if you listen to album enough on repeat,
you can almost hear in the intro to the next song
in the last notes of the one still playing.
if you talk long enough, i can almost hear how the disjointed points
you’re making flow together in the same way
with their stitches still showing,
you were never much good at sewing.
you’ve got a mouth like a rock ballad, sweet in your bitterness.
crooked chords that still sound good with the way you smile.
you’re a record-breaker and i’d never skip a single song.
i’ve a got a list tucked in your pocket of songs that make me cry,
you are at the bottom of my list and the top of my lungs
you were like good music;
your notes didn’t always sound right
but you always made me feel something.
a number two pencil drumming,
tapping out at the opening to some love song on your desk
like the steady beep of a heart monitor,
proving that you’re alive with every hit you make.
you never stop moving.
once you told me that you kind of think
if you sit still too long you’ll never manage to get up again
like an old, out-of-date computer
that might never turn back on if you switch it off.
an object in motion tends to stay in motion
and an object at rest tends to stay in rest,
and sometimes if you get into to bed you never get back out.
procrastinate your way out of your problems
and into to bigger ones.
sometimes to get your life together, you’ve got to take it apart.
a butcher with a butter knife, a knight with a wooden sword.
i’m scared of taking apart things i don’t know how to put back together,
and i’m **** at reading instructions.
because i guess sometimes when i write you poems
they're more about me than they're about you.
i don’t have cold feet, just cold toes, and sometimes i think
if i paint my toenails ruby red then my feet might magically take me home
to the house i never wanted to be in when actually i lived there.
life’s funny like that.
you never want what you have until it’s framed in your rearview mirror.
so i snuck out my bedroom window and i fell through the roof,
and when peter pan told me to fly, i just fell.
the sky was too polluted to find the second star to the right.
i guess i just didn’t believe hard enough.
and if believers never die then maybe cynics never live.
it makes sense i guess,
you were born out of a coffin, you were born in an abortion clinic.
even you can see the irony,
but i think you just were too stubborn not to exist.
you were a mess way before you ever learned how to clean yourself up.
birthmarks on your ribcage, consolidated rage
i memorized every piece of that you let me.
you told me that you’re not a shield, you’re just a bullet.
you’ve been a long-standing fistfight with meaning
ever since you were old enough to throw a right hook
and get your tongue tangled up in the chorus.
past your prime and still throwing punches,
i guess i respect the tenacity and pity the lack of self-awareness
at the same time.
you never knew when to bow out of the ring.
you never knew when to give up.
you never knew which fights were losing ones.
and you say “i’m no good” and it just makes me wanna get to closer
to find out for myself
and you say “leave while you still can” and it just makes me wanna stay
to prove you wrong.
guess i’m a glutton for punishment, i’m misery’s permanent tenant.
the only one dumb enough to leave behind roots in the riverbed
and expect them not to get washed away.
now you’re always on my mind,
i keep seeing cars like yours drive past my window.
you were lanky and you hated ******* that word when i said it,
laughing into your mouth
but you were all limbs, and now i’m missing you like one.
i go searching for addresses to buildings
i know that are probably still abandoned just see
if any part of you still lives there.
the neighbors tell me it’s haunted,
little kids cross on the other side of the street to avoid the chill.
but i’m stubborn, and i’m not afraid of the ghosts.
a foreclosure sign is still in an overgrown front yard.
a mailbox with the flag still up.
furniture all covered up in blank sheets like the paper.
it was all over before it started, you moved out before
you even unpacked all of your boxes.
i think you left some behind.