I WANT TO REMEMBER THIS

when i knew you less than a month and you made me a map of my favorite place in the world
going in to kiss at the same time; i dont remember where we were, but i remember how my smile made me miss your lips
sweetness in small doses; sweetness in the smallest moments. in the car, i enjoy you, i enjoy you so much, i like you, i really like you.
kissing at harling's between doorframes - oh that was really nice, it had been an hour.
"can i come sit with you?" during the bulls game from your chair, alex melting in the corner
licking my face outside the garage "i guess that means i really really like you" according to your dad's conversation about knowing when a dog loves its person

in these moments you are my person.

THOUGH IT FEELS FAMILIAR

despite a northern reserve

i am falling in love with you 

and i don't feel afraid

something new though it feels familiar

i must repeat that everything has a far stronger effect

the first time it happens than on subsequent occasions

soon it is spring in your eyes

a human sea

we stood awhile and breathed in 

the calculated suburbs, 

exiles among exiles,

and other worlds and phenomena of other proportions

your edges grow uneven

stronger than anyone wants them

a gauge for measuring the passing time

black strands curl into your ears

i long to see them lighten in the summer

golden under the movement of the lake

our bodies drying in the light

your name still special on my tongue

your skin still burning my fingers

the moon grows and glows,

men wait for letters, crush bugs

curse officers, swap dirty stories

all as i recluse into myself

like a dying man

forgetting how to sit in his recliner

i ask your ghost to please get the mail

in the same way that striking a match smells of a birthday party,

loneliness smells like death does

there are men in offices who are dictating potential

sending letters embellished with a stamped signature

igniting the beginning of an end

are we lost or do we still have a chance?

tell me how we aren't just loving because we're lonely

and tell me again how you like me because i make the world soft.

BE HUMAN

find your pulse loud all across your body. fingertips tracing the places where you're alive: wrist, neck, back, chest. there's something worth writing about when i feel so wonderful just making the bed together, writing secret notes for your pockets for you to open later, sharing quiet mornings with you. if i'm loose i find your arms again or settle for kissing your back. zipping up my jacket, picking feathers off my jeans, sharing our solitude, the way our day old hair tangles and sprinkles across the bed.

i'm biting my arms again; appreciating how simple and beautiful it is for someone to share the small and quiet of life with. smiling about the way you move and think - the way the open drawer irritates you just like your top button and collar aligning. loving like i'm learning you as a new language.

TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING

what ive been thinking about lately
father driving his sons to school, three in the back with their own separate headphones and own separate sounds, the father in silence, presumably quite empty
my friend saying "shhhhh..... i love this song"during our conversation
devouring an entire bottle of whiskey and friends cheering around you, shots until everyone's puking.
losing yourself to your passion for another person.

I LEAVE YOU IN THE MORNING AND FIND YOU IN THE DAY

at first, touching you felt like the residue of lost love
i didnt eat for you
but i wanted to be next to you in every crowded room,
on every full sofa and under blankets with you,
sharing cigarettes, steadying it between your fingers and my mouth,
inhaling for this time alone

days later,
$40 on sushi, emptied plates twice, broken cars and crushed telephone poles and watching from the window at the weather threatening our night
thrifting jackets for friends, drive-thru mozzarella sticks
spin my coat on, spin into you
call the big bed, you aren't close enough to me
the shallow bit of your chest, the underside of the crest of your hip
holding and being held in my favorite place, "me too"

with my face in the bit of space in your back where your shoulders meet,
my mind is on our drive home,
feeling emptier and more alone in this crowded room of stumbling and dumb smiles - "why are you sitting on the floor", wine bottle propped between my knees, passing alex the cigarette and ash filled beer bottle, they're throwing cupcakes and breaking teeth - than ever when i'm alone or with you.
in our beds i still cant understand how perfectly you can hold me. and i can't believe how easy it all feels.

AARONS FLOOR

no sleeps, boots on, conor knows secrets, doesnt buy brunch, drinks coffee
floor doesnt give, blanket doesnt fit
is there any comfortable way to be here, next to you i think
9am and all move up to the bed, close the blinds, rolling pin propping up the window, has anyone slept even an hour?

drives home, rain racing windows, sunken into the seat, shoes off, james blake, keep driving
and sleepovers excused by snowfall

THE BEST WEEK

find the spaces and stillness between each breath. take note of the left temple and the vein that runs across it. tapered and thin fingers. the range of voices and smells of laundry. take the time to fill days with someone because is timing ever good?

DAY OLD HAIR

i want to be able to say it in the obvious glow of late morning, still in bed, whose turn is it to make the coffee? how long can we be content just here finding stillness and safety in melting together? tell me a fairy tale.
as opposed to a drunken and cowardly plead in passing after last call, sloppily sucking on cigarettes, slurring and balancing against the doorframe.

i want to be able to say i love you, so, hard.
as opposed to i love you's sounding more like apologies.

share your
day old hair, night driving, and dreaming with me. metal-tasting tea, sour grapes, and park swings.

