The boy walking in front of me
With a slight limp on his left leg
A backwards astro hat
And dark skin underneath darker clothes
Smelled of coffee
And the humid breeze lifted axe from his neck
Backwards and up my nose

He smelled of trouble
Of seventh grade solitude
And looked as if  he walked out of my fifth grade memories

Still I thought of you

***** and dark
Dope across your tee shirt
Freckles spotting your smile that press into your dimples
Lifting the corners of my mouth

I'd like to lick cologne from your neck
Made of sweat and ****** solitude

You made none of my memories
Smelled and looked of nothing familiar
Only past daydreams

Maybe I'm just tired

I was up all night thinking of Ma
She has always smelled of Ck perfume
No matter how much money we had

She looks like all of my memories

Her short boy haircut
Her androgynous women's work suit
I remember her younger

Still loving women

Made of muscle, teaching me how to run
After soccer and before the gym

At night
She went out in slinky tank tops
Made of sparkles or silk, and sometimes both

Leaving, she'd kiss my forehead as she left me with father and my 101 Dalmatians sippy cup
I'd hug around her neck
And breathe in her Ck perfume

I hate to run into you
Because then your face sticks in my head
A good three days after I was done
Almost forgetting you

At least the eyes do
Brown, and impatient like a puppy
I was right
At least the lips do
That I hang from
Every word,
Breath,
Silence they partake in
And conversation they refrain from

The way you lean back casually
And your button up opens to your chest
More manly than what I've ever been with
Soft hair
And a bit less worn than my fathers, but just as warm

You called me a friend
As I saw the only tattoos
That you couldn't hide

I aim for the puddles at just the right depth

The half gray water rolling downhill to meet the river
Will splash up over the edge of my purple-blue ghost sneakers
And soak the toe of my mismatch tyedye socks

It makes the humid Texas run
Seem all the more adventurous

Yoga instructed that I must think of the best thing that happened to me today

And of course I thought of you.

Then what was the worst?
And your face came quickly back to the eye of my subconscious

Now let this wash away
As you exhale into downward dog

I hope that I don't become one of those poets

That only writes lost-love sonnets

Just because
After sleeping in your bed

I can't get you
Out
Of
My head.

The outside edges of my hands are bruised black
From banging at the bathroom door

I've given up, and let my back slide down the wall
And my face fall to my palms-
Taking a seat in my empty dark hallway that leads to the slither of pink light crawling its way through the bottom of the bathroom door

She won't stop crying
It feels like it has been months
Her, in her sunlight bathroom moaning with agony until I feel I just can't take it
Sitting on the other side with the emptied out sun
With the helplessness of a child
I almost feel crazy

Like she is not the woman I love
Like she is not a woman at all;
Just pain at the end of a dark hallway
The sound of lungs gasping for air
clasping for some sort of reasoning
Hunting for it, but never finding

A sound made of memory pressing its echo against the walls

It drives me lonely

But she lay on the other side against the cold gray tile and I can tell she does not even hear my bangs on the door
Nor the hollow cry she pushes up her own wooing throat
All she can feel is the pull on her heart and the pressure on her chest

Her cry drops to a sob
Then eventually a whimper
And topped off by exhaustion she falls silent

I pull myself from the wooden floors with the help of the cool steel handle of the water heater door
I walk through to the bedroom
and stand mindlessly sifting through my own junk of the dresser drawers before pulling a bobby pin from her neatly organized section to the left of mine
I walk back to the bathroom
I feel my eyes droop as I press my forehead to the white painted wood
I hear her almost silent, but heavy, breath
Creeping with orange sun beneath the edges of the door

I sink to my knees and play with the lock and the bobby pin
Until the door gives way
It slowly opens to her
Her left arm sprawled behind it
Her head curled into her right
Her legs, stacked right ontop of left, push backwards and up against the long backyard window

I lower myself down next to her with the assistance of the porcelin sink
Her face is still wet and red
Her eyes closed and her breathing labored
I curl what I can of her up into my arms
I take a folded beach towel from the brown wicker basket and lay it underneath my head
Propping hers onto my chest
I grab another and unravel it across us

I don't want to wake her
I will give her, her "petite death"
A small escape
But her eyes flutter
To meet mine for a second
She opens her mouth
Letting her head hang back a little
As if to begin crying once more
Like a newborn awakened from its sleep
Confused and in a darkening room

Exhausted:
She pleads no more
She lays her head back on my chest
I feel a few warm drops of salt water
A pull at the rib cage of my black tee
As if to say "I give in"
And then I pull her in closer
To listen to her heavy begging breathe

We both let our heads fall back to the towel
or into my chest
We fall asleep in the darkening room of the fading red sunlight, with the cold tile floor at our backs, with nothing but a black hallway behind us