friendship

Yesterday
I looked at you
And you and I
Became stripped of our dignity,
scantily clad in a set of we.

A you,
Who,
Stands at the edge of
My faces and angles,
competes
for our endangered we
to complete

your box resides under my feet
finding your voice in my throat
and your hand covered mine
out of honest love
and a scarceness in unity, i have ne'er known before
i know not of this kind of we
but you and me
seem to be

a we for today
and tomorrow.

and now i know

we climbed a tree that day
last year
my shirt was twisted at the collar
and your pantleg was caught in your sock
but we didn't care
because you were next to me
and i was next to you
and that's what happiness looks like

we took a walk one day
last spring
you pointed to a bird
and said so to me
but i didn't hear you
because some man was mowing his grass
but i followed your finger
and the gaze of your happy eye
and i knew what you felt
because i felt it too
and that's what love looks like

we fought in the car
you were drunk
and i was tired
we found ourselves silent
even the radio was turned to off
and i was there, next to your seat
and you were there, next to where i was seated
but we weren't there
and that's what misery looks like

i dialed your number
in the rain, where i sat
completely alone
and you answered while you drove yourself from where you were
to where you were going
and we spoke truths to one another
and i laughed
and you smiled
i could hear it in your voice
and that's what friendship looks like

the scent of lavender

remember
that month
every curve of all the inches of my body
were nestled into that of yours
and we came out
out from behind the wall of a secret
that day, last hour
to reach across boundaries
into the collective conscious
of our desire
and we discovered
mutual identity

but that was so long ago
so long ago now
that you dare not remember it
even when i reach back into the bucket of us
and show it to you

what will the well
of our wills become?

i have never before
gazed into the eye of the tomorrow sun
only to have it stare right back at me
though i cared not to see a reflection
i longed to see a yearning
and your stare painted such a picture

a picture of your lovely face
sunken into the pillow of my bleeding heart
each night i found you dreaming
and each morning i left you asleep

a picture of a song
from the album of you
and of me
of the we
for which we spoke
and breathed and sang
as all of these feelings
existed not in the reel of time

i wanted to be the dew on your face
when you woke up from camping outdoors without
the shelter of a tent

i wanted to be the thrust of your abdomen
in the longest seconds
between the two of us

i wanted to be the cold chill
that ran from the inside of your ear
all the way to your roundest curve

i wanted to be the you that you wanted me
to be

and these are the ways i longed for you to want me
and you wanted to long for me
but you didn't know how

i tried
i tried to show you the when, where and why
so you could compose the stuff
of our next moments together
but you didn't want the these or those
or even the ones over there

and these thises and thats are okay
even the ones over there are able
able to stand alone
stagnant in the moment from which they were conceived
perhaps someone else will want this
and i will do that with them
but i know when they and i do
you will want those over there, in that moment, to be alive again.

and i am frightened so say the this that and those
so i write them instead
to no one
at all.