Writer

"this is the end 
of a chapter,"
you said before you left
last night.
i closed the door
behind you like the thin
page of a book. 

i thought to myself, 
if this autumn has been a chapter 
i want to meet who's
writing us. 
what do they look like?

i imagine him in his bedroom
at a wooden desk, typing
under dim yellow lamp glow.
he eats microwave macaroni & cheese 
& sometimes orders
a pepperoni pizza. 
he lives alone. 

his lover died when 
he was 22 & he never wanted
to get over him.

i said to you last week,
"i don't think i will
ever marry more than one
person, not because i believe
in soulmates, but because 
i don't want to go through
it all again. if you die
i'll go live alone
by the ocean."

the writer was talking
about himself, speaking 
through his character,
though, i meant every 
word that i said.

the writer opens his window 
to taste a rush of december air
& contemplates taking 
a walk. we took a walk 
& it was too cold for us
to hold hands. he loves
making us walk, especially
in the city.

he always wanted
to move to new york
but never did, he thinks it's
too late for him. he has
a coffee machine & he watches
the dark liquid fill
the pot each morning.

i appreciate the writer's
attention to detail, especially
the work he put into writing you:
the specificity 
of each ring he imagined 
on your hands, the light 
clinking they make when your
fingers brush up against each other 

your eyes swirl like tide pools
full of snow. i think he took
them from the skull of his own lover,
how else could he have 
imagined them?

are characters allowed to have
hopes for what happens next?

i go out each night
in search of the writer. 
i pace the street, thinking
that maybe he's in one
of these houses.

i look up to the sky full
of shy stars & airplanes
that want to be birds & say
"are you there writer?
i don't want to live
alone by the ocean."