When I sit down and think of
you,
as if on queue I feel like a crater might open up
beneath me at any second,
swallowing me whole in one traumatic, melodramatic
gulp.

And I know that when I plummet
down
down
down
and further yet down, I’ll
exceed the speed of light and sound, set afire and
Hellbound. But then I’ll close my eyes and
swallow my pride. Because although the journey is
no doubt unnerving,
I’m every bit deserving of the ride.

He and I
sat on his bedroom floor planting a garden last night,
silently hoping that something might sprout.
Because we can’t shake this drought and
the water is stagnant.
He knows, and I know that the new life we’ve sewn
will flourish and thrive
because to keep it alive is to follow
the recipe.
So there we were on the ground;
hand over water,
water over soil,
soil over seeds,
the very least they need
to blossom and grow.
That might be what we needed, a formula
to help us bloom in
the cover of the night,
a strong man with a green thumb to
clip our blighted leaves before we dried up
and blew away in the wind.

But he’s not a seed,
and I am not water.

So let us sit and dig
through the dirt spilling onto the floor
and implore this new life to burgeon.

and lie down beside me.

Lay your anxious head on my chest to
cancel out the echoes
of our ugly words and absurd thoughts, just

Breathe.

For now we’re distraught.

But remember,
our distress today says nothing of yesterday,
nor which way tomorrow will steer us. Whether it be high or low,
you need to know that I’m only here because
I want to be.

Because to be here with you, and you here with me,
is to create the most beautiful storm.

His eyes burn so brightly,
they’re so amiable. Tell him.
If only to loll in their glow
for a moment.

Uncertainty.
It latches onto my frame, suffocating me,
extinguishing the tender flicker
that I long to feed.

But he’s breathtaking.

Bathed in light, sculpted with precision.
His figure merely a vessel,
a perfect receptacle, designed
to defy the weight of the stars.

But he is not mine, and I,
not his.

Nevertheless, his lips are full bodied,
kindred to a ripe cherry wine.
The power of his smile so electrifying,
it paralyzes my soul, frozen in time.

With eyes capable of holding every star,
every solitary wonder. He is resplendent.

But nevermore, mine.

Tonight I decided that I love the way that he looks
at me.
With eyes softer than infinite rolling clouds,
they make the finite
nature of my haphazard existence feel appreciably less
confining.

Have you ever met a beautiful soul whose fate
rendered them useless
60 years too soon?
Who, like the moon, had a gravitational pull
strong enough to move mountains? With a voice
so gentle and full, that it could lull the world to sleep?

If you have, you should know
how that creeping notion grows until you’re
entrapped
in an infinite web
of why them and not me’s. No self-fabricated answers
can remedy the craving
for a finite explanation.

I yearn for an idea, though
a meaning would be preferred.
Like a dictionary definition, a simple collection of words,
to sum up
why
I’M still here.