I almost wrote about you on the subway but then
I remembered that I’ve been trying to find new things
to write about. I guess what I’m trying to say is that
whenever I look at your photo now,
taped inside my journal at a haphazard angle
with the corners peeled from touching it so much,
the ache of missing you is enough to fill an entire
ocean with all the butterflies from my stomach.
Sometimes I think about calling you
and listening to the dial tone on the other end
as a substitute for your breath, but then listening
was never really a synonym for being there.
Yesterday I saw an elderly man hand a prostitute
a bouquet of daffodils on the street
instead of money for sex. And I know that you
never liked my blue moods because they were too close
to bordering on cerulean, but suffice it to say
that the gesture made me feel like tearing up,
not because they were flowers or the man probably
had about five years left to live, but because
it reminded me of how you always kept giving me love
in the most unexpected ways.