In Love & Left Out
of L.M.

i.
can I make your cell phone
vibrate in your jeans pocket
wherever you are, whoever you're with

were you prepared for me
to want you like this
to need you like this

to need to reach you out of the blue
out in the deep, needing to know
if you're out fishing, out to lunch
out on the town, out of town

out of your clothes, out of your skin
or out of your mind

I am out of my mind or almost
over needing to make contact

to know exactly where you are
what you're doing

where could you be, who could you be with
why I've not heard from you

I had to go and fall in love and be left out
out in the cold as hot as it is

my baby, nowhere to be found
pen alone to seek you

no cell phone, no cell phone number
to make your phone
in your jeans pocket
vibrate when I dial your number

when we parted at the bus stop
I hadn't a clue it would have been this long
this gap
between then and when next we met

this unexpected separation

am I in your heart and thoughts
to the degree, to the extent
that you are haunting me,

causing me to ache and long
to pine and yearn, sick with missing you
from how much I'm missing you

here imagining, someone else
is holding you, keeping you, kissing you

who was it who called while we were out
who interrupted our date

who has your cell phone number
when I don't
connected to you, when I'm not

ii.
so you have become another one
of the few persons, I suffer to see

bleeding poems, weeping poems
peeing poems in the interim

to fill in the space, to fill in the time

difficult, the times to live through
that I must live through
without you

without a word, without a sign

without a bit of knowledge
of your whereabouts


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2011
Written between 7:10 p.m. and 7:48 p.m.
on Monday, August 22, 2011