Gia Raquel

My love,

I will write you letters

to quiet the anxieties

always finding their

way to your lips

For every time I feel

the softly chapped

softly bitten

softly

softly

all spoken

like wishes I

wasted on birthday

candles and

pennies in a fountain

The way you

walk so

slowly in front of

the green street light

The way you hold fast

to the child-like

desires I only admit

to at night

 

There is longing here,

In the crowds and

countries that separate

us

In time we

spent

waiting for that

moment in which our

eyes would meet

 

There were nights I had

forgotten what your

voice sounded like

And there was no

way to turn around

and ask,

 

My love,

why do you say

goodbye only when it

is final?

Maybe it is the innocence

Maybe it is the alcohol

 

In every word I fight

out against foolish

thoughts

A calamity of intrusivity

I cannot express, nor wish to

 

I wrestled with the Chicago

skyline, begging it to change

into something that could point

me forward

point me here

here

no longer there

much farther now

My throat is sore and sometimes

static air makes me feel numb

 

But know,

between all the ponderings

all the infinities we’ve lived in

all the souls that snuck in my

borrowed sheets

all the breaths I wanted

to share in your presence

and all the stories that

built up in my chest

waiting

waiting

all for a place to rest

 

It was you

It was always you

 

As time slowly grew back

like the white

flowers that bloomed by

your window last Spring

And as my heart grew silent

and curious, still hopeful

but ever so mournful,

 

Know that it was you

It always was you.