Writing on the Window

I'm determined to move us into the woods, so deep your lips chap and crumble like dry leaves on the forest floor. I promise I won't mind them on my cheek. Going home, that's what it will be like for me.

It was dark when the baby and I came home tonight. I sat in the truck with the radio loud, wishing you were here to open my door and shine the flashlight before my feet as I carried the baby into the house.

I'm sorry I don't miss you enough until you are gone for a couple of days.

I thought about country boys this evening. I sat down with a cold one and tried to remember the last time I popped the top on my own beer when you were around. I tried to remember the last time I changed the oil in my truck. I tried to remember the last time I replaced a fuse in the box.

It's hard to remember life pre-you.

There are nights I don't wake you, even though the loneliness within me holds strong like the hay bales we curled into the first night you took me in the barn. I know you want me to roll over, mash my palm against yours, but I let you sleep because you have to work in the morning, because I'm proud, because I like the way my leg twitches and my stomach lurches whenever I get sorry on myself.

'Am safe. Love you,' you sent through the phone tonight, when you used to write to me in the dirt on the backdoor window.

I'm determined to move us deep into the woods, so deep cell phones have no service, so deep that I can stand on the back porch with a cup of coffee and call you in, so deep you roll over and hold my leg still during the night.