the space above my ears.

I Would Do the Unthinkable to Give You What You Were Promised

I don't know how to start poems anymore.

I always feel like I'm picking up where I left off,

A place that was supposed to be an epilogue.

I always feel like I'm lying, so I start in the middle where there is no need for me to look at myself hard in the mirror and confront that willful ignorance,

With such a desperate need to explain, to be understood,

A need that swallows me whole.

Today will be different.

Today I will start a poem about warm things that I am afraid to lose.

Today I'll think about how we theorized about a victorian ball gown, discussing miles of fabric and how well it would bring out your eyes.

Or that pinecone you picked up on the walk to my house, damp with melted snow and unusually curved features.

You said it looked like a snowman; it made you think of me.

You didn't know why, but it did.

This, here, now, an untwisted tale of a branch that never brushed against a hat or felt any need to hide itself.

A tale without birds, but with too-loud conversations in a cafeteria and handwritten letters.

I hope this isn't inappropriate, me contrasting two vastly different lives, but cinnamon-flavored similarities keep my mouth running,

Words spouting out like a waterfall, crashing against the sun-kissed boulders below.

Pouring and powerful, so free.

And I've never felt this, this urge to simply see a place,

Explore this city I have come upon which sits on a soft green plateau, the once desolate landscape now graced by echoing laughter and lilac bushes.

Through the streets, crowded with savants chatting on the warm cracked sidewalk.

The real estate office painted fresh and lovely on the outside.

The school, not miserable.

The murals on the side of the pizza parlor, and then of course the parlor itself.

The post office that smells of melancholy familiarity, ink and paper. 

The dimly lit jewelry shop glowing in the shade.

I like this town.

I like the way you talk to me as if we know something everyone else doesn't.

I like how your head rests, tilted on my shoulder, fitting too perfectly between my jaw and collarbone.

Yes, you're here, not by the dead fireplace collecting spilled lentils from the ash,

And I'm not an important man sitting in the back of a gold carriage, jaw set and eyes hard.

We're just us, young and a little naive.

We're just us, falling in love.