oh these buildings--

i remember us as a vacant 
& beautiful building-- 
the kind that teenagers
crawl into the eyes of at night
& sit on the floor to tell 
all their uncle's ghost
stories-- they speak fear
as a for of exorcism-- 
here there are nooses dangling
like intestines from the ceiling--
they try to swallow themselves
but get knotted in dry cob webs--
they undress each other there
after leaving their canvas shoes
inside of the front door-- 
make a home
in our dead walls--
this is where you once
cut the bottoms off
my roses so that they would live
longer in the vase-- where you 
leaned up against the frame of the
window & listened with your whole body
to the chickadees 
in the twin evergreen trees
we never strung a hammock between-
this is where you wiped your feet
on the porch-- where we
kissed collar bones like
shoe horns-- 
put ourselves on each 
other's feet to walk up
into the attic where the floor
boards always sounded lonely-- 
the spaces we enter with
each other are somewhere else--
there is no building for
me to leave my shoes
inside the front door-- no window
to trace a shadow cast by
your body-- knock over the
vase of flowers only 
to find the water itself 
was a myth--
the roses grew from my own 
mouth-- swallow thorns like
cob webs--
i made this building from
pictures untaken 
& the words
we never wrote down--
i won't pretend to remember
in what kind of why you tried
to love me-- 
i won't make this another poem about
love-- this is a poem about the buildings
we leave for people--
the eyes smashed in by baseballs & 
the nooses hanging from the ceiling
where we drank the water from
the vases-- drunk off rose feet--
wear me as shoes next time
you walk up a staircase--
wake up with me in a knot
of lonely floor boards--
we have become one of those houses--
the ones that everyone & no one
has been inside--
where the picture frames are askew 
& you wouldn't recognize this building
as ours if you were to walk by--
barefoot & looking for your shoes--
i kept them here as a memento--
sometimes i wear them but they're
far too big for me to walk in--
& if i'm correct you keep your
own empty building for us--
maybe you even visit there &
behind those walls i am still hugging
you around your neck like a scarf
or maybe i'm sitting in the windowsill
waiting again
for me cue to fall--
the buildings we leave vacant for each
other exist so that when we remember
we have a place to take our bodies
to mourn everything we could never
have saved quite the way it happened--
but after all--
you & only you gets to decide how
you want to remember yourself &
everyone around you--
i like that image of you
in the window-- a shadow-- a boy
who listened with all his windows 
open & his shoes waiting
inside the front door--