Part I. They Fell In

 

Simply put

I cannot understand you

The way you make my chest shorten

And the way all this furniture of our lives came about

It feels like it was just dropped on our lawn, at our house one day

 

I can hardly remember when I really saw you

Really saw your face and thought

This is what I need

I wish I could go back and look at it up close

And not take that forsaken sight

Like it was free

 

I want to see the old you like you saw the old me

That single silver of a simple evening we strolled

And you stared at the stars

Two more seconds, lingering

When I underneath wanted to stare too

Into that daunting night sky

And your eyes gave me permission

Without even looking at mine

 

So we looked up, I behind you

A perfect image of your head to the sky

And we were daunted together, We

Were a mystery back then

You weren't a man

Well, at least not to me

 

You were a background character in my loud circus parade

A fading image

A set piece

-

Oh, How stupid I was

My arrogance and conceit

I was taken by myself

And not the depth of human in front of me

 

Yet in your quietude you were perfect in every way

I did not consider forever, that day

 

I was such a tease

Do you remember our emails?

We could pretend to be destined to wed and travel the world

Or just hook up

Maybe

 

Suspended in this well-lighted reality

Where anything was possible if we just looked up

And I felt the whole of youth inside of that We

 

I can’t remember how I fell but I remember

It being something like dreaming

 

Part II. They Unraveled

 

And there it was

Everything laid bare

You were pulling at red strings deep inside of me

And like a spool I unraveled for you there

 

I’d like to say missing is a way of loving

When all presence and touching fails

You hold me like a man holds his gun

God, tell me what surrender entails

 

You’re a green ocean, and you swallow in your wake

I am powerless to your pull- so abrupt

I shake like the snow off a newborn deer

When you look at my lips I shut up

 

You’re the damned finest thing I’ve ever held

You’re yearned for like the Fall of my youth

You’re perfect, timeless, crystal nights

You’re ecstatic volubility profuse

 

Part III. They Loved

 

Oh god- I must confess

I never thought I could love you like this

You said you watched me from across the room

And Unscathed by your breath-

Would I bloom for you?

 

You’re the dawn on an ocean liner

You’re the air off the deck of the world

You’re a love symphony strung on ivory

You’re the Francis Scott Key to Fitzgerald

 

I guess I could say I’m falling in love

And I guess I could say I’m not

Perhaps it’s that I fall so much

I’m afraid I won’t be caught

 

You’re glowing yellow eclipse moons

The American Dream up on its lease

You’re staring too long into my soul

You’re midnight magic, in the least

 

Part IV. They Hurt

 

If I could tell you all the ways

You make me want to die

I’d just wake from dead to say

I never told you lies

 

Because I know I get mixed up (in here)

I know I get confused

I know I often take my words

I take them out on you

 

And I know that I’m ungrateful

And I know it’s you I use

But, god, do not mistake me when

I said I’d fall for you

 

Part V. They Fell Out

 

You were the greatest story I have ever told

You were like fairy light in the young woodland trees

You were romance unromanticized

You were summer’s dress, you were winter’s fleece

 

All of a sudden

You appeared and

I appeared and we together mixed

Like red poison and green poison

In a vile for sleeping medicine

 

I hope we knew what we were getting ourselves into

-Oh, I know we didn't

 

We were synonymous under dark blue blankets

And you were a Night unimagined