dear baby
just like that
fade into black
the pleasures sustained
by the pleasures we lack
dear baby
just because I’m not moved to tears
doesn’t mean there isn’t anything
an uprising, a titanic shifting of fault lines
breaking me in two.
dear baby
1992, I knew
I was bathing in light
thinking of you.
freckles and dimples with eyes so blue
your voice catching across the sand
everything electric when
your hand grazed my hand.
dear baby
in exchange for your silence
I promise you mine
I’ll never hint at love again
for the rest of time.
dear baby
do you remember the day
you pulled me away from the sun
melting and shifting like taffy
stretching thin in your hands
dear baby,
I’ve kept a list
a catalog of all the things
I think will make you smile.
dear baby
sometimes I just
get so drunk
and I laugh about those days
when we’d see the sky and say
holy shit, there’s another world out there
dear baby
a thick accent of desert skies
he whispered, his face close to mine
perhaps tonight we’ll see them
bloom
right before our eyes
dear baby
you know I couldn’t have imagined this
a place where space and time can’t shift
but you were always quite aware
that black holes couldn’t hold you
but they wouldn’t let you leave the way you came
dear baby
your crippling laugh so full of gasps,
wheezes, and snorts,
represents everything
I’d hoped you be
when you were still loving me.
dear baby
it’s not that I’m in love with you,
but the way our bodies
make one from two,
and the way we slide and sway and move
makes me feel like love is true.
and yet I love all the men I see,
with arms and legs and backs for me.
I think I love everything
and everyone
for simply being.
dear baby
I caught wind you were heading in
and I hightailed it out
because I can’t see your face again.
dear baby
my
daddy died
fog in his eyes
the bay breeze blowing
while his heart stopped
slowing
and I
where was I.
dear baby
late at night on the phone
with your voice like gravel
our whispers carry us
as we travel to the peak
of the mountain together
until we whisper a soft goodnight
as certain I was in love
as you were the sun made light.
dear baby
you hung your coat
too close to mine
traces of our scents combined.