I delivered
19
chocolate-chocolate chip cookies
to your house the other day after midnight
because it was you nineteenth birthday and you hate that day
above all other's
so I decided to celebrate
by making you junk food even though you're on a diet
and just came from a late night workout
and you'll ask me why
I care about something so much that's not even that special
and I'll tell you it's simply because
"It's your birthday!"
or
"Why wouldn't I?"
but really
truth is

You're going away and I haven't decided how I'm going to deal with that yet.
You're going away and I haven't been able to write.
You're going away and this may be the last
time
I'll see you on your birthday.

So take the **** cookies and say thank you,
because I baked them while I was crying over missing you
and tried my hardest not to let the tears fall in the batter.
No one should have to taste sadness like that.

Don't be mad at me because you're bitter about your birthday
and you can't stand it when people show that they care about you,
because you don't know how hard this is for me.

I bet you never even thought how hard
it will be for me
and that's why I baked the cookies.
That's why I'm so upset and that's why I'm begging you
to come outside and just kiss me on your birthday
because I've been counting how many kisses I have left
before you're too far away to feel me.
Just give me all you've got while we still have the chance.

This is going to be hard enough when you're gone
so don't make it so hard now.
Just kiss me and eat the cookies.

Oh,
and happy birthday.

I let your lips touch mine like church wine.
Just a taste,
my legs around your waist
you led me to the bed.
I saw our silhouettes reflect in the mirror,
you standing there
hands upon my face
running softly along my hair
you laid me down just so you could stare
at how bare my body was and how beautiful
it looked in the hold your eyes had on this moment
where you could trace your fingers along my edges
just to feel how soft it was when you pressed upon it.

It's not always like this.
Sometimes I hate you when don't respond
to something so honest,
but the way you lay your head into my neck
and just breathe
without using your eyes
our bodies
our own little infinity
that I can't even fathom beyond being there.

This was our goodbye.
This was you saying
"I don't want you to wait around for me,
because I want these next four years to be you
doing everything
you've always told me you wanted to do."
This was because of me loving you.

A year made a circumference around my brain
when I was baring myself naked to you
it lapped my skin and touched my lips until I was frightened
from speech and just kept breathing
seven heavy sighs of separation
until I convinced myself that's what it would take
for me to get back to you.

I've been here so many times but not like this.
Not like this where there's no more chances.
Just the shower running and my head on your chest,
just you pushing my hand down when I resist.
But you were slow and gentle and made it feel alright,
and I shouldn't have been crying
but it was so beautiful and this was so beautiful and you
are so beautiful

This was our final moment
one last night,
here we go,
I loved you always
goodbye.

This was our goodbye and let's face it,
a big part of me knows
that it won't just be a year until I see you.
You're never coming back, heart attack
against the realization that once you're gone "for now"
you're gone for good.
So I kissed you like our lips were magnetized and would stay together
even 1,619.9 miles away.
I kissed you to erase the picture of the map in my head,
from point A to point B
and from the start of a journey to its end.

The morning when you leave for the airport and I'm getting dressed alone,
won't be our goodbye
not even when you leave the key and drive
not even when you kiss my forehead
or promise to call
or I'm falling to my knees.

This is our goodbye.
This is our
I believe in you
I'll love you always
goodbye.

My aunt is 40 years old and she was coloring
with crayons on the bathroom floor after a bad spell.
We kept them in the cabinet under the sink
so she could pull them out to calm her down,
or pull her out,
of the dream she was having over glazed eyes that weren't sleeping.
She would talk to us about silly things
that happened to her or how she met
her husband after the war in his pretty,
neat, and navy blue military jacket.

She really met my uncle
on the train to Chicago in 1977,
but we don't tell her that because it doesn't make a difference
and it won't make her feel any better.
The truth never really does that
I've learned.

That's the thing about the rest of your life.
When you're sixteen and beautiful with
a cute brown bob and eyes to match
you think you can do anything
and when you picture
the rest of your life it doesn't include
lying in a bath robe talking to your niece
about something you never did or never had
with spit on your chin and hands that need washed
coloring a picture in a book meant for kids.

