he wore the warmth of a familiar quiet
a silence worn out by
overuse and the raging tide
a face etched in with lines
of the disquiet of waiting and
the relentless ticking of our time
those pleadingly vacant eyes
those
don’t let them know about
the posters on the ceiling and the
dream catcher on the bedpost eyes you know
the time we went dancing hip-to-hip and
toe-to-toe under a street light hanging
over quilted pattern souls
I suppose it’s safe to hide and
suffocate on the hope of wandering down
the should’ve-taken road that
road I see the start of but
never where it goes but my life
is not your walk-in closet, no place
to stuff your unmentionables know
my days are not on layaway and your
touch is no deposit since
nobody seems to know
that we existed hand in hand,
and nobody is aware
because our insignificant others
couldn’t understand
regardless of what you may think
if a patched and stained quiet
is worth the energy to defend
if the bridge we had built
is fortified to stand but
I will never be that boy
that boy,
who will shut his mouth and open the door
like time and time again and then occasionally before
I’m your reflection now too cracked to recognize
to see, to meet, to wake up before the sun can rise
and make my morning coffee before
it’s too late for you to find me