Between Us, She’s Better

I am jealous of the person I am in my dreams.
Easy-going with just the right amount of softness.
I am not so large, not so loud, in my dreams.
My voice does not grate against the air like an unpleasant violin.
I don’t take up as much space
and my smile doesn’t falter.
My eyes are just the right shade, like there is a hidden sun behind them.

My skin is unblemished,
no longer holding burdens I may have forgotten.

I am jealous of the person I am in my dreams. I think she’s better than me.
But really I’m only jealous
because I know you’d like her better too. Everyone likes her more.

And I wish that just for a moment she’d be just as bad as me.

But she is kind, and greets me with a hug.

Bare

There’s glimpses of you,
stuck in the empty spaces of my bookshelf. Everything that could possibly be you is bare, and I have never seen something so blue.

You are the blankets stuffed haphazardly at the top of the closet along with the unfinished paintings,
and empty pictures.

I wish I could transform the pain of you not being here into a string of beautiful words, something amazing.
I can’t.