Lying in the dark
The sheets wet
Skin stuck together like glue
I remember what it feels like
To laugh with my whole stomach
I remember what it feels like
To want with my whole body
You have unlocked this within me
Something I have no name for
A hidden corridor into my soul
Twenty-seven,
And still there are things about myself that I did not know
I think perhaps you knew them, though
Before we met
Messages on a black screen
I think you saw the truth of me
There is not much here, I worry
Just a pearl
And we have cracked me open to find it
We talk a lot about words
Trade our favorites
I carefully avoid saying love
You carelessly say you love me here over you in bed
“Every word in a poem needs to be so exact for the purpose”
“Every word should weigh a ton”
I read those messages like a poem
But I am the fiction-writer between us
“A mess” you’d say
“Your mess” I think
Amiss in this world of sharp and truthful things

It occurs to me that
I used to fear the dark
How odd to have known so much more of myself than of the world
What could be out there?
Lying in wait
All of the wildest threats of my imagination not yet disproved

Now the darkest corners of my mind lay unexplored
And I have grown worldly in my age
I am the monster now
And I am already in my bed

I would turn my body into a sunset, if I could [Brooke]
I would [Louis] paint my very soul [Louis] across a desert sky
And when I had gone
When I had faded from this world [Emily] completely [Emily]
I would leave a moonless sky in my wake
Then you could look upon it [Shelby]
And know how much I love you
My love could be written [Julianna] out in constellations,
Like all the myths of the ancient world
I would tell you [Scarlett] how much I love you [Scarlett] , if I could
But alas, it is no small or simple thing
[But alas, it is no small or simple thing]

I do not love your laugh
I do not love your smile,
Or your eyes,
Or the way you hold my hand in yours
I do not love the way you blow on the back of my neck to cool me down
Or the way that you stroke my shoulder to soothe me
I do not love your kindness
I do not love your sense of humor
I do not love the image of myself I see mirrored in your soul
Nor the image of you mirrored in mine
I do not love your loyalty,
Your quirks,
Or your artistic hand

What is left to love?
You ask
Do I love you at all?

I love the spaces between you
I love the places in you where I have room to breathe
I love you in all the cracks,
And all the gaps,
And all the little crevices
My love exists between your neurons firing
Between every electron of every atom that is you
I love the stitches holding together the fabric of who you are
When you hold your hand to a mirror,
My love is in the glass between your fingers touching
I love the intangible, quiet energy that is only you
Without action
Without effort
Just you
Can only ever be you

I see lines of you in the silhouettes of the scurf of a world without you
I hear your voice calling my name:
In empty hallways,
Serenades,
And odes written on deathbeds,
Declaring that your final words should "I love you"
And as I lie dow unfamiliarly in a bed without you,
I curl up and imagine that you are here,
And as I drive back to you-- home, across dark landscapes,
The headlights of the oncoming traffic reflect off my glasses and beam through dark air,
And your voice calls my name one final time in the lonely hotel room behind me