You've been lurking
in my thoughts all week
(ever since that night
we spent in each other's arms)
which has been made worse by the knowledge
that you haven't given any thought to me.

I had given up
on loving you
except now
the imprint of your arm across my chest
and the smell of your breath in my hair
linger on,
each memory a tendril
attached to my body
dragging me deeper into
the waters of the past.

That night we spent
together
(as friends but bodies curled
against each other like lovers)
has been following me around,
a second shadow
goading me
a dull reminder that
what mattered so much to me
(that night together
your head against my back
your legs against mine)
(and all those other nights
flirtations conversations smiles whispered exchanges
promises)
meant so little to you.

We danced
on the precipice of love.
Hands clasped,
elbows linked,
twirling and laughing
as the music filled our lungs.
Feet
stepping in
and out,
hopping to the rhythm,
tapping to the music around us
and the beating of our hearts within.

We danced
on the precipice of love.
A finely tuned balancing act
of half-extended invitations
and half-remembered promises.

We danced,
our feet searching for purchase
among the loose earth.

We danced
and held our breath,
waiting for the fall.
Waiting for the tumble,
the scrapes and bruises,
the part where nothing else matters
except your eyes and your heart
and mine.

We danced.
And I slipped.
   (You did too.)

Fitzgerald wrote
of a faint green light
(and so many other things too)
"So we beat on, boats against the current, ceaselessly into the past."

Am I beating on, now? Face pressed
against the cold window,
I feel the wheels beneath me
rolling and rolling
slapping against the pavement,
but that's not me.
That's just the minivan- at most
the person
holding the wheel and pressing the pedal.

They beat on,
petals of a different sort,
elephantine limbs
rotating
rolling like the wheels of the car,
but moving in
a different fashion entirely.

The red lights
      blink
in unison
on
            and off
as each massive
wing crests
and then descends again.

You can't see them
but I know they're there
from the fraction of a shadow
that falls over each
red light.

We're moving too, though
maybe not like Fitzgerald wrote.
This minivan, this minivan
is moving forward
with the current
and the longer I spend
thinking about it,
face against this cold window,
I know I'm
moving forward too.

Inhale.

Let the cold sweep through my system,
tracing its way
through veins and arteries,
the chill running down my spine
and staying there.

I embrace the tension
where the air meets skin
and welcome it through my pores.

They say the feet are the most porous
part of the body.
So if I stand here long enough,
bare feet on stone,
will the cold enter my body
and inhabit my veins?

Exhale.

Warm air rushes past,
relieving the tension,
and at once I miss it,
hurrying to
take
one more breath.
Arch my neck,
gazing upward.

Inhale.

The stars have slowly
disappeared, winking out
one
           by
                      one
as we replaced them
with highrise towers and shiny automobiles and city street lights.

All that's left
(exhale)
is the moon,
fat and solitary
in the city night sky.
But even she
will be gone soon too
(inhale)
as we paint ourselves (and her)
with telephone poles and skyscrapers
                                                  into a corner
with no escape.

Exhale.

Your hair is growing longer
as mine grows shorter.

Hair does that.
Sort of.

The remnants
of whatever we shared
fade
as time speeds up,
the length between our visits
and our conversations
growing,
from weeks,
to months,
and possibly years.

We see just snapshots now.
Each greeting
a glimpse
                   into
the change we are no longer affecting
in each other.

I feel a longing
for the days gone by.
And I think you do too.
There's stability there.
All our lives we've screamed and cried and clamored
for change, but
once we have it,
palpable and in our hands,
we don't know what to do.

"I miss you,"
is what I want to say.
But instead I say,
"I love you," and "Good luck,"
knowing that
not even words
can keep us together.

Your hair grows loner,
as mine gets shorter.
Our faces change.
Our mouths learn new words,
our eyes new faces.
Time does that.

Could you sleep last night?

I read somewhere
that when you struggle
to sleep at night,
you are actually awake
in someone else's dream
and have them to blame
for your bleary-eyed
stumbling and grumbling
the following morning.

And I awoke today
with a fresh memory
of a dream spent with you-
laughing and smiling
being together like we never have been
in the light of day.

So I want to know:
Did you sleep last night?
Or did you toss and turn
and failingly yearn
for comfort at last?

I want to be sure
that my dreamtime companion
was actually you
and not some
incomplete creation
of my unconscious imagination.

When I was younger
I refused to sleep
with the windows open.

I denied myself
the relief of fresh summer night air,
preferring instead
the stuffy silence
of a closed window.

I refused to allow
the sounds of faraway trains and cars
to permeate my sonic solitude.

The absence of sound and
of movement cloaked my bedroom,
with the blankness of a blizzard
and the density of a rainforest canopy.

I felt safe
in the silence,
content even though,
only sometimes,
I lay awake in the silent warmth
for hours,
in various contortions or
prone on the carpeted floor,
in a desperate plea for
the planets of my mind and body
to align so that I could sleep.

These days,
my window remains open,
environment permitting,
so that the crickets and the sounds of passing cars
sing me to sleep,
a suburban symphony of mundane sounds.

Some nights, a wind
creeps in and I become wistful
as I drift away,
for days that have been,
might be,
and will never come.