sometimes I feel half full of lies.

oh, i haven't told you about that before?

i guess there’s a lot of things i haven’t told you of the late.

secrets i haven’t breathed into your ever listening ears,

or exhaled into your coconut lotion hands

that always catch the words in my tears.

did you know that when I yawn I fall into the vacuum behind my ears

where magicians find their pennies, and on the good days,

quarters?

the fan is silent tonight.

it is every night.

and yet as I thrum with exhaustion,

I anticipate a reaction.

Perhaps it's the way the dark stares at me,

the way you stare me until I drip into a purple crayon again--

The moon is framed by my window tonight,

in the summer lighted on by streetlights.

Harold draws a picnic of pies, and I draw your outline right next to mine.

Everything is happening right now, nothing is happening at this moment.

I shake, eyelashes flutter, until I am soothed by the sounds of Mom's late night snack.

scraping pots, you tell me I'd still be cold anyway.

rushing water, you drag me from my dramatic waterfalls and deposit me on the bed.

clanking cupboards, you close the door and promise that I'll find you.

I cover my eyes and count to twenty, but you are still nowhere to be found.

and then I remember you're supposed to be happier up there,

guzzling the expanse of sunlit tea that is the sky.

it must be nice wherever you are, for you to like it so much.

do you have a good book to read, while you wait for me?

I’d ask you to come out, come out,

wherever you are,

but you’d be a smart Alec and tell me you’re already here,

in some nook with a flashlight, living another life in a stack of pages.

anyway, I've got to go to bed now. I've collected far too many quarters.

I'll leave the half-eaten moon on my window for you,

and toss half a fountain of change,

light a poem on fire, let the incense rise.

and half asleep, sculpt you from the smoke,

while you, with a plastic butter knife,

split our pining 50/50.