I know that what
most deeply connects us
is more than half-hearted poetry.
It is not written words but
the ones spoken
halfway between
midnight and the next morning
as we ponder life and what we’re doing
here, thousands of miles
from each other and from
the stars yet close enough to know
what it feels like
to be glowing.

Halfway between two bad days and
the liquor that
stained them both,
the bad taste in my mouth is
made sweeter with your words,
the late nights joining us together
like the lights strung over your porch steps.

But leave those lights now and
watch the sun,
hanging an hour lower
over my sky than yours,
the same colors painting our
skylines pastel
as it sets tonight.

Drive to me with your hands
off the wheel
and you’ll know what it feels like to
be alive, glowing,
biting back the darkness halfway
to morning.

The music that hums through my
speakers these days
lets me make believe
that you’re not just a voice
in my colorful imagination.

In my mind you’re here with me,
glowing in the dark of the emptiness
I’ve imagined you into,
singing ballads into the
gray summer sky.

Other nights I catch myself
falling into a world I’m not
yet part of, as if we already
knew each other, more than
just a neon love dream to wake up to.

But I was once told to seek the future
by spending time in the present,
so I let tonight be,
sinking into
these recordings,
the sound of your guitar
strumming beneath the melody of
a voice, yours.

It’s easy to pick you apart like dinner
leftovers on a gloomy Saturday night
spent at home--to look at you and think
mean things.

To wonder how related we really are.
Did our stars cross paths and choose to
stay together somewhere in the solar system,
a sort of luck or misfortune we’re stuck with
forever?

Perhaps it is easier to find the faults in others
when the glass that we look through isn’t
really transparent at all, when the glass is no
more than the mirror that hangs above
the bathroom sink.

The flower petals wilt like the skin peeling
from a burnt nose, yet
we are happy.

Sweat sticks chair to cotton to leg
like glue, yet
we are not scared.

Eyes squint in blinding sunlight and ears
strain to hear above the wind, yet
we are ready.

Our parents are crying, and
our teachers are tearing up
and our classmates are ready,
ready to walk together
one last time.

I am holding the hand of
my best friend, and I am happy
and I am not scared
and I am ready.