I Never Wanted To Write You This Poem

I didn’t want you to know,

But I took pictures of your room before I left

Traced my jagged fingertips across the soft spots

The places where we touched

Before there was a ghost in the bed

And I will remember your things scattered around

Your messy sheets

We linked for the first time

Our hands

Our breathing

Our nervous silence

Our I’ve waited so long for this

And I will remember walking through town

The cold air

The heart-shaped leaves

The ghosts of the past

The churches

The grass

Sometimes we don’t speak

Your eyes are dark holes

And your mouth tries to form words

But it won’t

I don’t know what to say to you

Except that your memory is a burning building

And we are constantly in flames

I don’t know what to say to you

Except that you are in every single poem I write

And if I am being honest, you are the poem

I don’t know what to say to you

Except to say everything,

That our time is always short

That I would rather burn than spend

My entire life waiting

And you are sitting in front of me in your chair

Sketching or writing

About different worlds that you create

But all I ever want to write about is ours

The one that we can’t have

The one that I always get a taste of

Before it disappears in my mouth

You are my nostalgia,

I don’t think you know this

You are my downfall,

I don’t think you know this

You are the house that is always burning

The one that I am always consumed by

The one that I set on fire

Years ago

You are the poem

And I don’t think you know this

But I will always be

In some kind of love

With you.