We biked to the market
For too-much ice cream
And hot afternoons

We drove to a parking lot
For a couple joints of ****
And impossibly late
Evenings

We exchanged
Cheesy compliments
In my mother’s basement
Just before your first kiss
(Our first kiss)

We flattered each other
With beautiful poems
And genuine emotion
Just before
We finally kissed again

We picked flowers
From the garden
By the middle school
Becoming best friends

We picked basil
From the garden
In my back yard
Not knowing
What we were becoming

But regardless
Of whether we never
Get off our bikes
Or go upstairs
Or head back indoors
I’ll be happy
To be with you

Unmelted candle wax
From two hundred melted candles
Litters a granite counter top
The metaphorical resonances of which
Were lost three weeks ago
When the counter swam like water
In hallucinogenic bliss,
As through knowing each other more, not less,
We fell finally all the way out of the love
Which once seemed so much more solid
Than water

As I smoke a cigarette
On the front porch
Where I once declined
I listen in my memories
To my sister yelling at my mom
In a crowded Mexican restaurant
That she should be allowed
To love both my mom
And my dad
But then our food finally came
And my cigarette
Finally goes out
Having mostly burned
Without help from my lungs

As our friend
Is helped to *****
Into the toilet beside us
We take off our clothes
And climb into a bath,
Me smelling too much like cigarettes
To say anything
About the violent red slashes
On your upper thigh

As we slept
In each other’s minds
Through the night,
Fearing commitment
Equally as much
As striving for it,
I kissed you
Thinking that maybe
I’d let myself pretend,
Having finally uncorked
That bottle of wine,
All hesitancies
Had disappeared

But I tried to kiss you
Again in the morning,
Thinking
As I think now
That if it may be
Our last chance
I want to take it:
I want to swing dance
Through thunderstorms
And sip our wine
With nothing
But the certainty
Of one another

But you pretended
Not to notice
My eyes meeting yours,
And filled
With all the reservations
That should have been in me,
You averted your gaze
And walked away
(As I still worry
You will one day)
From that surreal bed
Of whispers
And fewer tears

Neither of us
Like to lead
When we dance
Forming a pattern
Of basic step,
Basic step,
Eye contact
A moment too long,
Brushing hands
That linger

Everything that in the day
Seemed like a leaf
Was now nothing
But blackness
Showing only
Where light
Could not penetrate;
Black lines dotted
Against the near-black sky

(You try to read
My poems
As messages to you
But every conversation
Is made of shadows
And I'm sorry
But these poems
Are about me)