You and I would stand in front of my bathroom mirror and
just hold each other, naked, acquainting ourselves
with the strange, biblical union of joints and hair
and skin and crevices and curves that we make
together...

Fingerpainting reverently on your chest,
I'd kiss your freckled shoulder, eyeing your reflection as it melted,
falling for me again-- and you'd
tell me in return
that my eyes are beautiful, and that they are green,
just like yours.
They are brown, I'd say, and
laugh and
leave
you to
confront only yourself
in my mirror.

Every day that I stand again
in front of my mirror alone--
a similar but emptier amalgamation of joints and curves--
I could swear that my eyes
look a little bit paler...
like if I
point my nose up to the high hat on my ceiling,
with the fluorescent light spilling into them
the color could certainly pass
as the same green in your eyes and
I wonder,
and I hope

that being wrong all this time
doesn't mean I was wrong about you, too.

I kiss your lips.
I kiss your neck.
I look in your eyes.
You wrap your arms around me.
And pull me in.
When I wake up you're gone again.

part of me
misses you
and all of me
misses parts of you

When we have stood, cold and raw, cracked open, underneath
the waterfall of time for long enough that
it doesn't burn our skin quite so much
anymore,
I hope that you can repair the heart I
tried to break as gently as I could.

I hope that you find a girl who has always wanted to
name her baby Cody,
who can ski like a demon and
take her liquor like a cowboy and
lives for Silverados and Colorado sunsets.

I hope that when you remember my laugh,
it doesn't sound quite so pretty as hers, and that
when you scoop her up from behind,
it will feel like you are doing it for the first time.

But when she sees you cry and
says she's so grateful to have a boy who knows how,
I hope you are reminded of all the love I gave
to help you learn.
When she hugs you and thanks you for listening,
I hope you remember the time I spent listening to you,
teaching you what it means to be heard.

The way that I love you is not a fake, flimsy kind of love that
floated away when I left you--- no,
I want your girl to be all the comfort and safety and warmth and devotion that I could never be to you...

And if she isn't,
I hope that she reminds you of me
enough to make you leave before
she breaks you again.

Uptight,
Never quite right

Blame the “timing”
Despite countless years “trying”

Futile and undermining;
You’re forever chasing whatever it is you find most mesmerizing.

You’re done now with the tantalizing;
I’ve surpassed my prime,
Disposable-
You’re onto the next.

The latest shiny thing -
The “cool girl” trope;
Some pretty face for you to spit on,
Never for her to provoke.

Frail inside,
Your pitiful mind…

So the next one, just like the last:
A temporary home for you to impose your wrath.
Suffering eternally inside, running from your past;
Continually searching for something that will never be within your grasp.

When I felt
You were gone
I decided to go back
What we called our road
Just to feel you and us
Once again
For the last time.

absent from my life,
but dancing forever in my mind.

preserved perfectly:
idealized and beautified,
immortal, god-like.

wanting to let go,
yet holding on too tight.

memories, exaggerated:
they haunt me,
notoriously unreliable.

close my eyes;
take me back in time…
before I was bloodied by his arrow.

I can't take you with me
the trail's too steep
but I'll pack a few blurry pieces of you
sea shells and sand grain
boating and Busch Light

I'm rolling up your long, loud laugh
and putting it where the socks go.
so when I rest again,
I can unzip,
and hear you.
through tattered mesh pockets
holding fuzzy drunk photos
too fleeting and fast, your face

I’m taking you with me
The scraps of your smile folded into my sweater
Your voice explodes
As I roll my sunny yellow dress to fit

Perhaps I'll wear your laughter
to a party in some other town
to compliment my flower crown

what is the percentage
that i miss you
that i reminisce us
what is the chance
that you miss me too
that you miss us
what is this feeling
that i thought of you
that i create an image of you
is this ninety-nine percent
confirming
believing
that we miss it
that we must kiss it
to close it
to end it
coz 1% is not ours
to take
to risk

xoxo