Here we are
Like always
Dog yelping
in the other room


I try to explain to you
My pain is like yours
Just fragmented
Amongst your own ghost

Don’t you see it?

The bruises of whiskey
The long sighs of relief
When you come home clean


Clean


Clean

Isn’t that a funny word?


I wait so long to hear it.
And then you whisper -
The essence of it.
It floats within me
For a fragment of time
Even if
I admit
It’s now on its’ ninth life,

Each time I beg
That your life
Still has truth

And then it goes out




The meaning of it all
And you laugh
Because isn’t joy
Just the ignorance of pain?


I’m crying
There’s tears in the living room now
And on the sofa where you spoke your first sound


I’m trying
To contain the little of my remains
But how do you die when you’re still living?


You look at me now
Those same eyes I saw
When you were four


Four and trying to show me
How your spaceship made of sand
Will take us far -
Take us to the moon
Take us there
And back

I’m standing in your room
And I’m trying
To figure out how I got us here
To figure out how to get us back
Do bottle tops shimmer like sand?

did we have better plans?
was the world ours?
was it going to be
something we could be?
and with that wish -
with that breath -
with that hold on the world -
it was ours
it was really yours
but with that
maybe it was mine
too

here we are
in this night
and in the next
- if we're lucky -
and we are alone
as always
wishing to be
something
that we are not
complicated
complicate
complications
and then the new
day
starts


around the world
we kiss
we give
we live
can we please
swear
that this is more
because
for me
this means more


complicated, i swear

take me away, my dear
to whichever land you call your own
where the strangers don't play alone

take me away, my love
to those in this world who don't know fear
to those who listen to what they can hear

take me.
take me to the edges of this earth
to the depths of the souls
to the laughter and the tears and
to all that is known

I hear us in the dark
when the rain falls on the dirt
it is clear now
there are secrets that both haunt and love our hearts.

There are all these secrets
shared among full rooms
and we are in one of them
quietly awaiting our own hearts.
You were young when I met you.
Full of breath
but now age comes fast
and the air in your lungs is less than half.
I loved you most in the morning
when the sun was rising and new
but I needed you more in the darkness
when all I knew I loved
faded with the time of day.

Here we are in the middle of it all.
And you lean into my heart
to whisper in my ear
"I love you most, my dear."

Follow your footsteps and
Fall asleep to your song and
Free from the tears and
Fasten the love and

and
and
and

there was this time
when I no longer cried
and i tried
to remember the last fight.
but you stole it
took it all
left nothing but my name.
it was just a name
burned at the corners
letters missing from your lungs
and i stood there in the sun
wishing for the cliche
of pouring rain
but you stole the moon
and the night
left me with the burning rays
and the ability to see
everything that used to be
and everything that is