(i'm not obsessed)
but i still could trace
the outline of your cheek
against the pillowcase
i haven't felt in so long-
see, i could paint from memory
every one of those little race cars
on your sheets,
and every place on me
that your hands have found
and left behind,
but i won't, i don't because
it's been eight hundred
and sixty
four
days since your face
graced my eyes for the first beautiful time, since
i thought i was kidding
when i said i was in love with that boy
in the sunglasses with
the hypnotic voice...
see, i could sketch the very stitching
of your clothes that day
and the exact way
they fell against my bedroom floor those
h o t afternoons, but now
i won't let myself because
it's been seven hundred
and ninety
six
days since you had that tone in your voice
and told me i was replaceable
without actually saying it, So
now you live south of here, i know,
and you party and live and fucking fly
while i- am just trying to survive...
see, i'm listening to the only pop song you ever liked
and reciting the words you'd scrawled across a card, and
when i see your favorite comedian, i
just see you,
and i kiss the rain now because
i can't kiss you,
well i'm waiting
for someone to tell me, i'll
be okay without you...
but no one does, not even these
two years worth of filled notebook pages
where i've searched to lose you, only
finding my way back to
a memory that's too good to let go of yet.
Do i ever pass your dreams
when you least expect? or
do you remind yourself
that knowing me at all is enough to regret?
see, you're a permanent fixture
in every future i can see for myself,
and if i could ink the stain of my lips into your skin,
i would, just to remind you that you will always be loved
even if it's not what you had asked me for...
and now i won't tell you how i recovered from the lies you'd spread about me, now i
won't tell you what it took to deal with
the fact that you only wanted a warm girl's body,
no i won't tell you how i use the word crucifixion
for when i died
but like a pheonix from the flame i'd learned to rise,
boy i know that wouldn't impress you anyway..
see,
it's been so many days
since i've said your name aloud
that i've lost count
yet it's still across my chest where
my heart beats our loss
and everyone knows i'd give you my right hand
because everyone knows love has a cost,
and i'm asking myself how you ever did
fall in love with a girl
with nothing to give-
or maybe you were never in love at all.
just tell me if you ever see
that my love is this much greater
even this many days later.

(2002)