telephone cords

I miss you


I didn't put a period at the end of that sentence because my missing you doesn't stop. Each day the missing comes up in me, it starts to bubble and then it stays


and it lives there, and it earns its keep

by twisting me up all around, inside.



I miss you, and you,

and sometimes it's a happy missing

it's a laugh-lined missing

it's a  quiet smile to myself
it's a secret little note that no one else reads but me


the traber boys give me weird looks.



My missing can be lonely.

It can touch the hole that you used to fill, it can voice the words that you used to say, it can put pressure on my chest,

the lawn-layers don't notice.



It brings streams up around my liner-ed eye lids.
gospel choir jokers don't notice.



It tries to know who you were,
but it's a real good paintbrush.

and helps me create a you that might not have even existed.




To tell you the deepest secret, love,


I've forgotten most of our history.





And you, and you, and you,


may not be missing me.

But it's okay.
Because I'm not quite sure what the value in missing you is.



And just like this,
this that keeps on going



I have no period for these thoughts either.



They just extend from the jumbled telephone cords within me to you

and then they get tangled up in yours, too.


If you hear me






And keeps going