April 5: Things Distance Lets Me Say

I'm afraid when you go, you take my poetry with you.

I find it so hard to write love poetry - I find it so hard 

to love - but it's easier now, when the distance makes 

the shadows clear and your absence lights up the lights

that I wondered about so deeply on starless nights.

I'm not telling you I love you. I'm telling you I miss you,

and you and I both need to see that those are two different things.

I'm sorry 

for taking you along with me 

on this voyage of promises and starry shores

(when I myself could never be sure, can never be sure).

But now, at least, let me write lines I was afraid even to feel:

when distance makes my heart pump louder, thud harder,

let me tell you that your face is lit up in the dark for me -

that your laugh has slipped deep somewhere under my skin

and your smiles caress the sores on my overworked mind.

You and I will always be too practical, too afraid, too cautious

to throw away our anchors and put up fragile sails, to truly hope

that such a thing as love exists and your hands really do belong

in the crevices between my fingers, your flyaway hair against mine.

For me, it's the easiest thing to run. Run and then regret, run from 

the regret. And what if right now running is the wrong thing to do,

another incident I will laugh about while my life grieves in the silent sea?

I'm afraid because I'm still not sure. Half of me wants to run, this time

back into your arms like old bookshelves worn-in blankets scent of comfort,

and half of me will keep running even if I reach where I wanted. Don't

come back. Please come back. These are things distance lets me say,

things I know you don't want to, don't deserve to hear, and yet

I throw them behind you in the ocean you waded into. I'm sorry.