The Blue Distance

Seven hours ahead and an ocean between us means your morning is my night
I’m reaching through the dark trying to touch skin that’s bathed in different light
the phone screen glows but can’t convey the warmth of fingers interlaced
or how your breath feels on my neck or how your absence leaves this traced
across my ribs like phantom pain like missing limb like hollow chest
where something vital used to live before geography possessed
the right to separate our bodies turn our love into abstraction
turn proximity to memory turn presence into satisfaction’s
opposite its punishment its proof that distance isn’t measured
just in miles but in the gap between the life we had and treasured

I’m stretching cross the blue distance reaching for a hand that isn’t near
my heart extends across the water trying to pretend that you’re still here
but pixels can’t replace your touch and words can’t fill the space you made
when you were here when you were mine before the distance came to trade
our bodies for our voices turned our bed into a screen
where we perform our love remotely isolated in between
I know the time difference by heart know when you’re waking sleeping eating
know your schedule better than my own this ritual of meetings
through fiber optics through satellites through infrastructure that connects us
while simultaneously proving how completely it rejects us
from actually being together from inhabiting shared space
from the casual intimacy of seeing your actual face
not pixelated not buffering not frozen mid-expression
just there across the table being real without compression
I’m tired of timezone math of calculating when to call
of missing holidays and birthdays of not being there at all

I’m stretching cross the blue distance reaching for a hand that isn’t near
my heart extends across the water trying to pretend that you’re still here
but pixels can’t replace your touch and words can’t fill the space you made
when you were here when you were mine before the distance came to trade
our bodies for our voices turned our bed into a screen
where we perform our love remotely isolated in between
The screen says you’re there smiling but I’m looking at a ghost
at a simulation of the person that I need and want the most
we’re synchronized through technology but fundamentally alone
each in our separate rooms our separate lives our separate zones
performing closeness engineering intimacy through apps
while the distance laughs and grows and opens up these gaps
between intention and reality between what we project
and what we’re actually living this sustained attempt to connect
across the void across the water across the fundamental fact
that love requires bodies requires presence can’t be fully intact