play.
every poem I ever wrote about you revolved around the concept of noise,
like an acrobat
tiptoeing
across a tightrope.
like the soft sound made by a cassette tape
between songs,
like slamming doors
and startling laughter, like colorful shoes
on slick concrete.
the way you say
my name
unleashes a spectrum
of colors in my mind.
though I could never figure out
what the loneliest sound is,
I know that you are
the producer
of the loveliest noises.
they say a picture is worth a thousand words, but it would take me millions
to properly convey how you look
when you smile,
or when you take a drag of a cigarette,
blowing smoke out into the atmosphere.
fast forward.
pause.
breathe in. breathe out. breath me in. breath you out. breathe you back in; breathe me out and
my god, I’ve forgotten how lungs work,
I am drowning in thoughts of you,
while you are off somewhere, floating in a pool of my tears
and sipping some fruity cocktail.
in.
out.
breathe.
BREATHE.
rewind. play.
I watch the smoke drift and fade away,
and it makes me wonder if that is what it will be like when you go;
me, with the taste of second hand nicotine on my tongue,
between my teeth,
and you,
ascending to the sky on a plane, slowly fading into the horizon.
out of sight,
in mind.
pause.
I wish I could freeze this moment and trap your vibrant energy like fireflies in a jar.
when you left me
I left my door ajar
just in case you decided
to come back
home.
fast forward.
I sleep on one side of my bed
instead of the middle
just in case you come back in the middle of the night
and crawl under the covers.
when I go out,
I sit at a table for two
and make small talk with the ghost of you
and though the food is spicy,
all my tastebuds receive are bittersweet memories
of you.
rewind.
you look at me and a smile
crosses your face
one that makes it all the way to your eyes
my chest aches,
in a pleasant kind of way,
as if you were keeping my heart inside of yours.
constricting.
behind the hazy cloud of smoke residue,
I can see love in your eyes.
you slide your sweaty palm into mine, and give it a squeeze.
record.
the way your lips move, shaping around the words
“I love you,”
the way they coat me like caramel on an apple,
the sticky, sickly sweet sensation clogging my pores and enveloping me whole.
pause. fast forward.
he smiles at me.
I smile back,
but can’t help but notice
his nose doesn’t scrunch like yours,
his lips don’t curve the same.
but you are thousands of miles away,
forgetting me with every breath you take,
memories of me fading like smoke
in the distance,
while I try to memorize someone else’s landscape.
I wear the perfume
that you loved the most
and it makes me think of you
so while he tells me he has finally found
the one,
that I feel like home
I get lost in thoughts of you,
hands in my hair,
tangled up in a warm, golden kind of silence,
not caring nor knowing
where I begin, and you end
pause. rewind.
you squeeze my hand once more,
to stop me from trembling,
because I know that all too soon,
we will untangle
from the web of love
that we have weaved,
sit in a melancholy blue kind of silence,
and say goodbye.
and when you walk away for the last time,
I will finally know what the loneliest
sound in the world is,
that even the supernatural power of phantoms will pale in comparison
to the noise made by your footsteps when you walk away,
because that fading sound will haunt me forever.
and when the door shuts between us,
we will finally learn
where you start and I end.
areudirty
pixelskylines
andulkaphoto
yousharknotpass
gummygunk
2087
