Meteorite

I don't know you
but I thought I should say
that when I drove
past your house
earlier tonight
I thought I saw something
great in your yard-

an opalescent meteorite-

it looked like
what would happen
when the sky and the sea
fell in love with the earth
for the first time
at the same time.

And there it was,
right next to your mailbox.

I've come to the conclusion
that it was probably
a heap of trash bags,
but I've relished believing otherwise.

When you take my words

When you wish to take my words
they were yours anyway-
though to take
is not to receive
and to give
is not to be taken from.

When you take my words
you know you take not
my essence,
not my reasons
not the thing that
makes me tremble-
I call it thing for I lack
its word.

When you know
you should also know
that I know, I knew
before I pricked my fingertips
so the words might
seep out, so slowly,
that when I touched your ear,
your paper, your screen
there would be only words.
Still, you told me so
like explaining love to a child.

When you take my words
you do not take my essence,
my reasons, my tremble.
You take only
all that I have
and the most I can give.
I would ask you to treat them well
if I could speak.

One thing I tried

One thing I tried
was to never
let shyness
make me unkind-

when I managed that,
I expected it then-
It'd be foolish of me
to apologize.

Sometimes it's the Atlantic

Sometimes it's

the Atlantic

and sometimes it's

the sweat on our skin-

Know, my darling,

that the only thing
ever keeping me from you

is a little salt,

the taste

is fine on my lips.

I Hate Goodbyes

Dear Thomas,
You taught me a lot of things,
like to love your friends
as much as your family,
as much as your family.
Because family will always be there
but if you love your friends as much
you'll have the most incredible friends
and you considered me one of them.

And it's true what anyone will tell you
that people forget you as strangely as they met you,
it's frightening and comforting,
it's frightening and comforting.
It's frightening because it means you're dispensable
and while that's true,
it's comforting because it must mean
that they're dispensable too.

When I was in town and met you for coffee
we went where we always used to-
sat in the same chairs with different air,
the same chairs with different air
and I couldn't breathe when you told me
about your intended major
and how you like to run barefoot
because I already knew that
and we used to talk about, we used to talk
about the things that scared us the most,
and the people we loved,
and remind one another that
there was always someone who held us dear.

It's true what anyone will tell you 

that people forget you as strangely as they met you,

it frightens and comforts me,

it frightens and comforts me.

It's frightening because it means you're dispensable

and while that's true,

it comforts me to think it means

that they're dispensable too.

When you kissed me in your room

when my hair was long

and you were just as lost as I was,

was it frightening and comforting?

Was it frightening and comforting?

Was it frightening because you'd forgotten
what it felt like to kiss someone
when you were not in love?

Was it comforting, so damn easy
to confirm that someone still held you dear?

Some months went by and you said

you didn't regret it,

I doubt that each day but remind

myself that you said it-

it's frightening and comforting,

I thought you might know by now
how I hate goodbyes

enough to not say hello again.

But I won't tell you that,
I wouldn't want to make you sad.
I like to think that it would make you sad,
Because if it did
wouldn't that mean you still cared?
Held me dear?
That'd be frightening and comforting,
more frightening than comforting.

And when you taught me

And when you taught me
to break my own heart
you didn't even try,

I swam to the top
of my desolation
for only glimpses of you,
cracked for my inhibition,

swam to the bottom
to decide I'd love you
foolishly, quietly-

prepared for summer months
of sunflowers and blisters-

so that at the very least
if you fancied to see
you'd find the death of a human
as she made you something beautiful
and loved you fully,

and maybe you would
like to know you were loved fully
even if by a fool like me
who perished in the process.

I judged the Pompeii of your anguish

I judged
the Pompeii
of your
anguish
by the radius
of nicotine debris
circling you
on that picnic table-
not the bench,
fire-sun-shine
with a dark-cloud
and a
red-umbrella