climb

i want you the way a church bell wants a storm: aching to be shaken, to be made holy by something wild.

*

it lives under my ribs, a low hum that never resolves. every breath drags over it, a bow across a fraying string, and my chest tightens as it braces for a name it is too afraid to speak.

the echo reverberates in my throat

*

you always fall asleep on the floor next to me first. you lay close enough that our sleeves touch

not enough to mean anything.

your breathing, usually shallow and restless, begins to deepen—slow, even surrendered.

each exhale a soft confession you did not know you were making. or perhaps not really one at all.

i lay awake beside you, counting the space between us like a sin. if i had moved an inch my hand would have found your skin

*

instead I listen to the steady rise and fall of you

to the quiet proof that you could rest so easily 

next to what you make of me.

my eyes grow heavy but i will not sleep.

i dare not move, not breathe too deeply, or else risk disturbing you

*

the nights after you leave are heaviest

they lean over me, close and humid, whispering all the ways you are not here.

my bed takes your shape like a rumor, and I turn toward it as if absence could answer.

my eyes grow heavy from carrying the weight of you. not sleep— but the gravity of almost. Almost your hands in mine. Almost your mouth saying stay. Almost.

i pray you will ask me to smoke with you tonight.

*

i have longed for you in the quietest ways— in unsent messages, in songs played too late, in the desperate inhale as i try to take in the scent of your hair as you pass

*

there is a loneliness that tastes like wine left open on the counter.

sweet at first, then sharp. unbearable. I gag and I drink it anyway. I let it seep into my shirt and drip from my mouth.

my thirst is unquenchable. i imagine it will be for a very long time.

*

if you came to my door tonight i would not ask why it took so long. i would not speak of the nights I folded myself around your absence like a letter never opened.

*

i would only let my aching chest crack wide, let all my trembling spill out, and hope—with the last of my breaking voice—that wanting you this much has not already made me hollow.

*

you will never read these poems. you'd never ask. sometimes i wish you would.