On my blank page
They see a frame.
Instead, I see your face.
Paper hosting our dear fate
And did you feel that, too?
The promise of remembering you?
I see stories miles long
And words that sing a song
Of deep and sad defeat.
Every feeling that I’ve owned
From all that you have ever known.
All of me is all you’ve sown.
Every time I go to write
And all my characters come to life
Or California flies to me
In hazy, familiar remedy
Sewn by pen that loops in glee
You are there to meet me.
On every page.
In every secret letter change.
Every word that stems from heart
And swears to take my every part.
I cannot speak or write or think
Without the pain that you’re missing.
I wait for it to let me go,
Instead to linger all the more.
I put it down before it wastes
And hope to see what you’ve erased,
Yet in fleeting vapor motions
Do you come and still evade.
You wrote to find out who you were
In rhythms, rhymes and messy blurs
Of overly romantic, tragic words.
But lost you were
In midst of sea, and empty
Did you find your page to be.
I watch the pencil sink and grow
The feelings only you and I know.
Without you here with me
A drenched and throbbing
Memory of you
Is fighting to be set free.
It’s not okay to think you’re bad
Or think it’s a mistake.
To take this closeness as a curse
For something in this universe
Has kept you near to me.
Now distance is the memory.
So you’re still here
In glimpses of the words.
Yours burned and mine came.
You got lost but I remained
To keep something alive.
My hand is held by this.
Now every cabinet is filled
With sheets you’re stitched into.
And I hope to show you
Before you’re truly gone,
All the words you gave me
That I have ever sung.
-December 2015