For a certain poet

I know you will see this.

So please hear me and know

That I am envious of how you write like you’re truly alive

With your characteristic hyphenations and conglomerations of words

And punctuated line breaks and italics

Your breathy refrains and the wind you send under each line

Let me feel Kentucky and Chicago though I’ve never been

And you seem to capture truth so resolutely in your hands

and store it somewhere in that hollow of your chest,

The place I thought I’d briefly inhabit

Because I ache to be wanted

I am convinced you can breathe blue sky straight into your lungs

and you must feel the vastness of the earth and the heat of the fire tucked in its core, though

I don't understand how.

You’re not very tall, how can you reach every corner of the world?

You are the character from the fairy tales I read,

A curious boy with riddles and poetry in his pockets next to the other miscellanea.

You are the mysterious old recluse who keeps trunks full of knowledge and stories, and

Yes, I would love to see them.

Somehow you are also the weird witch I love for all of her oddities and the way she knows me.

How can you be so vivid, loud, elegant, alive

I am just as young as you,

Where is my life?

I held a baby last week

He cried and fussed as I awkwardly rocked him in my arms.

I had the feeling of jamming pieces from different puzzles together,

breaking the edges of each while trying to make it work.

A heavy shame flooded my face with red heat and you were in the room

I heard your longing for a child, echoing in my memory

And suddenly we were on the roof again,

Talking of names.

In my memory you smell like rain;

It’s because of that poem of paradise you shared with me

I remember the haikus from our half-paradise now too,

and the flower crowns and fae-king manners and deer and dancing and running

and your frustratingly calm smile

And the silly and hearty laugh you always withheld from me.

Maybe I should have told you I loved it; would you have laughed more?

I have decided there is nothing worse than a friendship stained by romance.

The affection in the wreckage is blown away and scattered adrift

In waves where it will never make sense.

Some little girl on a beach will find a piece of ours and tell her mom it’s from a pirate ship!

Sure kid, it is.

I hate to think of what might have been;

I don’t mourn the end of our relationship but

With you, I do have one regret:

I wish I was more selfish

Demanded more,

And drank up your laughter and smile and

All of your thoughts

I wish I had asked you how

How do you write

What are you chasing?

I have tried to find it, that picture of the paradise you reached for

Scoured the magazines, the same issues over and over because I’m sure I missed it,

then I remember where I saw those words:

It was private.

I’m sorry for the way I treated you.

You deserve more kindness than what I had to offer.

But I want you to know:

I love reading everything you write

and you are among the only poets who can make me feel forces of nature with their words.

You are strong, imaginative, and perfect for this world.

I don’t miss you, poet, I hope you know.

But I will admit to missing your brain, your art, your friendship.

I’m so lucky to have known you intimately.

With gratitude and a love that comes from somewhere inside me, I hope you find paradise.

By Nicole Weber