Ode to the open window

spring takes a breath

and the city is an open kind of empty

the inviting kind

has there always been so much space?

Ode to the breeze slinking between

window screen threads

and how we will not put on a sweater

This city is overflowing

this apartment bursting at the seams

with worry or

something else invisible

that everyone can see

But the sun threads its fingers through mine

we write poems about each other

my partner is smiling again

and we are having sex instead of lunch

Ode to the window chill and the forehead kisses

to the potted plants

to the little sister

who coughed out the winter

and woke up alive

I have been looking at the same cars

on the same street

and the same planted trees

who will be here long after

this empty space we made for fear

and what do they know about survival

but sunlight

untitled

when I came back to prague last summer you were the first person I saw

& yeah I was fine

just crying cause I thought you couldn’t hold a place

couldn’t hug home

& here you were

we stopped talking a couple weeks ago

probably for reasons we could have figured out

but I don’t think you wanted to

telling someone you aren’t worth their time

only merits so much sympathy before agreement

& I still love you

like I said I would

& you didn’t do anything wrong

just the only thing you were taught how to

like me

I always pick the people with the most scars

have lost too many friends to a world that turns them hard

the softest fruit always bruises the easiest

so I understand

why you left

or why I had to

there have always only been two options

you are either the knife or the cut & sometimes there is no more blood to spare

so you turn cold

so I leave

so I keep having dreams where you swear you hate me and I kiss your tired eyes

so you swear you hate me and I don’t let go of your hand

it was never me you hated

it has always been the blood

I’m holding our memories alone, and suddenly they are so heavy

We stopped talking in the same way I quit smoking; eventually you must outgrow the toxic thing. I don’t think of cigarettes much since quitting, but sometimes when walking by someone who is smoking, I breathe deeply. In other words, I still love you, but at times when you weren’t around, I forgot you ever were. If I have to be a type of lonely, this is as good as any. And, if someone had to die, lord knows you tried hard enough. When I found out, the first thing I did was smoke, and I haven’t stopped since. What I mean is: my head is still spinning, and I am tired of breathing you in. Grief is less how I imagined it would be, more hysterical laughter. Sometimes it is smiling at apologies and saying “we weren’t that close,” and sometimes it is collapsing. It is no explanation. It is picturing what your body must look like now, and wondering if it is any different than the ghost I used to know.