why do we have favorites of weird things
like bathroom stalls and constellations
and eye colors and people
(my favorite people)
I get impatient when people ask me
the gray questions
like what’s your favorite color-
shouldn’t we be talking about
our favorite dreams
our favorite hand to hold
our favorite note to follow middle c
but it’s okay isn’t it
all they want to know is
how to know me better
and I want to
let them
I look at him, a body passing on the street
and wonder
what would it be like to know you
but here is the paradox
of introverts and strangers-
I think too hard about
what I will never know
I don’t have the right steps to walk toward you
and spend a few minutes changing out worlds
so I will sit here and draw circles on the floor
and hope you find some meaning in the scribbles
I am more likely to leave an anonymous note slipped under your table
than let you learn what my body feels like
so somewhere in parallel
I will waste all my time on you
I will shed my skin to look at you
nothing in our way
I will let you and keep letting you
trip over all the little moments,
surprises you will never see coming
somewhere in parallel
I will learn the important things by writing you down
I will call you a good thing
or the best thing that ever happened
you will make it so hard to leave, I can tell
sometimes I will get so caught up in your eyes when you’re talking
it makes you repeat yourself (I’m sorry
but not sorry enough to stop looking,
you’re so goddamn beautiful)
and here and now
I will look at you, a stranger passing on the street
and wonder
what would it be like to know you
today I realized
all my connections
(the ones I’ve kept)
have chosen me
and I have just
sat there
with my eyes closed
and let them
for once
I want to
choose
I want to
chase you
If I invite you in you will still be a stranger.
I am not one to tell you who I am,
what we could be.
I toe the risk line but never slip.
If I tell you I am usually buried in blue
and look into your eyes
you should feel lucky.
Maybe my hands could hold you
but I’ll never let them,
an evening passes and the whispers say
anything hurts less than the quiet.
But I am used to hurting that way,
I will not throw myself off the ledge
even when the flames lick my skin.
I do not know what it means to be alone
because I swallow it every day and there is nothing special about its taste.
I wake up every morning
and there is a guillotine on my tongue,
it does not let me be awake for the most perfect parts of today.
It does not let me open the door to strangers.
She is
for better or worse
someone you will not soon forget.
She is trying to make me
someone like that too.
I stand in all her ways
I straighten my shoulders I cover my arms
I make my lips a muscle I know I can control
not like the mess the weeks after when I could still hear his footsteps under mine.
She makes me think in the good ways,
she keeps me from thinking the bad ways
it’s like I suddenly notice I have not thought about how much sleep I’m losing
any night I lie with her whispering.
When she asks a question I want to be able to answer without thinking
but thinking is not something I can leave by the roadside
especially when it comes to her
and as I walk by
she says
you thought I wouldn't notice that slaughterhouse inside your window.
You thought I wouldn’t notice how you were standing here with too many words
waiting to be pried open.
Oh, how I wish you wouldn’t notice.
How I wish I could make these memories only the past and not the present
but it is hard to pick up the pieces of yourself
and build them into something you never were.
Waiting for you I am standing like
slowing down to get a better view of the ground under our feet,
waiting for the snow in July.
I like me better when I’m with you,
I can’t seem to create as much as I cry
but I still love the ache because it’s something.
Here I can trick myself,
I’m brave and bold and bulletproof,
I’m more than counting dimensions like falling asleep
and I run out of spaces to call home.
Home.
We can hang so much from four letters.
Sometimes I forget to say I’m coming home.
I just want you to know that I am halfway there.
Can you see me on the streets?
Do I look like a cobblestone?
I feel like I’m gray enough
small enough
soft edges enough
to be almost content under your feet.
Did you see me on the streets?
I probably didn’t say much
do much
think much.
So closed off
you’d think I was a castle
or something never unlocked.
Something someone mixed up
from a cookbook
that could never turn out right
no matter how many times you scrutinize the ingredients.
Have you seen me on the streets?
I thought I was looking at you,
caught your eye
that one time.
I forget sometimes that my eyes
aren’t strong enough for you to see.
I am a terrible put-together
and yet sometimes
you might think
a wonderful mess.
Can you see me on the streets?
Do I look like a cobblestone?
I feel like I’m important enough
unforgiving enough
strong enough
to shake with the smallest shift.
Do I look like a cobblestone?
Like somewhere in this maze of other people’s destinations
I lost
me.
I am addicted to saltwater,
I got sober alone.
I wear my thoughts like saltwater,
soak them in too much of the day,
held down to the rhythm of my footsteps, getting here
and passing everyone I will never know.
I am addicted to saltwater,
I got sober wishing I would stop crying
over things I will regret wasting tears over.
From this twelfth step
you should know how hard I wrap myself around you,
how I embrace the saltwater it takes to slip through your door,
how hard I hold my breath
when I take a level to my messy
like I think I can figure it out
with logic.
We last like a horizon,
I can’t sketch
exactly where the sand meets the sea,
and sometimes it storms and I think I will never be able to pull anything out of this whirlwind
I’m just trying to make angels.
I am addicted to gravity,
but I keep trying to wake up in the clouds.
I wear my thoughts like gravity
when I’m around you,
used to
being held so tightly to the ground
and still feeling weightless.
I am addicted to gravity,
I got sober right on the ground
with your hand in mine.
You are a trigger, push me to move
but I am stuck behind the window of a motionless train
I don’t know how long I watch the cars pass
and it feels like crying.
I have always traveled alone-
I love the open road, pebbles beneath my feet,
how I can sing with no shame to a heartbeat rhythm
more than someone to walk with.
But now you have tinted all the streets
and I can’t get past the color
I still want to go far alone
but I want to climb high with you.
For a while I have loved your shadow,
I have learned not even you can make sad look pretty
so I drag these compliments down your arm
like the caress of paper glass.
I want to make you blush this skyline
and paint it on so it never leaves.
I want to make you blush a beginning
and keep the end out of sight for as long as we can.
I want to make you blush like I have
when I can’t get you out of my head.
I want to make you blush the ocean
and pour it into my cup to keep for later.