After-Friday-nights-football-game bonfires and melting smores, letting me burn
The marshmallow and eat all the chocolate prematurely,
And secrets exchanged on woven lounge chairs, and you touched my hand.
Late night breakfasts, cooking pancakes and sinking chips a-hoy into milk,
In those strange silver mixer cups you always chose.
And rummy (you never win), but team monopoly champs, and your parents
Fast forward through sex-scenes while you wink, those blue eyes like the ocean
Where you taught me to surf and we snuck into pools when the sky got too grey,
And you got my car stuck on the beeline, digging mud away while I laughed, dry.
All of our stories circulate around the rain, like the first time you kissed me,
And the night you left.

apt E13

The stark white walls and bare wooden desk

Gathered in dust and memories, like it once belonged

To your parents or your parent’s parents –

And now it is here, bulky in the corner,

With my bag slumped in the chair and my feather earrings on the edge,

Shielding half the window’s cheap plastic blinds.

But the light feels nice and warm and spreads across your bed

Where you lay: freckle-dusted skin entangled in rumpled white sheets.

Diffused with sunrise lights and it feels like

This is heaven or at least vacation.

Arms tucked tightly under the pillow and

Occasionally you sigh, shoulders melt deeper.

Your soft pink mouth falls askew –

Breath mixed, whiskey and sleep, and

Subtle smears of rosy lipstick trail down your neck,

Weaved around unshaven stubble, protruding adam’s apple,

And faint purple-blue outline of my lips.

The imprint of my body still next to you,

I have been here before.

And, if I should never revisit that

Foggy, distant place, tucked securely between

Your forearm and bicep, a seat belt,

Protecting me from dangers in the night,

Then at least I know some part of me remains.