For Jeff

Both this poem and the next are ones that I found in my drafts from December, just weeks after Jeff died.  I've been missing him a lot lately, as I know I always will.  This month will only mark half a year since he left and it feels like it was both yesterday and years ago.

if I could have planned your goodbye
it'd be just you and me
sitting beside one another.
you'd read Bukowski
while I sipped wine
and the stars would watch.
I'd lean in close
but we wouldn't touch
electricity vibrant.
this isn't about you
I'd say when your voice grew tired
this is my goodbye.
the night would grow
upwards and outwards
infinitely.
you'd talk of the moon
and other beautiful things
and I would drift off.
but when you'd get up to leave
I'd wake so you'd settle
infinitely.
I have to go
you'd tell me
but this is my goodbye.
and we'd wait in that moment
with poetry and the night
infinitely.

For Jeff

 

I don't write poetry,
but you did,
even though you said that you didn't,
or that it wasn't very good,
so I wanted to write a poem to you. 
I want a poem that illustrates the moon
and what it meant to you
and to me
and for us. 
I want to write something that captures your struggle,
but also shows your strength
and the fault
of others. 
This poem would be short,
it wouldn't rhyme,
because we're not kids anymore. 
If we were kids,
you'd probably still be here. 
The trouble is,
I can't write poetry. 
I'd go on for too long about how you had a playlist about me
and how you loved me
even though I didn't deserve it,
even when I didn't deserve it. 
How you loved so fiercely
and how much I was afraid
of letting you down. 
I'd write about how you slept with my dog
that night I passed out on the couch
after too much wine
and not enough bonfire. 
How you just let him sleep with you
like it was something that you'd do
for the rest
of
your
life.
I'd have to mention tattoos,
and stealing volcanoes,
and marrying you at thirty-
that would have been five years away. 
But that would only last so long
before I'd write about my shame. 
How you loved me so much
and how I was afraid of it
so I needed space. 
A space that was two months
of no talking,
no communication. 
A space that is no longer measured in time,
but in feet. 
Six feet. 
Tears on the paper,
blurring the words,
the ink,
my guilt. 
If only I'd called. 
If only I'd realized. 
If only. 
If only. 
If. 
But we're not kids anymore. 
I realize that I can't write poetry and I can't bring you back. 
I realize that you're gone. 
Six feet.