Book you’ll never read

We lived and breathed fantasy.

You were a novel character

come to life, just as cocky,

sharing the same flaws, same

eyes. Same flair for the dramatic,

villian-become-hero. And then

we’re face to face at some dance

and the pen in my hand can’t help

but write frantically, penning

the story before we enact the scenes,

like Hollywood lovers putting on a show.

I can balance director with actor.

And the stories we would tell…

we put Swift to shame. Long distance

only made the dreams wider, wilder,

until they filled the expanse of sky,

hung bright like stars, heavy

as storm clouds. Sending messages

over the phone like Romeo throwing rocks

at Juliet. Too bad in person we were never more

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than fashionable strangers.

But this is a book you’ll never read,

a book I’ll never write.

Galaxies away

My girlfriend lived

three galaxies down,

between a sun and a field of black holes.

While other lovers charted

great heists to borrow the car—

steal away to the soda shop

—I was transported to vistas as vast

as Middle-earth, skies as black

and young as space. Let’s get married

on the back of a spaceship

skimming the clouds like cream,

gently plowing the snow of the sky.

None of the girls I knew

had dreams like me,

had enough vision to see

beyond the past and lingering

present—what do you want to do

on Earth? I could have grown

into a permanent fixture in the yard,

tangled in vines and uncertainty, waiting

for any other voice to respond.

But my girlfriend talks ideas

like sailors talk ocean

and ocean talks waves,

crashing over me. Together

we’ll remove the mask,

face the human condition and give it

wings. A world that doesn’t worry

about something trivial as hunger.