The longing
May be better than the having
But I may never know
What you feel like inside me
All over me
I may never taste your kisses
Or see your face above mine
While making love
My imagination of the beauty of
Our connection
Will never match
The reality

You’re always there
Inside my home
Inside my head
I hear your cymbal-and-bass-drum laugh
Echoing against the hardwood floor
Even when you’re gone

I hear you call me baby
Babe, honey, hon
Hollow-point bullets
Shoot from your mouth
More out of habit
Than real intimacy
Still, as the words ricochet and
Slap me around
Like a coked-up homeboy
I don’t want you to stop

The pain is real
More real than the numbness of my core
At least it’s a feeling
And even if your heart is not full of my blood
My heart is overflowing with yours
Enough for both of us

Part Two

I think of things I want to tell you
Secrets, stories of myself
The type of thing that can only be told
Lying naked next to each other
Looking at each other’s eyes while twisting each other’s hair

Truths like what color your hair was
Before it turned grey

I dream of your kisses on my lips
In between bitten lips and silence of breath
And the knowing
The knowing of each other
The memorization of features without pretense
The inside-of-barriers feeling
I think of you, open to me
And, just when I think I stop thinking,

I think of you, a mysterious castle
Surrounded by a moat
I don’t want to attack, or scale
Or see crumble from within
Only lowering the bridge will get me in there

I want permission to read you
I want you to ask me things like why I brush my teeth
More than most people
So I can explain my attention to oral hygiene
Listen to you laugh your deep laugh
Resonating in your chest telling me a story
About the old days

I hear the floor creek outside the bedroom door
And hope that you’re coming in to get in my bed
To let the moon illuminate your hazel irises, and
Put your arms around me
I imagine that you bringing me a napkin and
Glass of water means you were thinking of my needs
And think that more of my needs need to be of your concern,
Like the need of my face to be on a chest
But in my dream you broke your watch and threw away a mangled silver bracelet
I found them and you took them away from me to throw away again

I try to tell myself I don’t need these little things
That I could do with a substitute
That codependency is bad and
That’s when I find out that never is reality
I won’t be filled with nothingness
But I don’t believe it
Just like I don’t believe you will ever love me
The way I love you