I write you letters on yellow notepads,
tear them out and use the other side,
my ****** cursive slanting the entire page,
adding things in the margins,
drawing hearts in the corners,
ending with our special
"See you then"
instead of a goodbye,
or a sincerely yours,
or an "I love you always."
That line said it all.

I didn't have an address to send them to
because you just moved and stamps cost a lot
for a broke college student who's just trying
to keep in touch.

You told me not to call you.
Not to ask you how you'd been.
So I didn't even bother asking for some place
to write on the outside of my envelopes.
I just kept writing them.

I get why you didn't want to come see me
before you left
because it would just make it harder to say goodbye
all over again,
and I get
why it's hard to talk to me
because you're busy and because you're two hours behind
and because this and because that.
They're just excuses.
You don't really want to talk to me.

And I,
I get that you're halfway across the country.
Don't you think I've memorized the distance by now?
I know exactly how far it is between your dot and mine
on a map.
I get that it's going to be hard and that it's probably not even worth trying,
but what you don't get
that I do
is that it's worth it.

I've kept bullshitting with you since I met you.
I've kept you around this long.

I'm not going to tell you how many times I sat up crying
about something you said to me, or something you didn't say
that I knew you felt
because it will just push you away.
You've known since the beginning
of whatever this is
that you're no good for me.
You're not good enough for me.
That's fair.

But what you don't get,
that I do
is that I don't care.

You're the best thing in my life
because everything that I do is only because of you,
only because of you believing that I can have it
all
if I try hard enough.

You told me I was the strongest person you knew.
That I was tough.
That I was going to be fine.

I am only those things because I have you
in my life
in one way or an even more complicated other.
So you can't just give up on me.
You can't just expect
to tell me you're done
you never started
and leave.
Because that's not okay with me.

I won't buy a plane ticket.
I won't talk to you every chance I get
(more likely every chance you get)
and I won't keep myself behind this line
because I'm saving myself for you.

But you have to stay with me, okay?
You have to at least try
to understand where I'm coming from
and you have to,
you have to
keep believing in me.

Because I'm not the strongest person you know,
you are.
I'm not tough,
you are.
I'm not always going to be fine,
but you are.

So I'll see you then.

Two blondes.
One bouncing in the red cushion window seat,
bowl cut, light-up sneakers, making engine sounds
as his small hands hold the body of the airplane
flying it through the October air.
The other sitting on brown hardwood,
soft curls, pink sparkle dress, stumbling over words
as she reads aloud Goodnight Moon in the afternoon.

Grandma's in the kitchen,
smoking out the window over the sink,
telling them that daddy will be home in just a minute.

Daddy walks in, screen door flinging shut, with muddy work boots,
torn jeans, and black hands.
The boy directs his plane right into his daddy's arms
spit spurting from his noisemaker lips.
The little girl jumps into Daddy's other side, resting on his hip.
Daddy kisses her soft cheek before he sets them both down.
They grab their backpacks and strap their sneakers.
Daddy's thanking grandma who put her cigarette out as she heard him walk in.
She coughs and says not to mention it again.
She'll see him tomorrow.

Daddy buckles his kids in the back seat,
listening to the boy ramble on about his day,
the little girl trying to interrupt.
Daddy nods and smiles,
fixes the rearview mirror and drives through the yard
careful not to rip the grass up
as he turns on the main road.
They both fall asleep before he makes it home.

My mom wakes up in a sweat,
calls me on the phone when I'm asleep
telling me all about her marvelous dream
about Daddy and my kids.
Tells me this wouldn't be the first time
she's saw him and I make it to the end.
I tell her this wouldn't be the first time
I believed it either.

I asked you over and I don't know why.
We were lying in my bed in the dark when my parents pulled in.
I put my dress back on and you ran down the stairs.
Sat on the couch, turned on late night TV, and pretended
that you had been there all along.

I sat up next to you with a blanket covering my legs.
You were so mad at me.
My parents didn't mind you were there though,
in fact they thought the scared look on your face was priceless
and they wished you'd come over again.
They don't ask questions anymore
if that's what you're worried about.
They know that even if they asked I wouldn't have an answer.
Because like I said I asked you over and I don't know why.

I told you it was because my grandpa was sick and I was lonely.
Which is true and I really was.
But mostly I just wanted someone who knew my body to hold me.
I just wanted a night where I didn't have to be by myself
contemplating all the time I don't have left and all the things
I've still left unsaid.
Maybe I'm just in love when you're here and you shouldn't be.
And maybe I love you all the time but I hate you enough to not say it.
That makes no sense.
Neither does this.

I'm just screaming at walls that won't listen.
About how I could want you stay so badly but I don't need you here.
Your love's really nothing.
It's just something I've gotten so used to having that I expect it to be there.
All the time.
Even when
it makes no sense
for you to be kissing me like that or for telling me you'd stay up until I fell asleep.
I asked you over and I don't know why.
I'll keep asking you over and you'll keep coming but
we'll never really know why.

But I'd like it if you'd keep your hand there and not care
about what I'll feel like tomorrow or what I'll ask you to do next week.
I don't make sense anymore
but truly, I love you
and neither does this.

I smoked a pack while we unraveled white and black.
Wrapped in your bare sheets I slept best.
Dewey skin in the morning light,
candy tongue
tulip two lips.
Alarm goes off you ignore it.
I loved messing your hair up.
You look better that way.

