we are the very last
to understand
a dying language,
a vernacular shared only
by the space between us

I hold out my hand and
wait
for a sound
to spill out from my fingertips,
like an unhinged jaw
yearning to speak –
a tangible silence swallowing the words
I do not remember how to say

the first light of the morning
pervades the air around us;
it begs me to speak –
and still, nothing

nothing:
a noiseless surrender;
I give myself to the air surrounding me
and pray you might find a way
to translate my breathing

in this room,
in this early morning light,
I am losing myself
in translation
and we are losing touch
altogether

we are holding out our hands and waiting,
like an unhinged jaw
trying to speak a lost language;
it is evident that this is a silence
that refuses to be
broken

in time, everyone
forgets. & maybe that
is not as bad as it sounds.
what if we sing
a song into the void
& something
shouts back.
consider
your worst wound bleeding
anything but red & rest
easy, child,
nothing’s burning yet.
imagine a city
knee deep in
promises & pink light.
in time, I will
forget. & maybe that
is comforting.
if one day I wake & cannot
remember your
name, I will be glad
to meet you
again
& again.
in a city alight,
in a wound-colored
rapture,
in time, you may
forget me. & maybe
you should.

lay with me
until we sink into oblivion.
let us become here
but also not -
a pretense, a past tense,
a shattering of the space-time continuum.

you feel like the light coming through,
sunshine and everything else,
or anything but.

a question -
what if
the most beautiful sound ever made
was never heard.

imagine the ache in every note
in every piano
in every universe.
a void that listens best
to the sound of clocks ticking.
be still
and you may hear it too.

okay.
just this once,
i want you to think
back and down and up and left
and remember
right where we left off.
remember the way it was,
the way it could've been.
it sounds like a john mayer song
playing from an iphone underneath a ceiling fan,
sounds like a shower turning on and
two bodies getting to know each other.
it feels like this could be it.
okay.
i just want you to believe that
we could be in love somehow,
someway maybe one day
you'll understand that
i was just trying to touch you
in the softest ways possible.
i just wanted to hear
the sound of your laughter
falling down from your bedroom
and sitting next to me on the couch.
remember the way you kissed me
in that hallmark parking lot,
surrounded by the glow of
your brothers old pickup truck,
remember that. remember how
it was all new and so was i
and so were we and you felt like something
i could get used to.
it was all ****** radio stations and
green lakes and soggy leaves and
remember when you held my hand there,
remember that? you've got to remember that.
think back and
tell me how that felt.
felt like soft rain and
intertwining feet under a snowy white blanket.
i just wanted you to believe i was soft,
wanted you to think i could be good for you
or for anything. okay.
confession. i listen to piano man by billy joel
way more than i should because
i remember you told me
you could play that entire song
on the harmonica.
i'm just jealous i haven't heard it.
okay. remember how i said i loved you too,
well of course i still mean it.
i've never been so honest
in life and in a poem.
you've got this way of making
every moment my favorite.
okay.
i just want you to think back
whenever you need to
and know
that this is it.

in the early morning hum,
in the beat of the drum of the white noise and the misplaced light, i
treasure you.
the sole familiar thing.

an old, cloying taste
clings to my mouth.
i think you are sleeping.
i know? you are sleeping.
i awoke to silence filled by your silence.
i know you are sleeping;
i felt loved by your silence, still.

i know this is love i imagine for myself in the ways i need it most;
i know how this goes.

in the early morning hum,
in the beat of the drum of the white noise and the misplaced light,
i allow myself to feel a very real fear that you
will be everything i needed
and almost everything i want.

and so in preparation,
a separation:
i shift and twitch and shiver until i am at once here
and not,
until i am at once here
and in the moment,
some way down the line,
that old, cloying taste magnified,
when all comes to pass as i knew it would and i can say
“i knew it would.”
i know how this goes.

you take the morning bus to secaucus,
and i, the one to new york.
when sleep greets me and leans my head
gently
against the window pane,
i will let it come.
i will let it try to fill your absence
in ways i know to be short-lived, for naught,
but i will let it try.

i will miss you when i wake up,
miss the silence that i thought you crafted for me,
but which was really just
silence.
i will miss you when i wake up as i miss you when you are next to me.
i want, for us, something infinite:
that which we cannot have and which you do not want,
hard as i wish you did.

but.
the sun rises —
i know how this goes —
and the misplaced light finds its place again.
the silence i thought you crafted for me, which was really just
silence,
becomes noise.
hectic. colorful without order.
i will miss you when i wake up,
but what ache is strong enough to pull something personal
from all that noise?

you take the morning bus to secaucus,
and somewhere in new york i try to live a life as though you have already left me.
if i had my way,
hopeful, futile grasps towards the infinite would not hold ample weight for a haunting.

and yet,
that old, cloying taste.

still.

(a.m.)

you feel like a long time coming,
look like a faded photograph
soft and smiling

you remind me of something from long ago
like a mirror ten years back
like my mother's smile

i want to believe in you,
please
i need to believe in something

you feel like staying
you feel like a long time coming