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.