You're probably laying on your back staring at your inviting ceiling, slightly transparent,
Swirling together your collected pool of hopes and dreams
Just like me
At this very moment.
You are listening to indie music,
And so am I.
Sometimes I imagine we are listening to the same song simultaneously
So we can think the same things together,
Disregarding the time zone difference.


I just wanted to tell you that I would have walked across the gym with you at graduation,
You would have cried with me,
We would have hugged and held hands,
And we would have celebrated until our eyelids puffed and our hands became pruny
From our laughter infused tears.
We would have drank soda and not beer after the ceremony,
Because we never needed anything but ourselves, and maybe a camera, to have fun.
We would have changed out of dresses into sweatpants and flip flops, because we never needed to impress each other.
We would have driven in my car and screamed out the windows
Until someone called the cops and we ran away into my bedroom for safety.
My mother would have had a hug waiting for you,
A cake for us,
And a smile for eternity.

We would have made our way upstairs
To lay on the cheep Home Depot carpet and stair at my own ceiling, just as inviting as yours,
Counting the stars through the drywall we pretend to be invisible.
In the background,
Distanced enough for thoughts to still process,
A playlist of us beats in a fuzzy muffle from the dying iPod dock,
The kind of music you can't help but get high from.
We would talk of our plans and our futures and pretend they weren't separate,
Dreaming of sky scraping homes and earth-bounding trips to Asia and Europe,
Finding our destinies and origins here and there,
Then coming together to share our experiences.
And when things get too sad we would just enjoy the music and remember everything we had, everything we have, and everything we will lose.

I guess what I'm trying to say is listening to good music makes me miss you more than my poetry can begin to express,
And I'm so selfish for wishing you never left me,
Because I know you're happy there and I'm happy here without you,
But I'd be happier if we were listening to music under the same invisible ceiling.

If someone tells you I love you,
Run them through triathlons while holding your hand.
Make them listen with their eyes closed to your singing voice,
When they tell you they love it watch for the formation of sweat beads at the edge of their hair line.
Have them catch you off a twenty story building
And then drive you to the hospital.
Wait in the ER for five hours without a cell phone to play games on,
Make sure they kiss your fingers while you cry in agony.
Starve with them for five days
While you survive off of nothing but salty tears and tender knee hugs.
Watch your favorite movie with them fifty times in thirty days.
Go out to your favorite restaurant five times in one week,
And most importantly,
Loop your favorite album on replay for 78 hours.
Buy five dogs and walk them through miles and kilometers of bike trails.
Have every single argument possible
Until you run out of things to disagree on,
Then bring every issue up again the next morning.
Get drunk together and say every possible ****** up thing that you don't mean.
File for a mortgage.
Agree on how many kids you both want.
Go through the loss of a family member together,
And convert to separate religions.

But most of all, make sure they really mean it.

I wish stars grew in your skin
Next to the oxygen humming in your lungs
To thaw your stagnant blood
So I could watch you orbit your part of the planet
Three hundred miles away,
Because your heart would then permeate faster than life's speed limit,
Scaling all the mountains between us to
Float in my peripherals like
Residual Chernobyl radiation.
Dancing hazily,
Constant reminders of my past
And the jenga monkey ladder to my future.

I never liked being insignificant.
Now please infect me with your cancer
So you can't escape again.

This is what she looks like when she's sad:
The human condition effective immediately.
Winter shades shift side to side,
exploding out of each iris.
Skin falling off,
when lunging forward to kiss me.
Fingernail daggers dig into my pores.
I'll bleed under her fingernails,
if she'll drag them down my torso
until her knees click the floor.

This is her tongue inside of my mouth:
We taste each other before we waste each other.
Hip bones parallel and our eyes rubbing shoulders,
my hands surfing her rib cage
and it's all the rage because she moans.
And when she moans,
color tones orbit around her head.
Planetary tumors dancing around her skull;
jump roping with her hair,
eating morals and removing plurals.

Those are her lips around me.
Her head moves up and down
but her eyes focus on me.
She makes eye contact
and I empty my dreams
into her mouth.

We are a public forum.
I ache with alcohol poisoning
and liberal undertones.
The terrain that is my face
bleeds oils that would lubricate
the axle of the car that she drove
into the tree
that we carved our name into.

Come back to me.
I miss you so much.
I watched you die.
I watched you die
and there was nothing I could do.

They told me that she wouldn't make it.
They told me that she might make it.
My hand gripped at blood stained blanket.
I think she said my name under the air mask.
I could tell if she saw me;
her eyes rolled back into her head
after she gazed a thousand yards away
into the field of black
that sheltered the tall grass
that we would chase each other through
and get lost in
as we got lost in each other.

I love you! I ******* love you!
My back, a membrane coil
that rises my stiff neck
that cares my head full of memories.
I turn on the light and you're not there next to me.
I put my hand on your copy of The Thornbirds
and know that you've read it more than the notes
I leave in your inbox,
hoping that it'll say that you have seen it.

Walking to your grave,
I am a darkness that the abyss has swallowed
and I have followed myself into nothingness
that is such bliss
that I forget
your kiss.

So excuse me while I dump out my Starbucks in the fridge
and paper shred my valued customer card.

Let me hate coffee for you,
Because you're the only person I've been willing to hate coffee for in three years.
Those other boys could never tear me from the coffee shop counter,
I would latch on like a koala to a tree limb,
Thirsting for that satisfying and hypnotizing liquid.

Let me loath coffee for you,
Because I haven't been so excited about loathing coffee in three years.
Its tantalizing aromatics will woo me no more.
The other men in my life have no affect on my love affair with these beans,
Their scents loop around my neck and drag me in,
The craving becomes irrefutable,
My bones creak with each body convulgence
In response to the grinders on the espresso machines.

Please let me get you a drink,
Orange juice? Milk?
Gatorade?
I swear, I'll keep coffee as far away as possible at all times,
Avoiding every Dunkin' Donuts while driving,
Every quaint mom-and-pop coffee shop while walking,
And flight attendants will never dare bring a coffee ***
on their food cart when we fly.

I won't ***** this up with the **** coffee,
Because perhaps it was coffee the last three times that left things in rancid rot,
The filters from yesterday's shift never disposed of.

Let's go anywhere but a coffee shop together,
Let's go everywhere but a coffee shop forever.
And I promise,
I won't even try and sneak a latte around you,
But can I please keep my chai tea?

& day after day the smoke occupied my lungs, hoping to evict the thoughts of you that danced in my head