old depths

I can't remember the last time we saw each other too clearly, mostly I think of it as a haze of firelight and you looking at the ground and knowing the rocks wouldn't understand. you told me about your friend, and the train tracks, your house, not knowing if you were alive and not knowing if you were dead. The whole time I didn't know my shoes were cracking at the soles as they were held too close to the heat. I wanted to put my hands on the sides of your head but I think we lost that language between us a few years ago. Maybe we never knew it. Maybe next time I will be braver. Maybe next time I will do more than squeeze you tight not knowing when I will see you again. Maybe the next time I fall asleep on the mattress I got when I was four I will think less about the future and the past.
I understand you know, more than I think you know: crossing seas and continents teach you transit like nothing else. You always said once you moved away you lost the ability to hold onto things. I am reaching a point where I feel unmoored - restless and weighted at home and impermanent anywhere else. I have swam far enough out in as-yet calm water that returning to shore is weighed against stroking onward. I tread, still, listen for a storm, a landmass, a diligent call. And when I cup the water, it slides through my hands like the hem of your t-shirt; I can't hold it anymore, and maybe I never could.

missing the person who you sometimes sleep with

I miss you. I didn't know if I would I just thought that maybe
lying together wouldn't be enough for me to want to be next to you
when I am not. In a foreign bed though I am usually alone but not just
by myself alone like resting my body and things on surfaces and never
really sinking into When I get up in the dark morning I leave no impression
on the bedspread and when I shelve my books it is quietly without
disturbing the objects (a blown pufferfish) or other volumes (italian and english
dictionaries) on the shelves. You are two people in one. You are you when
we are together and you are my my body when it is at it's best and I miss both
of them but not as though they were a gaping hole but in a sudden flashing like
The sun by the duomo reminds me of the way you walk because it feels like
when we stand together with your hand on my hip. Usually I don't miss you
until I see a girl by the chocolate stand and instead of missing you I follow
her around the piazza.