Author: Ashley

our lives operate in such close

vicinity to one another

an intricate orchestration of avoidance

sometimes mere inches away

yet we never touch

 

some moments

are full of too much silence

to put into words

all I can do

is look

I dream that I forget your name

and in that moment I remember

it’s the most important possession

I own

I search for it in the hidden

recesses of my mind

chasing, frantic, after an essence trail

green and blue

ever disappearing

but I know it should be there

I know I have to find it

before I lose myself

for the memory of you is all

I own

when I awake, the word

now intact, returned

I have the most irrational urge

to write it on my wrist

ink and blood intertwined

so there’s no chance of ever

losing you again

even in my dreams

sometimes when the music

shakes my very bones

thrumming right through me

chest, collarbone

I can think about the future

just a glimmer

tape the picture of you and I

above the dashboard of a van

get a dog and hit the road

listen to all the tunes I can’t

sing along to at home

and the mountains and I

could be lonely together

a bird

a fox

an elephant

I wonder where they are

all lined up on your shelf

or buried in a box

the bird landed in your hands

the fox smuggled in your pack

the elephant mailed from a post office

somewhere along the road in Utah

two of wood

one of bone

three amateurishly fashioned

but all have this in common–

when I couldn’t use my words

I used my hands instead

some days I just need my world to shrink

to the size of my heart

my head

or under the blanket in my bed

some days I’m tired of working so hard

to be okay

to get things done

to focus on now

some days I want to be allowed to admit

all I want

is to look each other in the eyes again

and not feel hopeless

I sometimes think about how he

breaks open apples with his hands

or how she

smiles when she talks about the quirks

of her friends

or the way he sleeps with

the covers pulled over his head

how she papers her walls in pictures and never

curses in english

how he dresses in layers and always

tells the best jokes that never end

or the way she gets unreasonably excited about

that bagel shop back home

but when I think of you

I can never pick one thing

to remember

I know I shouldn’t wait for you

but I’m here, way past the time

I should be going home

because I’m tired

body mind soul

tired.

 

I know I shouldn’t wait for you

because I know that seeing you

silent and ignoring

is a moment of better

and longer of worse

but I’m still here pretending

I’m not watching the door.

 

I know I shouldn’t wait for you

for a moment

a day

a month

a year

a life

because I know you might not show up

but since when have I done

what I was told?

 

I know I shouldn’t wait for you

but every day

I do it anyway.

it’s weird to have people I can play with

people that pick me up and spin me around

when I finally catch a goal in frisbee

who train with me and compare biceps

and make silly faces

who play jokes and drink my red bull without apology

who meditate in the grass

and cuddle puddle in the growing dark

and stay late when they should be somewhere else

who play fight and throw me to the mat

and make me laugh

make me reach out with hands

that have momentarily forgotten

they don’t want to be touched.

I try to tell myself it’s only temporary

don’t get attached

one moment and this could all disappear…

and I’ll be worse than alone again.

but when she has a panic attack and we hold her

when she says I have depression and all he says is

me too

when we don’t want to go home and so stay

even after it gets dark

and I hear myself laugh even with all my heaviness

I want to believe that maybe

maybe

I can have this for just a little longer

maybe I can keep my door open

just a tiny crack.

we meditate, us four

feet in a square

lying on our backs in the cold

cold grass as the crickets

sing and a single star

appears in the fading sky.

she says to imagine walking

into a warm bright house full

of family

and I don’t imagine my own.

you hug me

and we are surrounded by

the people I knew as friends

way back when

and I am happy.

you and I we lie

in the dark

and I am not alone

listening to your nearness

and I never, never want

to open my eyes

to cold, cold fall dusk

and a dying sky.

I’d give anything

to fall asleep next to you again

even if we aren’t speaking

even if we aren’t touching

just to look at your shape in the dark

and listen to your breathing

and let the nearness of you

surround me like a cloud