I trekked up that slushy hill, double time, because I was wasting minutes being anywhere you weren't. I don't think I've ever opened a door faster than in that moment before smashing my body into yours and breathing you in in one messy, rushed kiss. In French, instead if saying I miss you they say tu me manque, which means you are missing from me. This concept was explained to me, finally, as I was wrapped up in you and one of your many colognes. Lips and tongues and teeth and door frames. I could not feel anything because I was feeling everything. My conciousness extended no further than the tip of my nose and at every point my skin touched yours. It's been a while since I have understood myself in such a simple sense, but it was clear you knew me all along. I could tell from the way you traced me without looking and tickled my collarbone with kisses.
And finally,
your mouth moved from me and into
Hello

I love the way
your perfume
                     lingers
on my clothes
   long after
   we've said
           goodbye.

                        Although
                        it's not the same
                        as holding you in my arms.
                        I enjoy the comfort
                        it brings me.

I watched videos
that made it through my operating system's
up date
some got lost in the crunch and grind
but a few slipped through
I look happy in the ones recorded for you
but click over one or two
and I seem worn, dilapidated
now I'm incapacitated
it feels like I used up all my romantic love
in a two year span
like after all my sweetness expired is when
I grew into a man
after all, the girls that came after
slowly morphed into women
and the relations I had fell short
of stable
now I reject the label "boyfriend"
I don't make promises because
I don't believe I'll keep them
the last time I held hands
and actually felt warmth
I think I was drunk
and helping someone up
who had fallen
her heel broke, almost did a face plant
I felt sorry and accompanied her home
she babbled and tried to pull me inside
I said
"No"
not because I didn't like her
or want her
I just didn't want to be
haunted by my lack of devotion
someone please come along
set the gears of my machine heart
back in motion
or better yet
turn the cogs back into muscle tissue
change the cables into veins
replace the gasoline
with real pumping blood
so I can once again
feel my heart jump
at the smell of a perfume
a touch
a voice
please
make me
human