will not find me here.
-
i never could find myself.
-
my bed might still smell like me.
-
please, whatever you do, burn that notebook.
-
i wanted someone to read it.
-
i never had a someone.
-
my heart lies over the delmarva.

I'm lying in an empty bed that seems to get emptier with every moment I stay lying there. I do not dare get up because I feel lost in my own sheets and so I pass the time by talking to my ceiling. The walls start to sweat and my floorboards form fault lines because every story I've ever told them starts with an "I feel so ******* empty" like an abandoned apartment building that no one wants to live in and ends with an "I don't know if I'll ever stop". Will I ever stop? Sometimes I watch the moonlight pour in through my blinds and it binds my hands together and my lungs start to freeze and I miss you. It's hard for me to look in the mirror now because I don't recognize the eyes staring back. It's hard for me to hold someone now because everything I love is everything I lack. You left, you didn't die. But it feels like a part of me did when you slammed the door and didn't look back. And whenever I look at the cracks in my ceiling I remember how you told me you wanted to fix mine. I hear the sounds of distant car engines and I still feel the walls sweating and I miss you I miss you I really do miss you. I'm all alone and this doesn't feel like home and maybe it never was but maybe you were. I guess maybe you might not have been. There.