Like a star 
You are distant 
Glistening 
In vast darkness. 

I must stand still. 
Look up. 
Gaze steadily. 
Impossibly try to capture seconds. 
But memories dim 
This moment’s gleaming. 

Like a star
You vanish in daylight. 
Some nights you are  
Obscured by clouds. 
Or you are dimmed 
by the sun’s reflection off the moon. 

Like looking for the star 
In hazy spaces in the clouds, 
I wait to glimpse you. 
Snap my phone to my eyes 
At the text tone 
Always alert. 
But it’s not you 
Again and again, 
So I pay a lot of tension. 

My stomach contracts 
As I wait for a chat 
A picture of a moment. 
Distant absence is doubled. 
With no expressions 
or gestures to read, 
I pay a lot of tension. 

Then, your face on my phone! 
Transported, I rise to your sky 
In the heat of your gleaming 
My muscles relax, 
As you light our nowhere. 
The moment passes, 
The picture fades. 

The words pass through, 
Too few, drifting away. 
I’m holding my phone 
Alone in nowhere 
Your imagined voice fades. 
Its absence heightens silence. 

I picture you 
To fill the blankness. 
But wondering about you more 
Means I pay a lot of tension. 

I am weak for you, 
Which is making me strong. 
You wind me up. 
Aching, I untwist. 
Like exercise it tones my nerves. 
Training them for when
You leave for good.