It’s been a long time since I’ve been woken up at 8am
but I wasn’t gonna sleep and just let
you leave. I had to say my little goodbye
My hug that was a little too long. Your early morning sighs.
Eyes shut, face in your hair, as if standing still would stop time.
Then after I walked you out, I tried to go back to sleep
but just as you walked down the street and out of sight,
the clouds opened up and lit up the sky.
Fitting isn’t it?
I hear you in the pitter patter of the dancing rain, like your footsteps getting further, further away
I feel you in my chest when the thunder shakes ground, like my insides trying hard to break out
I feel you in my spine when the wind sends shivers, the same ones you sent me last night.
How could anyone sleep with you in their head and in their chest and in their ears and in their breath?
So now I sit, scribbling on this paper. I guess I should say “congratulations!”
because you’ve been added to the list of “you”s in my poems
and with this pen,
I will keep you the way I want to. I will keep you the only way I can:
by keeping time and writing the first lines that come running through my mind.
It is now 8:10
it’s been about six hours since we had sex
I am still drenched in dead skin cells and sweat.
It’s like your touch and your breath
still lingers and I’m gonna keep it that way for as long as possible.
It’s my selfish attempt
of keeping you with me because even poetry has an end,
but if I stay this way
and if I lay in bed, I won’t ever leave the world that we made,
the world that we lived in whenever you came
by, the world that I missed every time we said goodbye.
I don’t want to write anymore. I want to just sit and think
about last night. I want to relieve every kiss,
every bite. Every touch, every breath, every single caress.
I want this writing to do something more than create a slideshow in my eyes,
I want it to take me back.
I want it to make me forget.
I want it to do so much more than what it can do. I just want it to bring you back.
Good thing you brought an umbrella with you. It looks like it’s gonna be raining awhile.
Lucas Rheed