i can see our bicycles chained up outside together, links twisted around bars and keys left in the grass with a forgetful rush that seems reminiscent of high school sex at three in the morning. that old gas lamp post which hides on my street under those wolseley trees warms their frames as we warm ours and i think that we may both pray for closeness but i could never ask and you would never demand it, although i wish you would and perhaps you wish i could, but i simply couldn't. i saw your shoes resting on top of mine just barely but barely was enough to make me sigh, and i wonder what your thoughts are made of between sips of beer that taste like wine when your lips smile at mine from across the table. fog and history and rain in the mornings, french subtitled films in the afternoons and thunder at night and i love the way you dance. and it's odd that i can think of you after missing someone else for so long (well that was a lot of drinking). but i don't know you and wouldn't claim to, and i can't say more than a hello before time stops and i wish we could spend it sleeping close close close. i'll drink heatburnin cups of late night regrets because the day i saw you walking up those stairs, when he said 'oh you'll like her she smiles like the sun and talks with a bit of a whisper' is a day i knew i'd never ever have that courage to say anything more than a hi and goodbye to you.


 
the sun will shine each and every morning for you and you will feel stronger than each and every day before, and this i promise you. my lungs have gradually blackened and have begun to ache but they reflect that missing link, and i don't mind if you don't mind. i remember being younger, sitting at those booth seats in restaurants early in the morning, just outside of town, and the sun warmed the linoleum table tops and the heat would balance on my cheeks and palms and fingertips and the waitress was always very young and pretty. our clothes held the prairie air closer to our skin and the ketchup tasted just a little better and the soda pop seemed more bubbly and sweet. we whispered conversations between sips of lemonaid and you would think that a feeling so perfect can only be so specific but my limbs between your limbs feels oh so very much the same. her bed while we were teenagers holds little truth any longer and i enjoy hating all the things that her and i had loved together, but your bed is a reminder that bitterness is a passing feeling that deserves little nurturing, and your heart which pumps the blood that blushes your cheeks and heats your belly which warms your spin makes all those shit faced lonely nights a worthy battle.


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