I danced around naked on the pedestal you plopped me on
as I let you sketch me.
You scolded to stand still and slapped my *** when I didn't listen,
but you looked so cool holding your paintbrush in your teeth,
studying my figure,
peeking around the easel with your big eyes and crooked smile.

I always left with stains on my hands and your jacket
on my shoulders with a new Camel in the pocket.
Your hand slid down my jeans and I bit your lip.
I could have finished you.

You were so mean to me constantly,
and I curiously indulged in your temptations.
Your ecstasy whispers in my ear.
But there's something special about being loved
by someone who hates everyone.

You thought I was interesting.
Thought I was pure in my mini skirt, but tough
because I never cried when you were yelling.
I just yelled back.
Thought I was brave and wildly adventurous,
standing on edges and throwing things your way.
Even I thought it would be different this time.

But I should've probably listened
to you when you used to tell me not to get my hopes up.
That way I wouldn't be here,
praying, which I never do
that you didn't mean it and you didn't want me to ever have
to know
why you didn't come home.

You would rather
it be expected than me be disappointed
when it's the morning after and you're lying there restless
while you're passed out in the back of a van,
shoes off,
shirt hanging off your back,
with cuts from cans on your hands.

*** doesn't make a sound.
It's the loudest way to shut someone up.
It's the silence that cures.
It's the cork stop in a bottle,
but it will glimmer when you spin it upside down.
I'd love to smash it.

I came in that afternoon and burned the edges of your drawings with my lighter,
smeared the charcoal on all your new pages,
and stamped my boot until all your brushes were in half.
I picked up your jacket that I sewn a special patch in
with my initials,
and I hit snooze when your alarm went off.
You didn't move.

I watched the dewy skin of your back rise
and fall as you were breathing,
sheets ruffled,
pillows on the floor,
empty side next to yours,
all alone.

I decided you look better that way.

We were lying there and I was asking about forever.
You told me you didn't believe in words that had an "ever."
You didn't believe in any happily ever after
not a believer
no everlasting
wheresoever
in your
whatever.

Just a lot of moments and drinking
and calling me and holding me and pulling me
towards your chest or towards your hips
while I'm trying to put things in my head
in reverse
so maybe we'll be born again into this hour
just a little younger than we are now
so we won't have to grow up and leave
so soon.

You say you don't want a relationship but I didn't ask you for one.
I didn't
ask you for one.

All I want is for you to kiss my forehead and tell me you're going to miss me,
maybe for reasons you can't clearly see yet
but you'll miss me in some way when it's midnight
and you're lonely
and you can't ask me because I can't fly
all those miles in just a minute
to get to you.

The only hope I cling to is that
you'll end up calling and I can hear your voice
tell me that everything I have is going to be okay
and that you miss me and that you'll see me
sooner than it feels.

But you'll hang up angry because you let your pretty guard down and called
the girl from home who used to love you separately
from all the things in your life that were promised equally to be evermore
like your mom's marriage
or your grandma's life
or your sister's safety.
You'll hang up and all the memories of everything that was ever
good in your life will flood to the surface and blind you
from feeling so terribly in love with me anymore.
You'll hang up and regret calling in the first place,
but when the line is dead and a tear is falling
I'll be the one whispering "forever" on the other end
of what you're still trying to sever.

It was just the five of us
sitting there by your pool at 3am.
Feet in the water, jeans rolled up to our knees
beers in our right hand and each other to our left
singing old Tom Petty at the top of our lungs.

There was your best friend
who was drunk and singing a goodbye song,
long, slurred laments about
how you were his brother, like a missing tooth
that was pulled to early and left a gap
that your tongue runs over 100 times in a day
until you realize something's missing.
Something's no longer there.
And he'll say things like that
because that's who he is and he'll go to bed real early
because he's sad and tired and you
don't know how to feel that much yet.

There was your cousin in the jacket he stole from you
two weeks ago when he was sleeping on the ground
at a party you dragged him too.
He never learned to whisper and can't keep a secret,
but he made that night feel like it would last forever
and he held your hand through a lot of the bad times
in the trailer before your mom got home.
He'll laugh something stupid with his eyes squinted and you'll hug him
because you can feel he's alive and you want to start living.

There was your weekend warrior
who looked real tough and tan and Italian and
is afraid of who he is
but always knows who you are.

And then there was me.
And then there was you.

You were leaving in a couple weeks
and none of us really knew how to handle that yet.
So we made fun of your baby pictures
that were put into your slideshow and ate all your food
at 1 and then 2 and then 3.
I helped the other boys *** off your railing,
took pictures of your glassy-eyed buddies
trying to hook and capture the memory.

We were tearing down Wyoming,
praying it rained and flooded away
so you'd have nowhere to go and you'd have to stay.

This ain't nothing.
This ain't nothing but people who love you,
washing down their sorrows with a cold glass and a good cheer
to the one we see before he leaves.

And then there was me,
kissing you when your eyes would close
I'll miss you the most.

We slept in your bed alone
no clothes, just my body against yours
clinging to the time we had before morning.
We made love and I mean the real kind of love.
Not the high the five of us had
lying in your grass pretending
we could blow out the stars with a deep "hell yeah!"
But the love where you tell me how important I am to you.
What I've waiting and dying and trying to hear.

Your hand on my hip, you pulled me aside
to let me know you loved me, but just with your eyes.
Some dumb, young kids and real good kiss goodbye.