If Not Now

You drive me to pray

because I think I just let you pass

our ghosts on the Post Road.

I don’t know what for,

but it’s a safe sort of shame;

if I beg the firmament

for a glitch in the how it’s been

and you turn at the figment of my voice,

then it was always chance,

another cinematic coincidence.

So I’m trapped on the cusp of 3am,

hovering over an offer for LinkedIn Premium

because we’re too digitally estranged for a proper message

unless I surrender a month of my life

to a single question you might never see,

craving a reunion you might never want.

Believe me, it’s not love. It’s worse:

catastrophic, malignant,

a surgeon’s business,

a contorted impulse

to bolt to your side,

punch your arm and brand you with my laughter,

fall into your duck step with my pigeon toes,

break your voice,

and weave around your bloodied fingers.

Distance was the best decision,

and no matter what I decide, it will always be,

but a decade does wonders for the heart.

It’s just another night spent writing

in pseudonyms in case you ever care to find me,

starving for you as I did

when my poetry made no goddamn sense,

and to catch your eye was my greatest discovery.