Your scent still lingers
On my jacket
It's been a week
Yet your still lingering
On my sleeve
Did you really hug me that much
Or did I just hug you too tightly
Because I knew it was goodbye
For a little while

We collided like a train rushing in from behind,
Your memory and I.
My breath stuck in my throat, unexpectedly.
Tears stinging my eyes, staining my cheeks, involuntarily.
Has your ghost been lingering, shadowed,
Waiting to spring upon me like a serpent in the grass?
Don't tempt me with that shattered past.
I'd gladly place the shards of history's heart back into your hands.
Blatantly disregarding every reserve my mind fires,
Happily risking it all just to taste our youth.
Begone with you phantom! If that's what you are.
Stay only if your monstrosity lingers well into our future.

I want to tell you
I tear at the sound of your name.
Like the paper jammed in my printer at work,
Sometimes I am a wrinkled mess without you.

I want to tell you
Distance tastes like acid in my throat.
It burns holes in my esophagus nightly.

I want to tell you
I wanted to make a home for myself
In the palms of your hands.
You could cup them
And you could bring them to your lips:
I would let you drink me, if you wanted to.

I want to tell you
This heart is heavy like iron,
But also fragile like glass.
It is fractured and full of chips
Like the one that formed the last time we kissed:
You told me you loved me, then.
It was the first and last time,
And I said it back sounding something like a desperate plea
Knowing it would not stop you from leaving
(But somehow you still lingered.)

I want to tell you all of these things,
But the words get stuck in my mouth.
They are afraid of coming out,
So instead I tell you
"I've missed you"
And I hope some part of you understands the rest.

There was a void.
Then there was light.
There was his voice.
His touch which made me quiver.
His fragrance that lingered
Like the dew every morning
Like the dreams that kept coming back
Like the waves that washed away sandcastles
Like the wind which bent the daffodils on the sidewalk
Like a phone that kept ringing.
Like the letters left unanswered.
The birthdays that kept coming.
His voice rang in my head.
Like a beautiful symphony that would be the end of me if it stopped.

A thousand pictures lying on the floor
Do I even recognize us anymore?

Like seasons that come one after the next
Like the unassuming traffic i see through the window of a hotel
In an unknown town
On an unknown date
The calendar has failed me

I need to stop tasting you on my tongue
Like a pill I can't swallow
Like a high I can't get
Like a breakfast in a picturesque town, left unfinished
Like words of a foreign language I can't seem to pronounce correctly.

Every time I close my eyes, I think I forget.
And then there is a void.

you are the echo in places after everyone's sound has gone.

you are the reluctant resonance in air between breaths.

you are the leaving that's overstayed its welcome.

you are the racket in deprivation of company.

you are the uproar after music has ceased.

you are the chord eternally reappearing.

you are reverberations of want, of lack.

you are sweet tinnitus in every hush.

you are every absent reoccurrence.

you are epitomes of entirety.

your gale still lingers.

but you do not.

you do not.

you do.

not.