You never thought you'd be stuck
being a kid
sometimes.
Out of control,
shaky,
twisted
and a little bit beautiful
through things.
You never thought you'd be missing some parts,
or you'd be spacey
or empty
in bad, bad moments like this.

But that's how it is and that's how it was
for my aunt as she tried to formulate her thoughts
into something she was dying and dying to tell me.

I didn't know what she wanted or how to
fix
all the things I didn't quite understand were happening.
All I know is that she
is a child
and children need attention, to be played with, and to be loved.
So I picked up a crayon and starting coloring
around the edges she had missed
trying to fill her in.

Your dad hit you and you asked me not to tell anyone.
He took two business trips this week to get away from your mom,
because he doesn't know what to say to her anymore
and you're sitting on her bed next to her
at 2 in the morning after a romance movie
not knowing what the hell you're supposed to tell her,
because your dad asked you to keep secrets too
and you don't want her to know more than she has to.
Because you love her, and love means protection-
it means you'll take all the bullets for her.

But she's been shaking and you don't want to tell her
that everything is going to work out,
because you don't know that.
So you put in another movie and lie next to her,
hold her hand when she reaches for you
carry the weight of her sadness in your smile.
As she falls asleep you let a couple tears slip out
that you've been saving since last week when your dad confessed
to moving around because he couldn't deal with standing still
in a marriage he feels he's been stuck in for eighteen years now.
You let yourself break down now.

Your dad hit you and you asked me not to tell anyone.
But I'm crying over your mom as I listen to you tell me
how helpless she looks with the covers over her lips and her hand
still sitting in yours.
Your family's falling apart and you asked me not to worry about it.
I love you too much but that's not important right now.
But it's hard when he's not home and
I'm trying everything I can and I don't know what to do anymore,
because your dad hit you and you asked me
your dad tore your mom's heart out and you asked me
your brother's still healing and you asked me
you asked me
not tell anyone.

And because you asked me to, and because I love you, and because
because I am who I am and because we are where we are
I won't.
I'll just soak up your tears with my skin and hold memories of blessed things
over your head so you can look up to something other than the ceilings
you trace with your eyes in the dark.
I'll pick up your call and I'll start crying when it's disconnected.
Because some things in life are just too hard.
And I don't want to have to worry about you, but I will because
because I am who I am and because we are where we are and because
I love you too much.

We were kissing on the other side of the truck,
with trees bending over the bed as a dark shadow
in the hours after midnight.
You had your hands up my shirt and my beer can
was in the one hand I had wrapped around your neck.
We were pulling on each other from different ends.
You were telling me you had to leave between separate kisses,
whispering how you wanted me and even though
your body was walking away your hands decided to stay.
I was begging you to come back with tiny pleading and the trace of my fingers
in the spaces of yours
when a name floated from your lips and landed on mine
it tasted bad and wasn't right because it didn't fit
she wasn't me
"Jodi!"
I'm Sophie.

Your invisible fist came like a sucker punch to my chest,
all the breath gone and the steam reaching my tongue
until I was cross eyed with anger and tearing up
with my back against your body trying to apologize
for getting it wrong
when I felt hands on my face and suddenly your mouth
against mine in a deep, regretful silent message
that you were sorry for saying her name,
and I believed that kiss because it took the pressure off
of finally admitting I actually had feelings for you or actually cared
about you.
I believed you were sorry for calling me someone else,
but really you were just sorry you got caught and let it slip.

This was uncharted and I knew from the beginning that it wouldn't last,
but I haven't been telling anybody how mean you are to me
about that incident behind the truck
or how you back hand my writing and won't let me speak
about it because you give me that weird look and just start
touching me to shut me up.
I tell everyone you're busy when I show up without you,
but really you just found someone better to do.
I tell everyone it's no big deal when they hear you were somewhere
I said you weren't,
but it's just as a surprise to me and it stings just as much
as it did that night you called me her when I'm me.
I don't tell anyone how awful you are to me
because it would make me the fool
and it would justify every "I told you so"
that would come my way from the fair warnings I was given
when I said you were almost mine and we were sort of together
in a casual, "I'd still like to *******," way.

