What do you do when you have never met someone but you love them so much that a tiny little absence from them upsets your soul and makes negative thoughts spin around your head? You know it’s foolish to wait on them because either they are asleep jet-lagged by the time difference or drained by the efforts spent in talking with you but you cannot rest until you know they are safe. You have never seen them but you wish you could hold them when the triggers seized them from all sides, so they could turn a blind eye to all the gathering evil and bury their head in your lap while you hummed a tune from your native land, strange to their ears, and the mysterious sounds filter into their blood calming their spirit and miming the edges of the addiction. Maybe you could clutch their sweaty palms, clammed up with anxiety and a mad urge to let go but for you who won’t allow it lest they slip and don’t return. What do you do when all you are good at is scribbling a few words on a plastic screen with neon lights and sing a little off-tune, the anxiety within you beating you off-track, distracting your mind, and you wish there was a fantasy telephone booth to teleport you right next to them. Oh, how the distance hurts and tears and rips apart your lonesome mind, how the buzz-less phone screams of despair and the silence wails through your empty hands, fingers, like winds whistling in the abandoned shacks just before a storm. You want to reach out to them, offer solace, company, love, understanding, whatever would bring them energy to react, to do something other than being numb. But the miles in between the two of you keep you painfully separate and distinct, time plays with your fate as you once again fall asleep, tired, swollen eyes, into a restless fitful slumber during their desperate hours, only to wake up when it’s perhaps a bit too late. Terrified, you missed the train they were leaving on.
dine out
A tangle of ribs
Dipped in BBQ sauce
Lies between us
Our forks poke in out
Attacking the flesh
Scouring the plates
Beneath the table
Our shoes meet
Sudden brief pauses
Amidst uncontrolled giggles
Eyes flash at one another
Noises cannot interrupt us
We exist in a separate bubble
Independently,
A little world of our own
Where the right phrases
Placed together, illicit smiles
Some even light up your eyes
None of us are in a hurry
Time keeps slipping through
Unnoticed, the shadows grow
Empty streets beckon
But do you really want to leave?
Hands
At night our hands
Whisper to each other
In stretched silences
Lying side by side
Sharing inside jokes
Maintaining distance
Just enough to yearn
Almost touching
But not quite close yet
Soft and warm
Like rose petals
Served on a china dish
lemongrass 