Que triste es asumir el sufrimiento,
patético es creer que una mentira
convoque a los duendes del milagro,
que te hagan despertar enamorada.
                     –Ricardo Arjona

I cannot write beside you in bed at night.
It makes the distance of inches unbearable,
and in turn memories of cold December sun-
shine and high end hotel sheets unburied by verses
I thought I had forgotten, the realization
that some Guatemalan singer said it all
years ago: how it hurts, the distance, that although
I hear you breathe, you’re hundreds of miles away,
and on, and on, better words than my own,
and besides the sound of my typing keeps you
awake, huffing impatiently in the screenlight,
resenting me for such clichéd closeness,
for perhaps the failure to find the right analogy,
for yet another song I never showed you.