text

already difficult enough
to still be standing
against the onslaught
of thoughts of you
to be constantly missing
you

much harder however
to keep myself from
deluging you
with text messages -
just so you'd send one
in reply, and that
in my mind
would mean wherever i am
you are also there
almost in real-time -
at any time in my waking hours

nonono
i must not text you
while you sleep
(must not seem needy
 must not seem obsessed)
have to keep reminding myself
to not keep you up
to let you sleep

must not text you

go to sleep
you need your rest
sleep soon

the intent and the contents
of the text
so completely at odds

counting

i've started counting the weeks
watching the days
the minutes
since you left

oh why must February have 29 days this year?
that's a whole extra 24 hours
1,440 minutes i must find a way to fill
or whittle away

and when will you set your clocks back
so that the 1 incorporeal hour would be emptied
and we are 1 hour closer to each other?

my clock is already set ahead -
its time has never been changed -
because even though it reminds me
of how far ahead you are
somehow it makes me feel closer
to you too

sleep

in the bus on my way home
after trying to convince you
to sleep to rest
and thinking i had succeeded
i closed my eyes to think of you
lying in bed with your teddy
and dream of you lying in bed
beside me
holding you
being held by you -
the strange familarity
and unsettling ease -
over and over again in my mind ...

wake me up when you get here

but now
just let me dream of you

awake

coming home in the night
i always check the time display
on my cellphone
(always mentally adding 5 hours)
wondering if it's too late to text you
(it's 05:31 now: you'll wake in 90 minutes
 or so - maybe i should stay up
 'til you awake?)

i want to tell you how
earlier this evening
you were everywhere
blatant in my thoughts
hidden in everything
i talked about
(our friends, they didn't notice)

now it's 05:57
i wonder if it's still too early
to text you
(you'll wake in a little over 60 minutes -
 maybe i could stay up 'til you awake?)

there's a bruise on the inside
of my elbow from giving up
7 cc of blood
it's been growing
still is growing

i'm nodding off
to your voice
20 seconds of voicemail
played on loop
so many 'bye's
so many 'bye's

spent

i don't need tickets
that money can buy
easily affordable
because cents & dollars
can be set aside
to accumulate
and be spent at a go

but no matter how many
seconds & minutes & hours
i set aside every day
they do not carry forward
do not accumlate
into the days & weeks
months & years
i'd like to spend at a go
with you

06:44 your time

i'm still awake on my tiny island
not daring to text you
in case i woke you
before your alarm does

but i feel compelled to
somehow
connect with you
even if through meaningless words
that don't exist in real life

a reality
that precludes us
not you
not me
us

so that all i can do
now
and the only time i think
of you
     which is
     when i take
     a breath
all i can do
is send strings
of words
     such as

(01:44 my time)

i miss you
to distraction

numbers:apart

5 hours at a time
4 at another

5,305 air miles
(but not enough frequent flyer miles
 to be claimed
 for tickets
 to see you)

4,610 nautical miles
the Pacific Ocean
(largest of the world's
 five oceans)
the body of water
in between

the number of seconds, minutes, hours,
days, weeks, months, and years
as finite and infinite
as our schedules allow

but in my memories
and in my dreams

oh-so close
together

watching you sleep

too far away from me
remembering the nights
how close you were

like that teddy you clutch
in your arm
you'd hold me to sleep

but would roll away
when you finally fell
asleep

and i'd wake up
to move in close
to you

watching you sleep
a mere kiss away
distance i could close

Short List

when you go
i will take away with me
the following items:

1. the nights on which i'd kept you up
   
   
   1. refusing to let you close your eyes for even the slimmest scintilla of a second
      
      1. because i wanted you with me
         
      2. all of you
         
      3. all the time
         
      4. if only for that seemingly infinite moment
         
      5. that stretched and wrapped itself around the small finite universe
         
      6. only we two occupied
      
      
      
   2. when my blind fingertips beheld you
      
      1. remembered and recognized you
         
      2. more than my unseeing eyes did
         
      3. remembering my remembering you
         
      4. everything else was immaterial
         
      5. to the feel of you
      
      
      
   3. and i breathed you in
      
      1. one part oxygen and five parts you
         
      2. so i could submerse and had willing drowned
         
      3. in you
         
      4. carefully lining the center of this
         
      5. our infinite moment
         
      6. in our finite universe
         
      7. with the delicate fichu of your honey-scent
         
      8. within Mnemosyne's transient walls
         
      9. for as long as it would be possible
      
      
      
   4. because, really, all i wanted was to kiss you
      
      1. which was to learn the feel and texture of you
         
      2. and lock all that knowledge up
         
      3. in Mnemosyne's frangible boudoir
   
   
   
2. the scant hours and minutes and seconds of days you offered
   
   
   1. when i was allowed to have you all to myself
      
      1. in the front-seat of the car
         
      2. when you reached your hand for mine
         
      3. and i learned the sign language
         
      4. exclusive (i hope) only to us
         
      5. be marked by the graze and imprint of your lips
         
      6. on my fingers and palms
         
      7. more kisses i'd held in these two hands
         
      8. than my ten fingers can count
      
      
      
   2. skimmed off surreptitiously in the company of others
      
      1. in the back-seat of the car
         
      2. in the dark
         
      3. or hidden from view in daylight
         
      4. shoulder-to-shoulder - or shoulder on shoulder -
         
      5. joined at the arms
         
      6. sometimes the hands
         
      7. oh so silently
      
      
      
   3. i brushed past you
      
      1. bumping shoulders
         
      2. glancing arms
         
      3. by accident
         
      4. only occasionally
   
   
   
3. the marks you'd left
   
   
   1. all over seen on me
      
      1. all too few
         
      2. unfortunately
      
      
      
   2. unseen in me
      
      1. all over
         
      2. so completely
         
      3. oh so fortunately
         
      4. for me

taste

i taste
with my fingertips
the texture of your arm and neck
      and back
the goosebumps that trail behind
my fingertips
the little fountains of shivers
that drench them upon
arrival

whatever these fingertips do not seek
(always travelling blindly)
whatever they do not look for
they find in surprise
- and spades -
wherever they
stop

or
not