jake.

I think I write you a love song in my head every day.

on tuesday, I was riding in your stickshift car
and I memorized the smell of the seats,
the pattern your cds made
thrown carelessly under my feet.
I listened to the clink of the gears
and wondered if that’s how you think of me;
someone waiting for all her pieces to fall back into place.

a few days earlier,
you picked me up out of the snow.
and it seems pretty simple,
but the whole walk back to the building,
I picked out all the ways that you love me.
and I remembered the night you slept on my bedroom floor
because I was too sad to sleep on my own.
and I remembered the nights we sat in the staircase or next to my dresser,
legs tangled together, and talked about the things that scare us.
and I remembered that friday night when I scared myself,
and you laid close and let me listen to your heart beat.
and each of those nights,
I wrote you a different song,
your name on repeat in my mind.

I wonder if you hear me
when I whisper to your closed, semi-circle eyes at night?
I tell you lots of things.
things that I can’t seem to say
when your turquoise oceaneyes are open.

and it’s hard for me to write about you
with the right kind of love.
it’s hard for me to talk about the softness of your hands
or the scent of the space between your shoulder and your neck
without sounding like those places belong to me.

and I like nothing more than feeling your hair on my face,
knowing that you’re close enough to keep me safe.
but on this sunday afternoon,
I am three hundred miles away.
I am five expressways, four floors, and three hours
from your calmdown face.

and the number of times I’ve thought about you
is something I can’t quantify.
the number of tears and the number of nights and the number of compromises
add up only to the most overwhelming tugging of my heart.

I miss you with more intensity than I ever expected.