I don’t know where you are. In life or in thought.

You carved me.
Not into the soft fabrics of stone, Michelangelo’s passion project,
but in the chest caving way that echos across years
and states
and moments I can’t trace, but still feel shaped by you.

There’s parts of you in most I meet, and everyone that knows me will know aspects of the you I once knew.

We never broke, and though wilted, the flower never died.
We unraveled. Quietly, circumstantially, slowly, in ways that never made sense out loud. A boat tethered in a still wake, just climate enough to disintegrate the fibers. A brisk breeze, never windy enough to cause national alert.

And that’s what’s made it so hard to let go.
No fight, no final draw. Just… silence.
Stillness in a room that once danced.
Swayed sacred memories under a Scotch taped mistletoe. My once eggnog grin boy.

I’ve looked for you in places I know you’d never be.
Cramped hands scribbling thoughts I won’t send.
I’ve read your words and heard them in the faint memory of your voice.
You told the history of us in stanzas.
I’ve carried the epilogue of us since, so you can hone in your next plot.

I think I’d want to ask nothing.
Just watch you breathe.
See what time has softened, and learn how Plan B became Option F.
Shake your hand, like we’re meeting again. Detention divvy in the cafeteria round two, yet not starting over, but seeing clearly as we’ve become.

I don’t expect that moment will ever come.
I needed this not for reply,
but release.

You were my first mirror.
My first awe into ache.
And I think, in a way, you’ll always be.
God ****** that wake.
It’s time for me to stop waiting cave-side for echoes. The occasional ping in my heart pager is plenty.

I hope you’re loved in the ways you couldn’t ask for yet, and all of those thoughts have found safe, understanding hands. Ones that mark color into your inked rib flowers on occasion, and the snake not remind you of me.

Perhaps if I understood more of those too-long-car-ride convos.
I’m shoulding on myself.

I hope laugh still covers your face, and your brows scrunch into your nose.
I hope you feel free, and the flight wasn’t stifled by a storm along the way.
I hope if you think of me, it’s with a faint yellow softness, not a sting.

It’s impossible to forget, but I must rid myself from the weight of remembering alone.
There’s no gym routine that fills the space, but watering cans to garden around the museum of us.

and here I sit
with letters writ
by people who get me.

a beautiful and unexpected
time for being seen.

for groups, I've steered away and hid -
the sense of self ran dry,
but brave, authentic, courageous fun;
characterizations that make me cry.

who knows why I did dig my head
so deeply in the sand,
when points between what is and could lies within my own two hands.

that silly little metaphor I've researched way too much,
just to come to realize it's been here, strange yet such.

full speed ahead, some slow and quick;
the balance is okay,
and knowing fullness comes through taking each thing
day by day.

A constant battle
of fight or flight
as a breath turns around
calming our panic
for just a brief moment
before it happens again

You were my Gray
Your eyes held blue,
Or brown - I don’t recall.
Much love and laughter dawns and dusks but sunshine’s deep of all

What’s behind your eyes has always brushed your lips
"People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves.“
For you it’s mindful ‘tips.’
On what we agree I can say it is about that Juliet,
but I fear what’s to discover about your overall epithet

Little Lindsay lied a lot,
to anyone with ears.
Twisting, turning every thought -
she’d used others for years.
One day she thought she’d pull the wool
over a well trained eye;
forgetting all that would be felt,
through face or words can’t hide.

Up in the air, in blinding clouds, she’d wrinkle at the nose.
For her best mate, her trusted friend
had dried up at the hose.

Riddling lips, grasped one last time,
she tried hard to save face.
But little Lindsay played so poor,
embarrassing disgrace.

For could one trust another who could hate from the shadows?
You’d never know if love and care was being kept in tow.

Letters writ, with seeming guilt, though through those lines remained
the little lies of which every relation would be strained