goodbye is only we’ll see

when I sat up you were
there, waiting for me
and I shadowed the
smile on your face
so now we both smile
with each other
a wave that rolls
around a bank
there is still the sand of the country
in your toes
the sun, the
poverty,
and clicking bugs you
avoid as you step
I am the clean pavement
a luxury
I crush
roaches
squeal in motion with the
water
this wave has
rolled right over
your sobered eyes
are still squinting
I can almost see the
crows feet
it breaks
and crashes
on the shore

(c) Caitlin Crowley

I don’t know, please

why do I clean the messy
rat-tails in the evening
when all I want to do is
lie in the cluttered piles of
papers with your name and smell
steam blend with your hair
the shy girl never fades away,
your desperate friend forgiving our speechless grip
there are moonlit nights when my voice is raspy and
I am awake and jeering
there it is
the ugly reminder of what happened to us
I’m shaking my fist at some
sick cusp of reality
you’ll never know that
I keep these things on a
lockdown with the key burnt dead
we could be wasting time
together
but instead you fish sadness from
the pools of your eyes and I waste it
alone
don’t
leave, don’t turn away
just stay, just be here
one time is all
I have courage to ask for

(c) Caitlin C.