Perhaps, if I gather all the missing up, I could get one great big longing. Maybe that would be better. I've gotten use to this empty bed, your beautiful words packed up. They left my head.

the pull to your core riles my attention
the pull is dedicated, though not to you.
your core is what I'm after.
you represent an immature version
of us, I add in my growth and we
continue to develop.

though you are merely a fraction,
we are spread far. the pieces
rile my attention, create a tunnel
that emblazons my affection for myself.
for us all. in each meeting,
I am looking for you.
my thoughts are captured
in the essence of the trueness of everything,
the fragility, the permanence of nothing.
flowing in this interaction, the balance.

it seems life must be short.
my daughter calls me to live long,
I wake each day to embrace another chance
to sit in myself, in this body,
to witness this vantage point.
I get lonely in here, my tribe spread thin.
I know that the energy of
the spread of a galaxy realigns us constantly.
we create the things that communicate to
hear our own memories.
and I am just thankful,
all other emotions lacking substance.

The silence you clothe yourself in will become a second skin. You will work hard to remove it. You will scrub yourself raw until the sweet scent of orange blossoms replaces the lighter fluid that has seeped into your pores.

When you finally tell someone, you will be drunk. It will be 2 a.m. You will tell your parents, it will spill out of you as you hover over the toilet. Your secrets mixed with ***** and something sour, something burning, something permanent. It will feel good, to flush the pain out of your throat.

It will be hard for you to be intimate. When you talk to that boy in your English class, you will feel butterflies for the first time in months, those same butterflies whose wings were clipped that night last July. You feel the butterflies, yes, but you will cringe when his hand brushes up against your own.

When that same boy asks you out on a date, and he opens the car door for you, you will want to run. You will feel the air in your lungs combust when he kisses you. You will think he is trying to draw blood when he bites your lip.

You will wonder if he can he see the bruises and fingerprints that still stain your nakedness

You will not believe him when he says “I love you”

When he asks why you never want to touch him, why you talk in your sleep, why your chapped lips are a graveyard eroded from the salt streaming down your cheeks, you tell him everything.

You do not cringe when he tries to hold your hand this time.