Back to the grind
I drive at the crack of dawn
Dragging yesterday's heartbreak
Lifting today's routine
And pushing tomorrow's anxiety

But steam rises from my sandwich
Walking down a pale carpet of Spam
Amid fluffy scrambled eggs and warm bread
She shivers in the car's AC
Her lithe form unfettered from all this worry

On her little stage she arabesques and pirouettes
Bathed in golden sunlight
With diffuse legs and arms
A routine written by thermodynamics
A spectacle only she and I know

This performance will last for the next thirty seconds
Already time is impatiently tapping its foot
But the steam cares not, for this is all she has
And there, waiting for the traffic signal
I am in the moment.

The knight strides forth to battle
In his suit of Maximilian
Sword-edges turn aside and bodkins bend
Powerless to pierce this fortress of steel

The visor veils his visage
His voice muffled within
Admirers acclaim the armor
Valor, virtue, and victory

But only she beholds
the man within the Maximilian
And her arms are his safest stronghold
His sweetest solace

They think Absence is a cruel mistress
A gorgon with brass talons who rends our bonds
And eats our hearts
Dousing flames
and snuffing out all the candles we lit together

But she is a gentle gardener
Sowing seeds of strength with calloused, work-toughened hands
Watering desire with the dew of distance
Counting day after day until the fruit of reunion is
Ripe and sweet and tender.

My vessel was a speck of stardust unchained from its Sun
Telemetry and course uncharted, crew remaining: one
A navigational mishap  made me lose sight of  her light
And flung me through the void into the everlasting night

I tumbled through oblivion away from all known suns
No up or down, no left or right, my navigation gone
All other functions put to death, save one enduring vow
I'd see this journey to the end, as long as breath allows

Strange worlds and aeons greeted me along the aether way
In hyperspace, it's all the same, and time itself's astray
My heart and soul began to starve, so I lay down in cold sleep
And let the stasis take my life; I'd no strength left to weep

But came the shaking and the shock, alarms blared left and right
And suddenly the cockpit filled with all-consuming light
I knew that glow, I knew that warmth, I recognized it all
I knew that spectrum wrought in love, your wavelength's clarion call

I cannot know the laws that God has written in the stars
Save one enduring truth that beats in distant quasar hearts
Your love, it resonates with mine, across the depths of space
Though time dilates and space contracts, our love remains in place

Though light years, gigaparsecs came between us in the void
My sun has captured me again, you've all my fears destroyed
Your gravity's almighty pull has shattered this dark tomb
And floating me on cosmic waves, your orbit brought me home

I'm sinking farther into the sea
Air cut off, unable to breathe

But it's not all too bad
The water's warm
and the fish look nice

It's a shame I can only see this
By myself
at the end.

When you fall into a well
Grit will not save you from gravity
Willpower will not cushion the bottom
Will not strip the algae from the walls
Will not keep you from slipping back down

There at the bottom
The platitudes of the strangers and bystanders
Bounce off the brick
Sounding endless and hollow
Especially when they think
I don't want to get out

I can scrabble my fingers raw
I can scream my throat hoarse
I can think positively until I go mad
But there at the bottom

Grit cannot dispel gravity
Fighting does not create friction
And the bottom is all there is.

Peeling off a scab
Is satisfying.
The ugly ruin above
Gives way to smooth renewal beneath.
I want to peel off the scab that I've become
To see that beneath the dried up husk
There is new life, new growth, new hope.