This is Not a Love Poem

I hate being nineteen, I thought to myself

Tracing my palm over the cheap globe resting beside the Dan Browns 

And chick magazines on a café table,

The night your plane took off after a three hour delay for the storm.

The construction workers, in their King Kong laze, didn't bat an eye

When I measured you would only be a finger and a half away

-And my fingers aren't even long, I sighed-

Wishing they could dissolve the ocean that would be between us

From now.

In my last letter, I had attached a stray feather of the sparrow

That made its nest inside the fan of your balcony last July

So you would recall a home, if not yours, and think about visiting

If ever you dare to look back. 

It's 3:45 am at your place now and too late

To type you my words;

So I send a photo of the city's monsoon sky you miss

And deny this to be the love poem

Of a nineteen year old escapist, constrained;

I only wish it were.