A Toast

A Toast

For all the times I baked a pie for you

Knowing you’d tilt your smile my direction—

For all the times I asked and you said soon,

And by avoiding you thought that you had won.

For all the times I slept against your breath

And hoped you’d stay to keep my feet warm.

For all the times I thought I’d fix that mess

Of spines and blinders without getting torn.

But even with the blinks and all the smiles

That never quite rang true, I know I tried—

But even with your heartless, heatless guile

It wasn’t ‘til you left I learned to cry.

            We both had orbits never quite our own—

            We caused the brick walls to crumble and drown. 

Ginger

The ceiling above my bed

Was cracked the night we met

By the storm that turned this

House onto an x axis.

I couldn’t stop staring,

Freckle-counting and still caring

For the constellation-faced

Boy with impeccable taste.

I piled my books up high from the floor,

Fortress walls, like I’d always done before.

Do you remember laying like stars

On the concrete, comparing our scars?

I remember singing Billie Holiday

Classics, and dreaming one day

We’d fall asleep on each other

The way you always said we would.