For an Old Friend

Dearest,

Somewhere across the universe from me you're admiring my neat smile.

An artist painting a canvas to cover up tears,

A blind beggar relying on the strangness of our kind.

I sometimes wonder how my heart tastes-

like graduation flowers?

or yellow paint?

Maybe when you packed your boxes you forgot to give it back.

Through cigarette breaths, you never felt the neck of my dress choke me,

Or maybe you just forgot to ask why I was turning blue.

I sometimes wonder if empty boxes always get thrown away.

At the end of a long year, this pit feels the breeze on evenings, the sun in the leaves, the bite of an embrace