122.

She is my little bridge
between what you once were,
what I once was,
and the creatures
we now embody. It's nice.
Like she exists to clean
the memories with the white dresses,
to starch and preserve the folds
every time my sadness
drags them through the mud.

Perhaps if we had a few more weeks,
we would have become friends.
For me, it has always been terrifying,
swimming alone in the lake, at night.
But her on the shore,
shining her flashlight,
and she doesn't even owe me
anything.

121. Haiku: On February sixteenth I celebrated my birthday.

A grey confession:
I may be happier now
without you and I.

120.

Of course I lied.
Or it would have been
about how all I wanted
was to make you happy,
and travel, and become
a great artist,
and marry you
on wagon hill farm.
A girl can not afford
to be so extravagant
with the truth.

119.

We all read the stories in a different way.
Him on the ledge again, for the fourth year
     in a row, him finding joy in the dull girls
that nod their head, him sleeping with everybody,
him sleeping with nobody, the light in the room
on, the light in the room off. The world in bloom,
     the world not in bloom, what are you saying here,
it's only February, all of it should be frozen,
our hearts should not be running like rabbits,
we should not have to be told to calm down.

118.

It's not roses.
Happiness has many names
that the body can recognize.
Forgiveness too,
but forgiveness
no longer has a place
here.

I have a temper
but I keep my hands busy
so they don't go
the wrong way.
After a while,
a person gets tired
of things going
the wrong way.

They say that instinct
as an explanation for human behavior
has become less common,
but I knew about her
before you did, so
there's that.

I cut my hair again.
My father has come back.
On Tuesday, I vomited
for the first time in over a year.
I am not supposed to tell you
about these things, and
I can't quite decide
if there's fairness in that.

117.

I have been collecting
photographs of cream
as it is poured into coffee.
The moments after the dive,
before they are fully merged,
before they become inseparable
by silver spoons,
a phenomenon
you would take
great pleasure in.
      Your honor,
      I would like to present these images
      as evidence
      that I know you better than anybody.
In your kitchen,
at the bed and breakfast,
at Rosie's bakery, at the diner
on Holland
two blocks from my apartment.
Where do you begin
your mornings now?

116. A haiku debating the scientific chances of whether or not the sun will rise tomorrow.

I see this birthday
as the start of a decade
without your bullshit.

115. Slower.

The only thing I care about
these days, is how much light
can come from a person.
Give me a body that knows
how to tell the truth.
Give me something
that knows
how to be good.

114.

It is difficult
to see the world bathed in
such ecstatic color,
and you, in grey.

113.

I have this heart and
it is noisy and a little clumsy
and it can no longer speak
your name beyond the first letter,
sounding like a hum, sounding like
an admission,
sounding like the electricity
in the fence that I wish would keep me
from missing you.

112. A haiku on what it is to both miss and be the color red.

Being without you
means that at any moment
I could turn to flame.

111.

They say that human beings dream
when the mind is attempting
to solve a problem. This explanation
is problematic in itself,
as there is no mystery to this.
You are not here. I understand
why you are not here. You are not
coming back. I understand why
you are not coming back.
Equation complete, facts checked.
But last night,
dream-you missed dream-me,
and I'll take all the victories
I can get.

I heard that snowy owls
have reached the coast of Massachusetts.
These rare migrations
are apparently called "irruptions."

What I'm saying is, I've dreamt
about you each night since November.

There was this photo, outside of a dream,
where the sky was blue and you were
encased in glass. You were smiling,
but the light was against you
in such a way that I could not see
your eyes, and there was no way of telling
how far it extended, how genuine
it may have been, or if something in it
had been wanting for sleep.