Brown Cookware

You picked out new cookware,
Pots, pans, kettles, casseroles.
All the best brands because
You’ve never settled, have you?
I think brown is a dumb color
For cookware but I’m not sharing it.
You don’t need plates though
Because you’re using ours.
Pass me the butter dish, darling.
Yes, that’s right, the one that used to be hers.
I like my butter dirty and used.

I wonder if you ever get confused,
Lie in bed and think about
Which face you’re going to wake up to;
Mine that greeted you for nearly a decade,
Or hers, just dying to paint just the right
Expression for you.
I bet she sleeps in her makeup.
You got a cat and cats are stupid.
You strum along to Zeppelin and she hums too,
Not knowing that you learned
Over the Hills and Far Away for me
And that the first time you played it through
We cried like children.

Your jeans with holes,
Your leftover crust,
Your falling out hair and
Your inability to spell reminisce.
These are all hers now and
Thank god.
You were terrible at remembering
When to take out the garbage and
She seems just the type to help you out.

We Knew Just Friends Couldn't Work

I missed you more than I should have.
The days we didn’t talk
Actually made it easier to get on.
And we both knew just friends couldn’t work.
Weeks went by and we finally decided
We could hang out.
But when I innocently bent over
And pressed my lips to the top of your head,
And when you sat up and looked at me
Asking with your eyes if that was
What you thought it was,
I knew.
After a few agonizing seconds of
Wondering if we were really going to do this,
You kissed me as if there weren’t weeks
Between our lips’ last meeting.
Same taste, same touch, same tenderness.
Everything—the truth that we’ll never work out,
The pep talk I gave myself on the way over,
The insurmountable differences—it all just
Melted away.
And what was left was you and me,
Our lips dancing and your hands in my hair
On your bed in our quiet town,
The world spinning madly on outside your window.
We knew just friends couldn’t work.

Stupid Song

I heard that stupid song you love today. The twangy one about chicken and blue jeans.
I hate this song, it’s ridiculous. But I couldn’t turn the dial, wouldn’t dare. Because with every word I was reminded of another moment we shared, another second I’d trade ten days for now. Driving with the windows down. Walking through town. Sleeping on the too-small couch together with our bodies tangled. Buying flowers. As it ended, my cheeks flushed with embarrassment at my realization that I let the whole damn song play just because it brought me back to you. A stupid song about chicken and blue jeans can bring me back to you and back to my sad realization that I never got to say to you what I had to say. You’ll never know that with those windows down, in that town, during that nap, among those flowers, I was desperately, unstoppably, irrevocably falling in love with you. And now, the closest I come to anything resembling love is flushing when I hear that stupid song about chicken and blue jeans….

Nameless Love

Most nights I’m fine.
I crawl into my bed alone and it’s my choice.
I dream about faraway lands and
Fairy tale times and
Wake to another day
Full with the potential of finally
Saying hello to you.

But some nights I’m
Notsofine.
Sometimes I just want you to hold me,
Laugh with me,
Tell me I’m pretty.
These are the nights when
I get so mad at myself
For not telling you my secret:
I think you are mine!

How do you tell someone
You love them when you
Don’t even know their name?

Thursday Poem

sometimes when it’s been a really long day
and all I want to do is come home,
crawl into your arms
and melt off into love,
it’s all I can do to keep from screaming
and laughing
and crying
all at once at the thought of that flawless,
breath-taking moment when I
finally get to feel the electricity
of your touch,
smell in your smell
and taste all of those amazing, unsaid words
for me on your lips.
touch me again and show me
that easy way in which you
take my whole soul’s world and shake it
to the core as if it were a
tambourine in your lonely heart’s club band.

Full Moon Love

What is it about the full moon
That makes my skin stand
In tiny little bumps
When your breath passes close enough
That I can breathe in the possibilities
That rise and fall with each exhale;
Each goosebump--its own mountain
Of fear, anxiety, disquietude--
Melts into an ocean of touches
When you fold me into you.

Butterflies Gone By

Is it too much to ask for magic? Am I too old to be expecting butterflies anymore? Have I lost the innocence and naivety needed to feel infatuation again? As I lie in bed next to Mr. Perfectforme, I inevitably feel the sneaking snake of doubt come creeping into my mind. I feel guilt for feeling doubt because I should be letting myself go, falling in love, head spinning. But I'm not. I'm thinking of dishes in the sink, presents to be wrapped, e-mails to reply to. When I roll over and sees his amazing baby blues staring at me, I don't get flutters and flickers. Instead, my mind floats back to another time, another place, another set of arms which, when wrapped among, gave me the flutters and flickers. I miss those arms and those feelings. I would give anything to have one more night in those arms, the butterflies flying crazy inside of me.