You know I would write your name

Across my mattress after dragging you to

Friday Night Slam at the Nuyorican

Barely three poets in I’d ask you “Do you want to come home with me?”

And you would say “I thought you said you liked live poetry?”

I would breathe onto your neck

“Yes, I like alive poetry

You, My bed, Right now”

When we would get to my apartment

I would slam you against the bed,

Reach for my dresser,

And throw you a pen and a sheet of paper.

The smirk you had all the way home would fall

“Really?”

Catching your smirk I’d say

“No.

But tell me you don’t have a million things

To write about after you kiss me”

Two nights

Two nights ago, I dreamed you raised my legs and mounted them onto yours.

I rested my head on your shoulder. You clipped my toenails.

Like the most intimate we’ve never been.

Last night, I thought of you while  he raised me onto his lap.

I hoped that somehow all the gin and tonics could fool and cast a mirage.

I closed my eyes, could almost see your eyelashes and count them.

We interlocked fingers. I pretended they were yours welding into mine.

Heard his voice. It sounded exactly like that drawl in yours.

I imagined it was you talking to me through the pillows,

Distilling my body.

In the morning, I felt my dehydration.

I reached over for an oasis, but found a desert.

Reached over for you, but felt him reaching over to me, instead,

Canopying me with his arms, trying to get me to join him in his slumber,

But I, I couldn’t sleep. 

I thought, how funny it is that often people say they fall asleep best when they’re next to their lovers.

But if I were with you, I don’t think we’d ever get much sleep.