Distance Between Us

I promised I would write a poem

“I miss you, a little,” you tap

To my surprise

Because let’s be honest most people don’t miss me at all (and you’re way better than most people)

Except in the way that during the deep sweat days of August they miss the pure pristine grace of winter, until the white witch howls down from the pole slicing faces to frigid ribbons and singing in the season of testicular and labial frostbite

And they remember why they stopped missing it

“Did you mean that for me?”

I type fast like my racing heart, thinking it’s gonna be awkward one way or another so I might as well force the moment to its crisis

But I know you did mean it for me

Because I pretend to be a dimestore Bukowski (is there any other kind?) spewing romantically on the carpet, expounding between heaves on drinking and fucking

Instead of a timid Prufrock hanging in for my pension while sipping a solitary shiraz on Friday night

and you

pretend

to

believe

me.