I wanted to meet you
on a level playing field.
Someday you would invent romance.
Grow enormous trees
in hearts too little to breathe
by themselves.
I wanted to meet you
outside the kitchen door
where you knocked.
I wanted to play with you
before you scared me
with your poems.
Before I could no longer
look over your head,
or race you and win.
Then, there was no one
at the door.
No one waiting for me.
No one to be more important
than the sun rising.
Now, I don’t look.
I don’t listen.
I don’t want to find
emptiness out there.
I open another door now.
Your pages about love
and places I’ll never see.
I race through your poems
every day,
except when I can’t get up
for missing you.