I am the word thief,
devouring, chewing and then spitting it back out
with a twist.
whatever I say,
it’s been said before
in sunlight barns,
fields full of insects and warm soil,
snow bitten winters with cold, cold nights,
and on city streets brimming with steaming people on hot asphalt.

she told me,
as she beamed with pink lips and flushed cheeks,
that this is what I can do.
God, I agree,
but it’s good to know I’m not alone.

you’re forever gone,
away flying your kite
against the baby blue, mile high sky.
there’s always a lipstick in your purse
that you never use because it washes you out
and gets smeared on his cheeks.
baby, baby
you’ve gone too far away from me now.
he’s your everything,
and I’m waiting for you to remember last July.

come back,
come back to me.

the lights dimmed and there was a shuffle of feet
until I was alone
with wet eyes and warm hands.
you’ve been gone for six years
but I’d never felt so far away from you
until the show was over and the lake was too busy
for girls with dark eyes and trembling hands.

thank you for the ribbon
thank you for not leaving until you needed to.

I’m driving over cracked asphalt
and past sad looking houses,
turning the music louder until I can’t hear myself singing along.
my heart pounds
faster,
faster,
faster,
and I push down the pedal harder to keep up with it.
It won’t stop,
I can’t reach the breaks.

I think I’ve started to not know you anymore.
I’m tripping on easy words
and I’m distracted by how different you seem
when you’ve finally started swearing and grown your hair out.
my fingers have taken to shaking,
my head has taken to pounding,
I’ve started to stay awake to hear the birds sing about the morning on my window.
I left my sunroof open and flooded the cloth seats,
you didn’t respond and ran off into the night.

“Afterwards” by Danielle ate the Sandwich

supernovas lay silent on the living room floor,
dusty in bright in the april air.
I know you like I always have,
new and quiet and confused
as the day I found you leaning on the piano.
we haven’t escaped the teenage angst just yet,
it’s biting at my heels and telling me to run,
to find a new piano.

I’m a young body in a grown up dress,
peering into the mirror and wondering
when my hair got so long
and my eyes so much darker.
tomorrow is so heavy on lips
and quick on my tongue,
I never noticed the freckles that are resurfacing.
I didn’t notice that I don’t pray anymore
or that the books on my nightstand are dusty and cold.

I didn’t realize that there will be a day soon,
much too soon or not soon enough,
that I’ll be very far away,
grown up without a lace dress.

I spoke to you with surprising strength
as I leaned over the darkly lit canopy
that hung below the balcony.
you wave around words that you cant spell
and I smile as the breeze whispers and pulls at my hair.
you’ve danced and fallen off of the break wall,
crashed into waves and chased off the years
that you know are slipping away.

we’ve got months,
no longer the eternity that once was placed before us.
we’re singing on borrowed time,
humming a line that’s about to be taken back,
like a rented car on vacation.