I've run out of stories to tell
about how you took
the best of me.

You used to chew tobacco on late nights like this,
on late nights when we couldn't find the stars in the sky.
You would always say you hated the world
and then kiss me when you remembered I existed.
Then suddenly you fell in love with a new kind of light-
no longer the ones that burned in my hands
but a name like a hushed prayer
on your lips
that no longer met mine.
Nights like this became worrying
as I sat by the piano-
quietly playing your favorite song-
hoping I'd hear your
car in the driveway.
Nights like this became following the smell of alcohol
up the stairs to our bedroom-
you said over and over again about how you
were too tired to talk
and I was always too tired to argue.
Nights like this became blurry vision from wasted tears
and pressing cold meat to my eyes--
but I never stopped waiting for the constellations
to appear
hoping that the stars I once found in your eyes
would return.

I will never be able
To fully describe the way
The morning sun
Rises like your stuttered phrases
Yet my hands find their way
To yours,
Like flowers bending
To face the light.

You see him at a bar
And suddenly your hair
falls on your face.
You see him at a bar,
With another girl
And your heart starts to race.
You wonder how he replaced you
Like a red balloon
that escaped his fingers,
And floated over the buildings
And disappeared into the blue.

             *You wonder if he actually ever loved you.

You were far away.
Farther than halfway across the room,
A glass in your hand and that crooked smile
Rising like the sun on your face.
I was swimming-
Maybe drowning in a sea of people.
He was trying to talk to me-
About the every days that composed of
Almost nothings.
I swear I felt my skin wrinkle in my
Little black dress
And my toes pinch in
My high heels.
I told myself it was worth it.
He said I was beautiful
But I look across the room
And your eyes don't meet mine.
Each time I look at you and
You don’t notice me,
I feel myself taking a step into
The inevitable stairs of
Heartbreak.
I danced all night with him-
He taught me how to waltz in squares
And spin in turns.
His hands fit into my curves
Like those plastic cylinders
That build towers and cities.
But I still felt it didn’t belong there.
Your hands
I bet would fit like roots into
My earth
And this would beat any hundred story
Building because it was natural.
He might have disagreed with that
And at one point through that night
So did I.
If my heart was beating a thousand times
Per second and
My palms rained over my knees
And my cheeks were apples ready to
Be picked every time you passed by,
Surely that isn’t natural.

Slowly, I was pummeling
As the night neared its end.
I had not danced with you.
I had not talked to you.
I had not even walked by you
And yet I could have.
But with a heart beating as loud as mine
I didn’t want to risk you hearing it.
One thing for sure though,
I know was completely natural,
Was goodbye.
It was going to happen
And most say that it's the worst moment
Of any night
But honestly,
I had fallen in love with our goodbye.
Good night wasn’t enough but your
Tan rays of light blooming the roses
In my cheeks,
Proved you to be a source of life.