Pumpkin Lane

2. I will not mention the last time I saw you. My mouth, so far from yours, I said I am afraid I will spend entire years trying not to need you. As if I wasn't certain. As if this wasn't my confession.

3. When you left I walked into the ocean. Not to drown but to held by something reluctant to let go.

4. "And it was so cold then, and so silent, and I loved you so much. Now it's hot, and dead quiet again, and I love you still."

5. I'm always soft for you, that's the problem. You could come knocking on my door five years from now and I would open my arms wider and say 'come here, it's been too long, it felt like home with you.'

6. When does a war end? When can I say your name and have it mean only your name and not what you left behind?

7. I wept and wept. I had come to believe that if I really wanted something badly enough, the very act of my wanting it was an assurance that I would not get it.

8. "I just miss you, in a quite simple desperate human way."

9. I bet on losing dogs I know they're losing and I'll pay for my place

10. And there's nothing, that I can do, Except bury my love for you.

11. And if four long years come to nothing That's all right But it's your birthday It's your birthday tonight And I went to buy you something But I caught myself in time And nothing makes any sense anymore But everything rhymes Die hard Die kicking Old habit of mine

/end ID]

Caitlin Bailey, from Solve for Desire: Poems; “To G, after the party”