i know you want more news and messages and i love yous
because there’s a whole ocean between us and a smattering at least of
countries, depending where you’re working at the time, and
i’m sorry, i am, and if you want to know what’s wrong well it’s like this—
every pack of instant noodles that disappears from the drawer is
one less link to you and one step further from home, and
when the hunger comes back it slinks like a jackal at the heels of the
magnificent terrible tiger that is the fear that there won’t ever be
more, and
every raindrop is an echo of the songs you used to make me listen to, and
when the world turns white i think of you, who once said
you wanted there to be snow on the day you died; i think of the
lights stretching trembling and wavering around my shadow and the night
smooth and lingering and of the distances between continents, and
the coffee cup that lies neglected on my desk speaks of you and
the shampoo bottles stand like worn-out little soldiers on the table, while
the printer i’ve only just set up and the takeout food look disapprovingly on;
the clothes piled in a corner and the dirty dishes i haven’t gotten around to
talk behind my back of how it was never ever like this at home
and when i speak the secret name you have given me it rolls off with
an aftertaste of wind and sand, like there’s a desert inside of me and it’s
just waiting to come out, and when i look for the words to send to you
there’s nothing but a blinding sun and an implacable sky, blue like the shirts
i saw you wear a couple times when you weren’t all khakis and tans and—
—and i guess what i’m trying to say here is that i miss you
I fail so hard at studying. I know this is terribly, terribly rough, but I need an outside perspective on it. Rip on.
