This first poem I liked to pull out in the middle of a break-up to console myself. This poem, Bright Eyes, The Dismemberment Plan’s “Following Through,” and copious amounts of whiskey were my main self-healing tools in my 20s.

Bay Poem from Berkeley
by Sandra Cisneros

Mornings I still
reach for you before
opening my eyes.

An antique habit from
last summer when we pulled
each other into the heat of groin
and belly, slept with an arm
around the other.

The Texas sun was like that.
Like a body asleep beside you.

But when I open my eyes
to the flannel and down,
mist at the window and blue
light from the bay, I remember
where I am.

This weight
on the other side of the bed
is only books, not you. What
I said I loved more than you.
True.

Though these mornings
I wish books loved back.

This second poem is one that Matthew sent me when we were still pretending that we were just friends and we weren’t falling in love with each other. This was right around the time when we called each other every night and he would read me to sleep:

The Quiet World
by Jeffrey McDaniel

In an effort to get people to look
into each other’s eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn’t respond,
I know she’s used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.

I read this poem aloud to a friend after Matthew sent it to me and she said, “Jeffrey McDaniel! I love Jeffrey McDaniel!” and she shared with me a poem of his that she had memorized, which contained the line: “Your bed is a big, soft calculator where my problems multiply,” and I whispered that line over and over to myself that night. I was drinking whiskey then, too, but that night it was because I didn’t think it was possible that I’d ever get to spend time with this person that I liked so much, who lived all the way across the country.