Promise

We never promised each other much
we were always just kind of touch and go.
as if we knew we'd know that somehow we'd grow differently
so we did and we do
and none of this is to say that it wasn't worth going through
or that i care any less about you
shoulders to lean on are hard to come by.
I know because there were times I would have broken my own neck
just so that I'd have one of my own to cry on.

And I remember when each finger was a pawn
moving slowly across the chessboard of your body
and we made each game last.
Passed up each avenue of attack because neither one of us were trying to win
So how do we begin again when that feels like now and this feels like then?
When all I can do is tell you
"if you've got something that needs saying, tonight I'm paying dues."
I've got a pocket full of blues and two pennies to rub together
Which means I'm wealthy enough that I can finally afford to pay attention.
I'm listening.

And I know right now I'm somehow like that kid sitting in math class,
terribly aware of his first boner.
It's hard.
But difficulty has never been a good enough reason to describe
the effort it takes to make the good times and the memories worth having.
And they were and they are and I wouldn't have come this far
if you weren't worth the sleepless nights where abandoned appetites of a heart, now rail-thin, because of the constant hunger strikes.
In your absence, I'm finding value,
because what starves you carves you,
and I'm chipping away the rough edges of a statue
built to memorialize everything we've been through.
And when I'm done, I'm gonna set it against
the backdrop of the sun and stare just no matter where I go,
it'll always be etched into the back of my mind,
stenciled in behind whatever future I have left to find.

Maybe we were never meant to last.
Maybe we're only meant to reflect fondly upon a past where we cast ourselves in the lead role of a one-year sitcom.
One that had the critics standing, while putting hand to palm,
in an ovation we're still getting curtain calls for.
And the stage floor was a graveyard for the
freshly cut roses that we waded through
to take our bows and say
thank you.
It was beautiful.
And it was and it is and none of it was ever show-biz.
But we were waiting for lights to dim on a stage where we set ourselves to music.
As if the swelling violins could ever
mimic the hidden moments found in the theatre
where we kept audiences stapled to their seats.
And they watched us, looking for vacancies they could occupy in the spaces between our heartbeats,
as if silence was a room for rent,
and we both went "shh."
But the beats themselves:
they were loud enough to drown out the applause.
And we laughed at the ushers left looking in the aisles for the dropped jaws of patrons who still can't believe we took time to find beauty in the flaws we possess.
That there's only something better to be found in allowing our collective damage to coalesce.
And all we confess of ourselves forever
is that we will make it through this.
We're gonna make it through this,
like a big-ass jug of cool-aid with legs and arms
busting through a brick wall to quench the thirst of our loneliness and say "fuck yeah."

Yes, I miss you.
When I'm not looking, the softest parts of me
will issue restraining orders.
Not the kind that define borders or boundaries;
these are the kind that will keep me in place when I ask
"please, call me when you get there."
Because every somewhere I go to,
is just another place that reminds me I miss you.

And my broken heart is where I keep the scar-tissue
that I used to dry my eyes when a tear tries to make a break for it.
I've built my eyelids into an Alcatraz,
where every prisoner has a parole board meeting scheduled for yesterday. And they played dominoes until time comes full circle,
like a sun rise, and today tries to set them free
because they'll be locked up here until I let them go,
until it's safe to let you know
you're my best friend.
And that some things end
so that other things can begin.
Sometimes an ending can be an origin.
That history is a resin that can keep
two people stuck together,
that change can be a tether if you let it.

I'll always want to kiss you.
Or touch you.
Or do that thing that drives you crazy.
And by that, I mean you literally go crazy when I call you "cranky pants."
Sorry, but it makes me laugh.
And that's important to someone
who's given more than half of their life to tragedy.
I keep your side of the bed empty with a just-in-case mentality of
that hope's middle name is maybe and maybe you miss me too.
One day,
you and I are going to make it through this.
And we'll look back
and we'll realize
that we have,
and we did,
promise.