My flag is a traffic light
And at night it glows red and green
And I've seen everywhere
So I guess in that sense the road really is my home
And I've got poem after poem of what it was like to miss a home-cooked meal
Of what it was like to wake up and feel my arm draped over your absence
Breathing in your skin like incense
And I bet you never knew that when I'm sleeping beside you, I wake up to make sure I'm holding you
I feel like a mountain that doesn't know it's being climbed
As your breath is timed
With the in and out of mine
I rub my hand up your spine like it was the center line of a highway
With no stop signs
Hit the intersection where your shoulders meet your neck
And past the car wrecks of past boyfriends
Who parallel parked on dead ends
And I just hope your skin lends me an extra mile
So I can slow down,
Take a while to admire the landscape
And drape my arm over your being there this time
When it comes to your skin,
I'm a drunk driver,
Just trying to walk a straight line
And some days collapse on me like the nights
And I can tell I haven't slept when the light peeks through the blinds
And finds me with my eyes wide open
Hoping I can take all these poems I printed on post-it notes
Fold them into tiny boats
Then launch them towards the shores of your skin
Where they can begin to colonize,
Take up roots in your eyes
Weigh anchor in the harbor of your thighs
Until the tiny hairs on your body begin to rise
Like a million flags brought to mass
And at long last I no longer have to roam
And I finally understand those sailors who plant their lips to the ground
I do the same to your body, it's because you taste like home.
And what I said was I'll miss you,
What I meant to say was that I love you,
What I wanted to say was that I meant what I said
I miss you like I miss my own bed
After too many nights of sleeping on couches
Or hardwood floors
Or sitting silently behind the doors
Of hotel rooms became wounds
Breathing life in to this loneliness
I miss you
Like a burn victim must miss their own skin
I miss you like a sad ending
Must miss someplace new to begin
Because some say that the highway becomes a flat line
If you travel it for too long
I can't tell if that's true or false,
But I'm racing down it towards you trying to find my
Pulse