I don't tell anyone because I'm still waiting for you to fall in love with me,
and I'm dangerously surrounding myself with thoughts of you
when I can't sleep at night and I find myself
smiling when your name comes up on my phone
or blushing when I hear your voice
which isn't good, because it's not just a physical thing
where I have my fun and make my own breakfast in the morning.
It's a stupid romance that has me actually falling for you,
and I don't tell anyone how much damage I take from your
nonchalant words or your false commitment
because I want you to turn out right after all the mistaken ways.
I want to prove everyone, mostly myself, wrong
about how you don't really want me and how all you ever actually wanted
was a pretty body to pass the summer time
until you went to school.
I don't want to be the fool.
So I don't tell anyone the truth about you.
I don't tell anyone about you.

You came crashing into me that night when there was a super moon
shining through the blinds onto an unmade bed where you laid
your head against the softness of my chest and kissed between
my two moons
holding me to their atmosphere and brightening
the stars that fell from my mouth with every sigh.
I closed my eyes and let you lead me through,
and through, and through again until I was tired and slow
and you kissed me so good.
You cradled my head with light kisses to spread the pressure
from the bruise of hitting the headboard when you moved me-
how you moved me and how good that felt to be intertwined with a body
that was thick and warm and made me feel
enticed with how your fingers would run against my thighs.
My lips were sore from your tongue on their insides,
rolled over to see your glistening body come into mine
so simply with tension breathing between the space of our next kiss.
Our sleepless night turned into a rushing morning where the aqua twilight
would fade over your smile as you pulled back from my lips.
Your skin was warm and the air was cold as you pulled up the covers
to darken the sky we created with the steam from our bodies and from
being so close and so complete in a single moment
in a simple night
where our beauty was felt with only our hands.

You called me from Ocean City the other night.
Silence in the background, a good friend by your side.
Drunk voice you spoke softly and asked what I was doing.
My sleepy voice was a distraction that kept you captivated in how lovely
it sounded over the telephone when you were dizzy and couldn't find your feet.
It sounded perfect when you couldn't feel a thing.
I'm a habit you'd love to break, but I'm already broken
and this is already fate.

I asked why you called and you said "yeah" three times too quickly,
waving off the question like you didn't have an answer
when really you just didn't want to tell me that
honestly
you just wanted to hear my voice when you found the fun had ended
and the games were over and the people had left and you were trying
to fix a fan meant to cool you off, but kept you frustrated
on why it wouldn't keep spinning like your world was and why it was
I kept you in the same place when you always thought you didn't need nobody
to bring closeness and completeness to your empty space.

You tried to hang up but something wouldn't let you.
Maybe the sand in your eyes or the sweating drink in your hand,
you slipped and pressed the button before you heard me finish the goodbye.
But it was better off this time,
or so you told yourself,
because what woman wants a man who's been drunk in the sand since 9 o'clock that morning.
What beauty that she has wants to be near a man who's *****.
You questioned yourself as your covered chest hit the bed and as your head
laid itself against the comfort of a place you told yourself you'd stay long enough
to forget that you wanted to be where I was.

You tried to call again but something wouldn't let you.
Maybe the incapability to hold a grasp or the darkness in your eyes took over,
you just shut your mouth and pretended to be sleeping
pretended you weren't dreaming of holding me next to you in that moment.
But to ease your worry, just know your memory matched mine.
Just know that I dialed your number seven times and I stared
at my ceiling fan begging it to stop spinning and spinning
around how many times I would find myself wanting you again
when I shouldn't.
Just know that I wanted to be wherever you were.
Just know that it wasn't over and I didn't want it to end.
Just know that while we weren't talking
you were always in my head.