I took a multitude of universes from you
An infinite series of possible other yous
Each completing a life different from this one.
I can't give them back
You only ever do just get the one

But I look in the eyes of the old wives
And hidden in their words
Is the mourning for all the lives they couldn't live

And so I know what it means when you chose me.
Every day
I will not waste your life
I want to say
That each day
I will make the multiverse of you jealous that they don't live this exact life
But I know how life is,
So I can't promise a perfect life
I can only promise
That each day I will try

Forgive me when I think of lovers past


My heart is big, like a great house,
Like everyone's heart
The best rooms are yours,
The largest rooms are for you
The brightest, with the most sunlight are the ones where you are
Your voice echoes through them like music and the morning call of songbirds
But like a great house, long in its leaning
There are rooms not often used,
Rooms of memory
With dust and cobwebs, and shadow
That's where she lives,
If I go there and lift a sheet to reminisce over an old picture
Don't imagine I would invite her back to live
Someday those rooms too will be yours,
I am still rebuilding
It takes time to remodel a heart

Here I am in this photograph
Let me exist
For a moment in front of you
Captured
Here I am in this exact moment

Dissolve the pretense of the present
Roll back the subtle layers
That we wrap around ourselves
To protect our fragile selves from the judgment of existence

You watching now do not know
What lengths we went to
What spells we wrought
To justify in our minds
The choices that lead us
To places that didn't yet exist.

Step into my soft worn shoes
Imagine them stiff and new
See me, not aged not tired
See me absurd and unsure
See me
And know time is cruel
And mankind foolish

Forgive me.
For someday
Someone will see your picture
Be kind

light traces the dim back wall
slowly
left to right

my sink drips
and taps

children play in the small courtyard outside my window

for a while im cold
and lay under the blanket,
later im hot
and lay in my underwear

as the light from the window on the back wall dims
i turn a light on
and lay down again,

i don't even have the energy to stare at my phone
the day passes and i have hope
that tomorrow ill get up

A few words from you
are like spring water
glistening in the dry desert sun
promise of relief
memories of cool foggy mountains
and rivers that flow forever

Like a seed buried in the dark earth
cracking its hard shell
seeking to grow
and become something great

My soul hasn't forgotten
My love hasn't died

I know it's not something you want
or are looking for from me
I won't burden you with it

But a few words from you
brings the sun into my day

You owe me nothing
I can take nothing from you that should be mine
You are utterly and completely your own
But like the sun
The ray's of your light
Give light to my life
I have gratitude
But no entitlement
I feel Joy when you shine
But I am not a plant who needs you to survive
I will live regardless
But oh how beautiful the world is when you shine on it

Death is casual
It happens everyday
It happens when you turn your back for a second,
When you aren't even looking

Especially when you aren't looking,
when you're so wrapped up in something
that the rest of the world doesn't matter
when your world is perched on the teetering edge
of a finite solution
smashing yourself against the blunt rock of the world
trying to change something

And sometimes it comes when nothing is going on
when you're sitting on the toilet,
Watching cat videos

And suddenly your reliable heart stops sending the blood where it needs to go

Sometimes death takes you in the morning
waiting at the traffic light
for the little walking man to come on,
And the car that shouldn't be on top of you
suddenly is
and so is death

Death is in the broken flesh of the meat suit
that was you
Death is in the tears, and the choked words
of the people who knew you
Death is also in the shrug of your aquaintances
who hear of you in passing
And wish they felt sad about it

Death is in everything you do
Death is in the seconds
ticking cheerfully along
They aren't sad seconds
It's just time
And death is just death

It happens to everything
To everyone
The greenland shark swims for 400 years
before he meets death
The Galapagos Tortoise can live for up to 170 years
before he stops crawling through the world
The female mayflie lives 5 minutes
Once the larval stage is finished
And the new eggs are laid
And death is put at bay
For the season, and 5 days

Death comes
That's life
Live it
Until then