I am afraid.
Afraid that I will lose you
To the merciless entropy of the Universe,
Or to the inexorable mystery of God’s plan,
Call it whatever you want, but whatever it is
I am afraid that it will take you from me at any moment,
And that I will be alone again.

I am afraid.
Afraid that every moment with you will be the last,
And our last shared experience will be an insignificant goodbye,
And that will be the last memory I have of you.
That is why I insist on physical contact, because
It reassures me that you’re real and
I am afraid that if I don’t constantly remind myself
I will forget what you felt like,
And then I will forget what we felt like.

I am afraid.
Afraid that I will lose you and not remember you,
That I will feel an unbearable and aching emptiness
And not know why.
I am afraid of fading memories,
As they suggest an essential futility in the beautiful endeavor
That was us.
They suggest that we is incapable of being constant,
That we is merely a rotation of the stone
As it continues its mossless journey to the sea.

I am afraid.
Afraid that in losing we I will lose a part of myself
And remain forever broken and immutably unwhole,
Unable to put myself back together because
My pieces are missing.
I am afraid that we is an essential part of me,
And that I will never recover from the loss.

I am afraid of losing you and afraid of losing me.
I am afraid of being alone and afraid of being broken.

I am afraid that we will lose we and
Then nothing will ever be okay again.

I am afraid.
I am afraid.
I am afraid.

“stranger”
that’s a curious word
new people
aren’t really strange
they sparkle
unblemished by memory

soon enough
a faint falter
a clink in the armor
A speck of brown in
your ocean blue eyes

slowly at first
the cracks began to grow
rust rose to the surface
like the way age paints the sea

there was no breaking moment
just gentle tapping
once pristine edges
smooth from rust

before me
no longer was
a shiny person
uncovered was
a beautiful rusty person

They say there are seven wonders of the world
I say they obviously haven't met you

i have racked my mind
trying to figure this whole thing out
the staying, the going
the threads we claim hold us here
& the people who've stopped to play a tune on them
i sometimes relate it
to waking up in waist deep snow
in our former selves
the us we wish we could give one another
the children we've sat on the shelves
trapped, like the looks
we leave behind in snow globes
i sometimes imagine ships
dragging the bottom to the sea of "me"
for sleep & pieces of my old self
to sell to the new one
like history doesn't repeat itself
it gets me wondering
if you too want an apology from the rain
or if you dream of burning family photo albums
and wearing the ashes like perfume
if you're anything like me
how i hope god chokes
on memories of me blowing out candles as a child
i know i shouldn't reference my reader  
but don't you know, the only difference
between alone & lonely is you?
that if my hands could talk
the only thing they'd be able to say
is "dear god we've missed you"
and how can you tell me it isn't love
when even the rain refuses to fall
in places where i've kissed you
i remember the day
you found my smile at a yard sale
it reminds me of how you'll leave
i wonder if when you go
you'll tell yourself
the person in the rear view mirror
is closer than they appear

We are critical.

We find flaws in
everything we see
because nobody
wants to write
about perfection,
even though sometimes
we wish we could just stay
staring into that
unblemished surface.

2. We are never satisfied.

We live our lives upon
mountains of
scrunched up
bits of refill and
ideas we gave up
trying to
express.

3. We never forget.

We write words about
eye contact made
three months ago
that we replay over
and over in our minds
even though it
stopped
being relevant.

4. We are fickle.**

Our emotions flash
from one
to the other
like strobe lighting that
disorientates us
until we feel as if
the world
will never be still.

5. We are exposed.

We don't know how
to keep our feelings
to ourselves so
we'll write them
down for
you to find
'accidentally'.

6. We are vulnerable.

We wear our
hearts on our sleeves
and won't lift a
muscle to fight back
if somebody tries
to break it
because we thrive
from the pain.

7. We will never stop.

We will never stop
feeling and
we will never stop
hurting,
we will never stop
breaking and
bleeding and
loving
even though the cycle
is endless
and we know what's
coming next.


We are addicted
to agony,
but we agonise
for the art.