11/18/2018

perhaps the bitterest sweetness of being far from you

is the way our last kiss is always so highly saturated in my mind

it bleeds colors and textures all over me

stains my hands and my clothes and my vision

from the moment you arrive at my door and inhale me

I am already feeling the breathless ache of missing you.

I have been missing you since I met you, since maybe even before.

my fingernails hurt from being bitten too short,

and our time together hurts like this too.

all I really want is forgettable kisses with you.

kisses so abundant and so constant

that they can be absent-minded and boring

and not worth writing poems about.

but the last time you kissed me your tears in my mouth sounded like:

“I know, baby. I know.”

and your hands on my waist tasted like:

the warm forgotten rosé on the nightstand — we were too busy to drink it.

we’re always too busy to drink it.

you in your thick wool coat,

me in my thin satin pajamas -

and the earth cracks open beneath us.

we stand on opposite sides of a canyon,

and you are already dressed for a place that isn’t here.

your shuddering indigo breaths your inky eyes slippery

as the floor under my sock feet your lips on mine

a pair of eloquent rebels, interrupted -