"eternal lines"

I didn't want you to become another story

another poem

another wrinkled scrap of paper to find

at 3 o'clock one distant morning.

I didn't want to immortalize you

and cheapen you

with my tired, overused

words.

I didn't want to make you something

to read later and regret

or criticize

or judge as something outside of yourself.

I'd ask you to forgive me

but to do that,

I'd have to explain.

Someday,

before I burn this,

I'll show it to you

(I lie again and again and again)

as something to laugh over,

another infatuation to be remembered and forgotten

but always never resolved.

I have sinned against the bond that does not exist

between you and I.

(You and I,

a phrase I should not enjoy so much in my mouth

but yet, I do, I do).

I mention you too much.

I notice your name.

I notice you in a room.

I notice how hard I'm trying not to notice

(this is Poem #1, after all, not #23).

It might be because I miss having

him

in my head

or because I miss having

someone

in my head

or maybe because you have a slow blooming smile

and intense eyes

(because it always comes down to crooked smiles and burning eyes).

And this

(I hope I pray I wish)

will be the last thing I write

about you.

(I know this is true and untrue –

I will write, I always write.

But I will not write about you

the way I want to write about you.

I will not write about

quivering lips

and your face in the morning

and your sleepy sounds.)