Missing [the idea of] you.

Could you have loved me

for who I am,

not for who

you wanted me to be?

I would have tried

to do the same.

We’ve changed,

you and I.

The sameness has passed,

and difference

remains.

Amidst the ways we’ve grown apart

and shifted

and been lost

and

endured loss,

I throw rocks to heaven

hoping

to break the arm

of the one

you think told you

what you told me.

God knows I’m a liar,

a heel-grabber,

a holy misfit of heresy (or truth).

Will you honor

my wrestling

like the man

with my name?

I still remember the touch

of your lips

in the brisk, September rain.

You, glorious, dancing.

Like Pentecost,

or the Spirit Dance

of the Lakota.

The miles have taught me the name

of that which haunts me.

Her name is grief.

She whispers to me

like the One whose name is holy,

speaking to me in ways

only my soul seems to know,

like waves

and sunsets

and clouds

and heartbreak.

The scent of coffee bean

off Washington Street,

the sound of laughter

after too much wine to drink.

I miss you.

I miss the idea of you.

And maybe one day, when the sadness is at its best

I’ll write you a letter

with no return address.

God knows I couldn’t bear for you to write me back.

And I’ll put a postcard in it,

one with the Space Needle in the background.

The kind that’s simple, but, holy — only as a postcard can be holy.

Mass produced in a Chinese factory,

that postcard to you from me.

I’ll slip it in your mailbox

on a trip back home

and hope that you’ll

love all your future loves

with grace and

mercy and

laughter

and

love.