four parts

I

the dull burning of a cigarette

you lit between my parted lips,

the unfamiliar softness of your kiss.

if one day you’d listen,

i’d tell you how quiet that night was,

of the few men i have loved,

of all the men who have loved me.

you wouldn’t ask

how far they are from me 

now.

II

there are seven names for your eyelashes

that i have collected in the following months,

several more for the delicate 

hair that never grew when i held you.

and now in your eyes

there is an emptiness when you look at me;

you don’t recognize me anymore, 

or maybe you just didn’t

then.

III

what a shame,

we are always in this bed

either having it

or having it out

you leave your lighters on my floor,

don’t move when i rustle the sheets,

your cue to go.

i breathe a sigh of relief every time

you leave, a blue elephant

lifted from my soul

so that now i can finally be free

if only 

i could 

find my 

keys.

IV

the clinking of glass marks

our final destination, a departure from

the sobriety we tried to make with each

other.

“i’ll just have a diet coke” doesn’t work for us.

i need to feel less

when i’m with you, numb my bones with cheap red wine,

drink until my taste buds bleed,
till i feel no hunger,
no thirst,
no loneliness,
nothing essential.

till there is nothing but this hollow,

empty,

yellow

yearning.

habitual september

wander back to free-thinking humidity,

wet / stagnant / imitation bliss.

heavy limbed, you lifted me

through the haze of booze and cigarettes,

let me scribble through your words in intoxicated joy.

i couldn’t have asked for a better loneliness.

_____________

nothing is more poignant than the ache

of the moments after.

“i don’t make the rules,” i imagine you’d say,

and i’d wish that you did.

i could have photographed you in that moment:

dreaded hair back, sitting on the stairs.

the way you looked at me when i walked towards you,

the semi-politeness that followed,

something unmistakable in your eyes.

i could have followed you then,

shared a cigarette and held your hand down the street,

only two blocks from your car.

instead, i stayed home in the dark,

told you i’d kicked the habit,

though i wasn’t sure which

one.

_____________

breathing was never difficult until

i had a night without it,

i never really heard the birds sing until they

cried.

four a.m. is lonelier when you spend midnight

in the grasp of another 

and sometimes i am overwhelmed by the beauty 

of the land we shared,

of all that it discloses,

and all that

remains.