GOODBYE FROM THE PART THAT'S STAYING BEHIND

is there a more catastrophic idea than 'you, were, perfect.' i mean that. i mean that in a sense of a burning building before and after. wrecked car, wrecked bodies. lands and coastlines and people devastated by natural disaster. as humans, decaying, as organs become obsolete and useless one by one. flooded homes and lifelong belongings carried off. burned dinner, burned coffee. glasses spilled over once shining floors. moments before the delivery of a fatal diagnosis. moments before the delivery of an unhealthy child. the drive home, noticing that the tree has been cut down and having to wonder 'how long has it been gone this way?'

you, were, perfect.

it is so devastating when a human you know so well becomes unrecognizable by pure accident
you've
always been my you

'to be loved or to be free
die young in the dark, that's poetry.'

My pallor cede, colly string, infinite stillness ---

it's not about you anymore
to be so so blue underneath something so so bright
half small, half smiling
new bedrooms shadow here.
who shrink away from the light

remember talking about writing poetry with old friends, spitting up over the window, cold air escaping in, smoke air escaping out, a nd poetry all around.

and now it honestly hurts to breathe.

B A L A N C E

i must find a balance for me, social, job. i am so far in my own head after only two weeks of holiday. i didn't expect to adapt so quickly to the lifestyle of living with family. i sleep in, i watch netflix, i make coffee, i run. i fear leaving my house again. i would rather hate being at home than have a stressful drive out. i have to find a balance. i fear insanity so much. i want to find somewhere where i feel i can hibernate. i dont crave human interaction at all; in fact i generally don't want it in the slightest, and that terrifies me. i want to make these six months about reading all the literature i can, write as much as i can, running, yoga, learning to make new recipes, i wonder if the only way to combat my fears is to make myself drive more. make myself cook more. not get overwhelmed by text messages, following recipes, directions. by contact. when i get so far in my own head i feel completely incapable.

BEING PRESENT ONE OUT OF TWENTY-ONE YEARS

i have spent the first year of my life knowing what it is to feel complete. i did not feel empty for people or memories. i did not feel nothingness. i loved without losing the present. i did not worry about missing. i cried, good cries, often. i stopped living so blankly - i felt; i can feel the world again. i breathed deeply in, exhaled and emptied myself of loss, sadness, and anxiety. i am not bitter over human connection, but i no longer fear human contact.

i found ways to relieve stress and anxiety in positive ways rather than abusing alcohol. i cared about my body from the inside, out. i ran every day. i did yoga every morning and evening. i wrote letters. i adopted a vegetarian diet. i loved tea, good coffee, and pale ale. i've become a braver driver. i achieved an intermediate level of spanish. i'm writing a lot more, sketching, and reading. i spent three months in spain. i finished my bachelor's. i applied for a fulbright and masters programs. i stopped wanting the momentarily impossible and opened my eyes to my surroundings.

this year was about finding what i needed physically and mentally and next year will be expanding and further exploring these needs. i feel so sure of being okay. all things feel right with me now and i have learned to not feel empty for anyone or anything.

overcast, undertouched

AND TOMORROW IS THE DAY

sometimes if i can't sleep i put my fingers on the wall of my room and i can feel my heartbeat in my fingertips and then it feels like the walls are breathing and that they're alive and everything is so still except the walls and then i remember it's not the walls or the house that's alive, it's me.

i wonder if there's humans so solid i can feel my fingertips pulsing when i'm touching them.

FEELING NYQUIL AND NEUTRAL

the fist time i smoked a cigarette i was in my car with my friend molly. she was driving us and i was in the passenger seat because i hate driving. she drove my car a lot our first semester of college. she went to buy cigarettes at the convenience store and thanked me a handful for not getting angry at her for buying them. i told her how little i cared. i'd never smoked before but cared very little about anything in those months. she said it was because she missed home and cigarettes reminded her of her dad. she said she didn't really smoke. very near where i live now, we were paused at a stop sign and i asked if i could try it. she passed it to me, and as i held it comfortably between my index and middle finger, i inhaled. "it tastes like nothing."

we went out smoking several more times in the following weeks. they were pink and black camels and she kept the package in her pants pocket. i remember walking numbly to her dorm late at night because i needed to see someone. she dyed my hair purple, brushed it smooth as i sat on the edge of her bathtub. we walked around the campus and down several streets smoking and talking. one cigarette after another, one secret after another. "i'm hopeful that all we need is time."

that night, and now. i am so thankful for molly. i am so thankful for those lost and terrifying moments of searching for anything to make me right. i am graduating in less than two weeks and i am not as sure about anything as i was in that cigarette's nothingness.