The mattresses are piled high
on the curb in the
morning,
sagging together in a sorry heap as
if they, too, got
wasted last night.

Perhaps like years ago,
they’re left to be burned.
Tonight, will we watch
the flames dance with the
blaring music, dance
in the distance behind
not enough sleep and
too much alcohol?

Perhaps the frat boys
have got new beds,
ready to stain fresh mattresses
with the crudeness
of what happens here at night.
Tomorrow, will we watch
them be dragged along to a
dumpster, dragged along to
hide the evidence of a
soiled lifestyle?

Maybe they were put here
by mistake,
in one of those drunken moments
by some
masquerading man.

for Katie

The bittersweetness of
watching her hang the pictures that
are meant to be yours,
of watching her closet fill with things
you wouldn’t like,
makes me wonder how much
different
it’ll be here, without you.

Here is not the here
I had imagined but I know that I’m 
the lucky one,
so in love with this place
I call home
through every obstacle
it may throw my way.

Though the walls we’d almost shared
are filled with a stranger’s life,
there are walls not far away
waiting to be made yours,
waiting for you like everyone here
who loves you.

As my own new life is truly beginning,
the bittersweet realization
that yours has been set back
leaves my heart aching,
wishing you were here
to fall in love
by my side.

Caught between timezones
and gliding among the clouds,
the wings of the plane
keep me grounded.
Reminding me that I do not
belong, that
I am not a part of this sky.

But sometimes, it is so easy
to look past
the harsh metal of the wings
into the forgiving darkness
of night.

The stars, always clearer up here,
make dreaming that much easier.
As the world spins below me
and I fly against the current of the clouds,
the stars shoot by, waiting
to be wished upon.

We should have known it
would be like this.
From the first flight to the cancelled
connecting one, it was a typical
family vacation—complete with
bickering and cramped plane seats.

When we arrived, and the luggage was
lost in the sea of bags left in Denver
across six hours of real sea,
we knew this was a bad sign.

When we woke up with sunburn
because our sunscreen was lost with the bags,
everyone was to blame and no one was
owning up to it. Above, the sun floated
innocently in the sea of clouds.

But then the luggage finally came,
and we began to soften
as the tradewinds
whipped up a forgiving breeze.

And we sat together and watched the sunset.
Remember? How cliché, the sun with its
watercolor sky and the sea’s reflection of it.
We went to bed that night with pictures
painted against our eyelids,
the soft brushstrokes of
sunsets and I’m sorrys.