wait for me
on the concert grounds
of the bands we don’t even listen to;
wait for me
‘til you find yourself
singing to the second verse
of a rock song
you hear for the first time —
that one is gonna be our song, darling.

wait for me
in old malls and museums
people no longer come to;
wait for me on the forgotten stairs
'til you see my ragged old skool
and my bad, orange hair
parting the crowd
to give you my bear hugs.

wait for me
in coffee shops that play
my favorite songs;
wait for me with that
black coffee in hand
'til i arrive an hour later
to appease you with
kisses that smell like subways
cause they’re what
i give best.

wait for me
in busy, city streets
valleyed by nameless
skyscrapers;
wait for me in strangers’ cars
at 5 am 'til a sunray
hits my face a meter across
from where you are.

wait for me
by the shore,
where promises are lost
in the sea spray;
where the starless skies
can watch me drown
in the scent of your hair
when the sea is right before us.

wait for me, darling —
wait for me until
we no longer have to say
our i love you’s
through calls and texts
but in front of each other.
wait for me until
you no longer find
an “i have to go” note at three am
but my arms,
wrapped around your body
and my lips
planted on your neck.

wait for me, darling —
wait for me until
we no longer miss each other
more often than not,
and until the only waiting
we’ll do
is you, waiting for me
to get off work,
and me, waiting for you
to wake up.

wait for me until the moment
you find me
there,
next to you;
wait for me until
your home becomes my home,
and until all we’ll have
to wait for
are delayed flights
and underrated movies to start
and dishes served late
and our hand, finding each other
instantly after seconds
of being away.

wait for me darling —
wait for me until i’m there
forever,

and until we no longer
have to wait.

There's dimensions in you that I miss exploring, and phases in you that I find myself entrapped in. Feelings in you that I find myself entranced with, and love, in you that I find myself falling for. Within you somehow I found myself, yet it took me to lose you to really understand this. Lost in the world I look up and ask for the bribing of our venal God that if he can convince you to explain to you that I can encumber the universe with my small hands and offer it to you in seconds. The stars, the moon, the tides, the sun, the blues & all your favorite hues. I can still envision you unlocking what many have failed to do. Pushing the small of my back, I can still hear you breathing down my spine, your breathing intertwined with my curls, ugh...& so I ask of you not to demur, but to opt in & give me what I ask of you.. even if its selfish please let me love you. Let me love you twice, let me love you right this time. I know I can get it right this time, I know because of my lack of understanding, insipience and insincerity it has led you to astray us, but I entrust in you and the universe to unravel your blindfold & understand the missing links in you that I can perfectly paint for you with the same hands that have always made love to you. This isnt an apologia it's a declaration of my love to you. This is a letter to you, to God, to the Universe, a manifestation in the works that I am putting out into the world. I love you & I love you for many more years to come.

Beautiful garden
Don’t ever change
Water your flowers
And don’t rearrange
Keep your distance
From flowers and fury
From roses and sadness
Sunflowers and grief towers
Don’t stop to smell them
Lie down and dwell
Lie down, cherry plum
Lie down, cherry plum.
Cherry plum sweet as whiskey
Whiskey cold as fire
That’s you, cherry plum sweetheart
That’s you, cherry plum love.

the thing with falling in love with a poet
is that only the heartbreak is good enough
to qualify as poetry.
all the roller-coaster rush
and the picnics on the hill
and the first time your hands brush together
on your first date and they take yours
to fill the gaps between their finger,
and the aimless walks looking for
somewhere to eat
and the first time they said i love you
but it wasn’t perfect
so they’d written you a poem
because that seemed closer
to perfect
than those three words —
somehow, at some point,
all of these gets overlooked
like words in a history book
he wouldn’t read even if he was stuck with it in a dream.

the thing with falling in love with a poet
is that it is falling in love with a stranger
who writes poetry at 8 am or 10 pm, hoping
to find his lover back in front of him
when he reaches the last word and raises up his head.
it is falling in love
with someone whose walls seem to echo
the first time they said i love you
three years ago,
it is falling in love with someone
who could still be writing about the love of his life
and sometimes, the consonants
in her name
look like the
vowel in yours
but it’s not you, honey,
sometimes,
it’s just
not you.

he said i shouldn’t mistake
falling in love with his words
for falling in love with him,
so i thought
how could that be, when his words
were the words i wanted to kiss?
how could that be, when he was
the poetry i wanted to read?

one time,
i asked him if he would write me a poem
if he ever fell out of love.

and he said he would never fall out of love.

and he did.

without any warning —
without any melancholic farewell,
or messy kisses on the kitchen floor,
or desperate pleads for us to stay.
he fell out of love with me —
without writing any heartbreak poem;

but then again, maybe it was because
all heartbreak poems, even if it was us falling apart,
would still be written for you.

the night he left,
he forgot to take his poetry collection
all written in the tattered pages
of that black notebook i got him,
and it was full of pages folded in halves
and it was full of your name in lazy scribbles
and it was full of his words
wanting you back.

it was the night we broke up
yet it was still you, breaking his heart —

it was the night he decided he could no longer pretend
he loved me.
it was the night he decided he could no longer pretend
i was you.