There are too many too love songs

but still not the right words to express how I miss you
I miss you angel
I miss you like blank...
like there is not a good enough simile for this
and if you were here I would just point to this place
on 135th and Riverside when the sun was hanging low
and be like see?
Like that
I want to show this girl I was tutoring
and be like see?
This is what hope looks like
There was this girl I knew who radiated like the sun right now
and the warmth calmed a radius around us
Even the hardest hopeless here in West Harlem
would crack a smile at us
They don’t do that anymore now that’s she’s gone
I don’t know how to radiate on a constant like that
and besides I am a man, and the wrong skin color
Columbia students eye me
not realizing I’m not one of them
They don’t know I am New York City
I am New York City so hard I can only leave
for two weeks at most
before the concrete starts calling me back
She was Brooklyn by way of southern hospitality
which is to say, she was everywhere
Wherever was home with her
was where I belonged
I can only be anywhere for two weeks
before something reminds me of her
Still smell her
every time someone crushes a strawberry near me
There are places in this city I’m afraid to go to
because it reminds me too much of her
Sometimes I go anyway
because it reminds me too much of her
I get wary every time I start to a like someone
who shares a quality she had
Get crushes on television characters
who have her kind of strength
and redheads make me stupid
Maybe that’s why I like Amy Pond so much
I know that at my best
that’s also some of her shining through
There are still pieces of each other
we will carry for the rest of our lives
I’m lucky I got to keep the good ones
Know she didn’t get the same courtesy
People will say “just call her”
“You know she will answer the phone”
They don’t understand when I tell them no
it’s not my place anymore to explain why
and she isn’t here
I can get repetitive at stating the painfully obvious to myself
Starting to feel like a cliché now
Some cheesy song from some cheesy rom-com disaster
I will still watch every time it comes on cable
because sometimes yes,
I am really am that lame
and if she were here I would look her in the eyes and say:
“I’m sorry,
for the thousandth time,
I am so sorry angel...
but sometimes I am so good at this lonely it’s scary
and whenever I get like this I write about you
and I keep hearing so many love songs
that sound too much like me”