Sometimes I get a chill, but those fade to your touch

A cold hand holds my heart while music
plays ahead of me; a dish of leftovers sits
and beckons - warm air redolent of slow cooking,
multicolored cushions and low tables
covered in plates of food and bottles of drink
conversation on six degrees of separation
where I am the divide, I am the import,
yet I feel as though I may belong
through an arm thrown casually behind
my shoulders. My mind empties and I am
a conduit of emptied drawers for some
might-have-been, equipment or items
purchased in solitude for a perhaps
tomorrow. I could see this as a farce, a facade
of could-have-been anyone. For a spiraling
moment, I do. But I am not this faceless
and I am the one who benefits from
these idle conversations, the brightly
colored booths, who has the pleasure of
watching you laugh; the way you always
press your tongue to your upper teeth,
a slight gasp beforehand, hearty and full, or
the sinewy movement against me and
quirk of your lip when you're just about ready,
and so I float back to myself, to that arm
about my waist so long kept in these
situations without a body to hold.
I will be the one with a name, a face,
lending action to your self-made assurances
that it wouldn't always end this way
with cobwebs in the corners of drawers
an empty seat on the couch and I
will be the fulfillment of those promises.

Patiently waiting for years of "we'll figure it out"

I am as a split seam
gushing through torn edges
I've been erased before
I'd learned to avoid the water
except now I'm in the lake again
will I find myself this time
the one who is not touched
put up on a shelf to rot

In this quiet room I wander the garden

Pressing my fingers gentle against leaves
their slick surface grazing against the pads
I gather the flowers to my face to breathe
until I come upon a stone
lifted from the soil it yields a tumble
of chittering and scrabbling beetles
tumbling across each other for purchase
I name them as my doubts
clinging to a clod of dirt the first falls
down into the rock's impression in the earth
remaining on its back without fighting
to right itself again
the second hides between blades of grass
hoping to be saved and at once forgotten
paralyzed by its own overbearing thoughts
cleaning itself compulsively
it takes a moment to locate the third
plodding steadily along the divot's edges
sampling the ground every so often
it looks up at me
I replace the stone with a private sigh
I've shared my thoughts as something of
plants grown in your own garden when
they're my buds, after all