floating and leaving no trace
the farther away
someone is from you
increases how much
you miss them
you must be
on the other side
of the universe
if gravity
didn’t operate
on an inverse square
my atoms
would be torn apart
by the distance between us
——
#LYPoetry Prompt
Day 19: farsickness
@amandatorroni and @tylerkentwhite
it was quiet and i was bored
maybe lonely
so i took out my phone and dialed
the oldest number in my contacts
–we’re sorry
the universe is busy tonight
or can’t come to the phone
please leave a message
and the universe will get back to you
as soon as possible
i hung up, annoyed
she always had something else
going on
and i think my messages always
wound up in a black hole
——
#LYPoetry prompt
Day 29 – The Universe is busy tonight
@amandatorroni and @tylerkentwhite
to the people i have loved
my apologies for
how much that love
has cost you
–opportunities you have missed
–other loves
–all that time
and i’m sorry also
for the love that
you may have wasted
on me
i never meant
to let it slip between
my fingers
i was too afraid
to close my hands
in shorthand
i nod
you nod
shake my head
a shake of your own
this warm familiarity
each of us a lung
drawing the same breath
in one body
moving beyond recounting
or even paraphrasing
our dreams
a dried stain on the counter
where her coaster was ignored
her coffee cold in the cup
left because it’s all that’s left
of her
——
Day 23 of the Leap Year Poetry Prompt Challenge
Cold COffee (How We Cope)
we plummeted to earth
tumbling skin to skin
limbs entangled in white silk
an explosion of feathers
descended after us
drifting like snowflakes
and tasting of too-sweet sugar
as we fell
we made angels
in the sheets
when i was a kid i could buy
at the magic shop
or sometimes the drug store
magic smoke
dab between my thumb and forefinger
press together and spread apart
long strands would magically form
filaments
shiny waving gossamer
a gauzy arc between fingertips
a good trick
if you had dexterity enough
you made smoke appear from your hands
i found later
when i got into building models
that airplane glue
which smelled so good
and left me light-headed
did the same thing
the human soul stretches out
between us too
incredibly thin and almost
invisible but not quite
strongest when we are pressed together
thinner but still strong
still connecting
when we are apart
on my back
looking up
at the sky
words in darkness
letters like smudges
left by fingers
dipped in light
constellations
form a crude calligraphy
of gang names and memorials
in angelic script
a piece of me, a fractured piece of me
and a piece of you, just as jagged
they try to fit to together
–teeth of mismatched gears–
where motion should be smooth
instead the sound of snapping glass bones
screams of angels with cinder wings
bits and pieces falling wetly to the floor
the machinery stops so we mop up the blood
and try again
each time there is less and less of me left
each time there is less and less of you left
this is why we break
unevenly matched where there should be symmetry
but when the gears meet at last–we transcend
these are the ways we fall asleep–
intertwined
next to each other
face to face
hand in hand
side by side
back to back
under a blanket
under the sky
under a tree
under the stars
under a curse
in a car after lunch
in a car during a drive in movie
in a bed
in a cot
during a conversation
during a tv show
behind the woman paying by check at target
behind the wheel of a car
this is the way we wake up–
sudden and alone
Words and Feathers 