asking for your outline

the shower drips on me / i look
for an affirmation that you are leaving
silver raindrops / my wet belly shaped
a deflated half moon

something is fundamentally missing
my body / his hands

i am sick of hesitations that pretend
to be confessions / confessions that
pretend to be poetry / the day is wasting
evening sky will be everywhere

i listen for the light and hope we grow
better
under the shower / leg is not a person
heart is not a person / i say hurt me but
what i really mean is hold me / provide
no comment / i run magnets across your
phone

picture an empty box to fill with your
desires
/ memories you do not want me to hold

i want something to hold too / i want it to
be
taken away from me / i want to wake up
bathing in lavender not fluorescent

dusk moans at the window
but you are allergic to purple / no moon
tonight
only you seeking an outline
/

forging your outline

the hour before sunrise
silhouettes are read in braille
in the midst of a purple rainstorm
i catch drops of silver on my tongue
dusk weeps over a flooded earth
where sky is always on the cusp of
night
twilight hurtling toward the
ground
the last time i saw you / you said
we know each other’s outlines
we don’t need them anymore
the hour before sunrise
there are only outlines
the night it was pouring rain
you didn’t meet me on the corner
twenty-two revolutions around the
sun
maybe you forgot / maybe you
were under
the other sky / the one without
hailstorms
the one without moonlight
confessions outlined in purple
still pour from one who returns
to another / she does not know
silver tastes of no return address
the hour before sunrise
it is raining and i am alone
you are out there too / somewhere in
the rain
looking for an outline / it might not be
mine
but we know this
we both know this

Originally published in White Wall Review 41 (2017)