i relic in the woods
of mountains at the edge
how i slip beside
words and conversation
the little things
the movement
the reasons we take
what we do
and leave what we don’t
like somehow the body knows
what the mind still holds onto
i stay in here
quiet for what i desire
two fingers grasping
the last straw i leave
the date on the calendar
still circled from spring
like seasons can move forward
while some part of us
stays exactly where it was
i make time
because i want to
i remember because
i long for this too
they call it yearning
i call it appreciating
the feeling for what it was
the warmth for where it sat
words on my tongue
poetry of the moment
something i could taste
before i ever knew its name
i give you days to create months
holidays i made up
to feel something
dates i gave meaning
because ordinary nights
never felt ordinary with you
the darkness
my shadows
the things i never got to say
but somehow said anyway
in glances
in touch
in everything that stayed
when the words did not
we take off our bedsheets
to wash them when they’re dirty
sometimes i wish i could take this skin off
because it feels so grimy
like memory leaves a film
that water cannot reach
and no matter how many times
i stand beneath it
some things still cling
to places i cannot wash
i take two fingers
and point them
this is what i wanted
this is what i never got
this is what you never trusted
and maybe what i never knew
how to prove
but trust is built
and chances were never had
you cannot build a room
without letting someone inside
you cannot know its warmth
from standing at the door
i reap what i sow
and we never had the chance to
piece this together
like legos
like you and i
like fingers on a piano
finding their tune
before knowing the song
the music in the background
the strings of my violin
pulling softly beneath it
until everything we never became
still sounds like something
i greet you
in my mind sometimes
in rooms that no longer exist
in mornings that belonged
to another version of me
and i feel like
you meet me there sometimes too
not enough to stay
just enough for me to wonder
if memory has two sides
we paint
and i know you feel the brush
the colors we left unfinished
the edges we never filled
i know sometimes you hold
what we never had to
what we never named
because naming it
might have made it real
and i know you feel it
like i told you
like i knew you did
in the way some things
never need to be spoken twice
you said you may have to wait
and i said maybe i would too
and somewhere between
the waiting and the wanting
spring became summer
the calendar kept turning
the music kept playing
and maybe neither of us
was waiting for the other
maybe we were waiting
to see which one of us
would stop waiting first