emma jean is not my lover

it still hits me
sometimes 
blindsiding in the dead of night
crashes down over me
before I have a chance to fight.
it seizes me and crushes me
and I can never place quite why
but I know it has something to do
with you
and this emptiness inside…

which is gone for the most part.
really. I don’t notice it most days
these days.
but I really suck at losing people
and going separate ways.

I’d like to say, don’t get me wrong
I’m over it, I really am
because I believe that with most of me.
honestly, I think I can
say that with some confidence in
where I’ve been and who I am.

I wish we hadn’t talked today
like nothing has gone wrong.
This silly little yarn of ours
we’ve spun it out too long.

But then that wouldn’t be us would it
to leave well enough alone
will we ever stop our crazy back & forth
bunny I really wouldn’t know

but then I already don’t.
you changed & left me here a long time ago.

or was that really me?
I’ve made myself too pityblind to see.

I hate that we talked 
like everything’s okay
about the weather
and work
and the time of the day

when what I really want to say, is
you’ve moved on from me, it’s time for me to go away.
I’ve lost you to hard work, and child’s play. 
And when the news finally reaches me,
I just might die that day.

I did not get anything done today
because today, like most days,
it was too easy to give in 
to mediocrity. 
because I’d rather be at the beach
and because I’m trying to fix my knee
and because I miss you
and because I just want to get to tennessee
and because I’d rather be drunk
on a beautiful, seventy degree 
february day
and because you would’ve told me not to 
but let me do it anyway.

and because if we do not learn from our past,
we are doomed to repeat it. 
and if I’ve learned anything from my past,
it’s that I don’t quite seem to last 
two whole years
anywhere.

lay me down
beneath the stars
beneath the barren reach of trees
beside the dying fire
you lay me down so gently 

and I will remember you
as I always remember in my mind
but suddenly it sparks in my whole soul
and I will know, as I’ve always known
that I was so right about you
             and so wrong

and you will tell me not to cry
because it’s always been this way
and I will laugh
and hold you close
and look at you and say

it wasn’t always
but you’re right, it actually was
we just didn’t know it
for a long time.

And even as everything is wrong
everything will be right
as I feel you all around me
I am filled with the stars
and the crisp cold air
and the night.

and even as my blood runs cold
as the air freezes and
cracks around us
as the sun peeks into our
corner of the world
we are in a
perfect 
soft
halo embrace
of peachflame
and you whisper in my ear:

            just focus on your breathing



and just as on so many other
peachlit perfect mornings
with that lonesome bird serenading
the world to wake
as the cars multiply on the freeway
which is always so near

you give me one
last
golden
utopian
memory

And I will smile
and flood with peace
and happiness
and some sort of sleep.

a whole world of a soul
trapped
in a body 
in a room
in a city
in gloom

in a mind
in psychosis
in love
in supposes

trapped by the shadows
the low arc of the sun
by deadlines
and by not having anyone

trapped by expectations
and by unrealistic dreams
trapped by a belief that 
life should be so much 
more than it seems

trapped by my skin
trapped by my face
trapped by time 
and money 
and space

trapped by lethargy
trapped by physics
so trapped 
by the limits of
this existence.