i think what i want to ask is how are you
but what i say is something else entirely
like we have been trying for years now
speaking to each other in different languages
even as we write in english
giving answers to questions none of us asked
disjointed conversations with each other's shadows
the echoing unsaid syllables in the space between

somehow,
from this we manage semblances of communication
maybe in one-hundred words one resonates in your ear
(for me it is thank you, for you is it yellow?)
we used to exchange thousands on the regular
so many my computer drowns the way i used to
the way i still do whenever i find myself trapped in
their endless mazes, unable to compute to search
and find the meanings illuminated in the cold blue light

i live far away now Henry
all the things i can't say
i wonder at the word can't
shouldn't? don't want to?
i think this is my longest exercise in self-reflection
looking in mirrors and finding myself lost
looking in mirrors in my own eyes

the unwritten letters in the space between
i will forgive almost anything you say
if you write it seriously, if you say it with respect

up neon lights sprinting, you say we are running
and i want to ask: are we running to something or away?

today we sit in wooster square under the trees
the urge to touch you inexplicable
an old itch, unconscious
the thin curve of your fingernails
your folded legs
the space of skin above your shirt

later on my bed i cry to Marina
tears not for you, but for the loss of intimacy
broken in the space between,
known by my mind and not my body

confused that the last time saw each other
we were standing in the snow, kissing.

you talk about so many things,
a baby passing by, the lady behind us asking for my

pocket knife over and over again.
you tell her we should hold the fabric

tauter, so it will cut more easily.
i read your steadfastness as rejection.

my body aching from the not-reaching
from the mental disconnect with how easy

it feels to reach out and reach and bridge the distance.
the distance that is infinite, even as you sit

next to me on this green bench.
the disconnect blinding me even as we walk down
the street together and you joke as though you are
angry at me (you swear you are not) pushing
the lowest buttons you can push
making me bleed at my knees

and when i get home i cry for not being able to touch you
for not being able to be held by someone i once loved

until i see the scrapes you have given me
unconsciously, consciously, cut my knees a thousand times

and i think
maybe i just need to tend to myself.

i give myself permission to hate you.

even if it doesn't make sense.
even if you won't understand.

bumping into people from past lives
pick them up and wonder who they are
how they ever left so many scars
as they ask you how you are

reading myself fall in love with him in reverse
reading myself reflect on growing up
the years another he is about to enter
thinking about growing up the things that linger
the dancing in the rain, in the staircase
the private abandon, the large words
handled carefully to delineate all the small things

you are a phantom that calms me
perhaps i am a ghost that eases your mind
on sleepless nights
wrapped around your pillow
the whisper on the edge of a vision
the unspoken back-up plan under all the plans
that doesn't really fit together
when you straighten it out
the word you wanted to say 
after the first word you wanted to say
after the thing you really meant
really, your third choice
the steady hum of the machine 
under the hum of the machine
inaudible to all but persistent
little but a harmony
you are a phantom that calms me
i am a ghost that eases your mind.

x

lighthouse point on a sunday night in summer

the carnival lights off the highways
are other days
secrets like the half broken silhouettes
heads swallowed in the waves

constellations in the sky
convoluted every way

cosas pequeñitas (y largas)

i.

who has a right to speak on these things

she says it doesn’t matter but it seems like it does, marina says

days later you do this, you think

little things that are fine but leave you thinking

about the darkness of your skin 

for days

ii.

for you have met the boundary

of shared experience

like a golden worm 

it vibrates in the puddle in front of you

as you walk through warm water

you know if you touched skin

it would be glass, maybe porcelain

iii.

in bed you think of how

you say 

my father is from the island

why do you not say I am from the island?

vi.

kiley said

one days these things will come for you

red shoes on a green floor

this is about much more

than a name

v.

your name you can hold

it can hold you

at times you embrace awkwardly

but still

there is warmth

you are strangers

who together are not strangers at all

vi.

it is like an avocado

sliced open

each half heavy in a palm

the pit in the middle must be in one side

or you must get rid of it

once open

how can it be in both sides at once? 

and be whole

vii.

it is like an avocado

so sweet

and 

so slimy

you can not hold an avocado for long

soon enough you must eat it

or put it

down

viii.

and you want to put it down

the exhaustion, the pride

of being the core

something you have always been proud of

something you are almost always

thinking about, something that makes

you narcissus

staring at this puddle in between you

with its golden worm

ix.

can you put the golden worm down?

most times you do not want to touch it

if you cut it in half

would it multiply?

it does not seem like your own battle

you are too preoccupied with your own shadows

x.

who has the right to speak on this?

most days (all days)

you don’t know

cosas pequeñitas

who has a right to speak on these things

she says it doesn’t matter but it seems like it does, marina says

days later you do this, you think

little things that are fine but leave you

thinking about the darkness of your skin 

for days