It seemed to happen
suddenly.
But looking back I found it was
    g r a d u a l.
It started with
A grandmother 8 and
A mother at 11 and
Then a nother at 14
But then there was
A noose at 17
And after that it seemed to come more often
Then there was
A gun and a school and
   A bomb and a city
But there had been
Guns and
       Schools and
       Bombs and
       Cities
Before but now there were
People and
       Stories and
       Impact and
Suddenly there were friends of friends and
Family of friends and
Suddenly the inevitable shadow at the back of my cognition
Was coming forward and
The light was just that much darker.

It had not been absent from my life
I had never met
My grandparents or
My aunt but
Now I noticed it.

Was it always there?
Silent in the corners
Happening without my knowledge
or care? And
Now it was making itself know? Or
Had it been much smaller before and
Now decided to grow and
       Eat and
       Consume and
       Take and
       Make holes
Because how could it have hidden from me before?
Because it was big I was so small?

It had always been
          An idea
        An abstraction
In books and
       Stories and
       Serial dramas and
       Movies and
       Films and
       Digests and
       Papers and
       Drawings and
       Paintings and
       Photos and
       Movies and
       Sound waves and
       Radio waves and
       X-rays and
       Brain waves and
I remember the day I realized from
Ink on paper in
  Other shapes and
With wet eyes walked into my father’s office
With many I’s like
Don’t want it to happen to you and
Don’t want it to happen to mom and
Don’t want it to happen to sister and
Cat and
Fish and
Friend and
He said “it won’t”
But he knew and
      I knew and
We knew but
What can you say?

So maybe now the abstraction
Became the concretion and
No more could I cry “not me”
Because I was all the other me’s “not me”s and
Now there it was but
There it wasn’t
Always at the corners but
Never right there and
Maybe it never would be there but
Maybe the corners would just get bigger and
The there get smaller until there was no
There
Just corners and
Just darkness.

And maybe that was when it happened.

I sit in bed—
Usually at night—
Possessed with thoughts of you.
They run around in my head
And in my heart
And in my stomach.
Logging feet and meters and kilometers and miles and leagues.

And when I see you—
Sometimes during the day—
My heart begins to beat
Much in the same way it beats
When I see clowns
Or darkness
Or large crowds
Or people who I met once at a party and bonded with but now my sober personality is not quite as uninhibited to talk as we once did
Or any of the other things that terrify me.

And when I hold you—
At many different times—
The weight of your head on my chest
Is heavier than
The weight of your head on my chest
Because there’s also
The weight of your being on my chest
And that also makes my heart beat faster
But I think that’s just a circulation thing.

There are times—
Sometimes in the mornings when you wake me up
Sometimes in the mornings when I wake you up
Sometimes in the middle of the day when you make me laugh
Sometimes in the middle of dinner when we sit in silence
Sometimes in the middle of the night when I feel your breath—
When those words want to come out
But the muscles don’t work
My tongue and my lips
Forget how to move
And form the sounds.

Ah
Ee
L
Uh
V
Uh
Ee
Oo.

Easier done than said.