“You jump, I jump”

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Some things are tangible,
quantifiable:
the miles between us,
the number of texts,
the hours until I see you next.
The important things,
those are harder to describe
in amounts we can touch,
like the fact that sometimes
I feel like I already love you too much.
I tried to keep it contained
by saying “two weeks”,
but there was no point to it;
we both already knew it.
I had told myself that next time,
I would stall the fall,
but you’re not the next time I expected.
You are
softer,
kinder,
easier to trust,
and I think maybe that must
count for so much more
than all the times before.
I focus
on the beginning now,
and hope that somehow
we’ll never make it to an end. 

-L.R.Y.

 

Two weeks

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The first one
is often strange  –
a linear black and white glimpse
of a person I’ve known tangibly
for the briefest span of time,
but line after line,
your shape fills the page
like it is filling my days,
and because of these words,
this is now the way
I will remember you always. 

-L.R.Y.

 

“When I was all in”

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I used to let you
do most of the talking,
but now I have so much to say
and I just don’t know how.
Silence settled in between the screaming,
and I know I’m only dreaming
we can work this out now,
but I’ll keep trying
until you say “when”.
I’ll do the talking
if you won’t,
I’ll love you
even if you don’t.
I know what I did wrong,
and I wish I’d known it all along,
but I’m trying now.
Does that count at all?
Maybe not,
but I’m not ready to let go,
I’m not ready to stop. 

-L.R.Y.

Almost but not quite

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I ache
for a peace I never find,
with or without you,
and I suppose it’s true –
we can’t love someone else
until we love ourselves.
I broke
off pieces of myself,
trying to fit
the mold within my mind
of the person I thought you wanted me to be,
and now I see
that I broke us instead.
I thought that we could mend,
use glue and tape to make
us whole again,
but maybe I was dreaming,
maybe I was wishing
it was more than it is.
I’m ready to love you
better than I did before,
but I’m not sure
it matters now,
and somehow,
it’s almost the perfect ending
because it makes no sense at all. 

-L.R.Y.
(7/24/19)

Past tense

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There were months
when I knew you could call at any time,
and I would stay quiet on the line
while you jumped
from one topic to another.
Sometimes I felt smothered,
but
I would take that
over the silence here now,
a silence so loud
I can hear it pounding in my head.
I’d even take the fighting instead,
something we both chose for months
with no hope of an end,
with no way to pretend
it was getting better.
I wrote you letter after letter
in the form of poems never read,
though I thought about sending them
just to see what you would say.
Now
everything is too little, too late
and there are no words left to say
out loud.
I remember the day
you told me you loved me,
in the dark in your bed,
and I think about everything I could have said
each day since then.
I know now that I let too many doubts
crawl between us,
and I never trusted you enough
to simply love you
in the way that you expected.
I try connecting
our timeline in my head,
play it over and over
as if it will at some point make sense
but
nothing makes sense in past tense. 

-L.R.Y.

Skimming the surface

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You want to just be friends?
Fine, let’s talk about
the weather
and your groceries
and the sports you watch on TV,
the hockey games you play
and the sneakers that you buy,
and maybe I’ll even eventually try
to talk to you like you talk to me,
but right now I don’t really see
how I can talk to you like
I’m not still in love
with who we used to be.

-L.R.Y.