In that secret mailbox
I read back your sorry words

just to wonder
if I still feel
any kind of something
for you


But I hear it now -
tenderness -

and I’m still not sure


(if time healed over,
or if time just made me
a new pair of rose-coloured glasses)

I guess now I’m good
There are people who will go to my funeral

People who remind me I’m a tree on a hill
giving shade to a dog, being home for a bird

I guess now I’m good
I tend to say all things tentatively

I guess I’m scared I’ll miss my parents
I guess I’m scared I’ll regret
rushing forward to my chosen lights
always choosing, always rushing

Scared to look down the trap of the past
so I keep running

Once I leave I am gone

I am going

My mother was right
to say I would go and stay going

Some steps cannot be backtracked,
some doors never reopened

Why does it feel like this door is forever closing?

I’m sorry I am short of breath for you
I’m sorry I want so badly to be somewhere else
I’m sorry you were right

they say on the news
that we'll live past eighty-five

see you slouch on your couch,
how tired you are of life

and you're thirty-two
chewing through
life - like it's a cardboard box

and I know that you will
recycle these shreds
and chew through it again

the way you do with
your lovers and friends

Wide awake at night,
waiting for sunrise,
I wonder and wonder...

Do I watch the clouds
in wish for rest?

You left them all -
creaky tractors
out in the rain,
bring on the rust.

A slippery cricket,
I leap from your hands
again and again,
and you never quite catch.

Scramble for me, dear,
just try to keep up.
Once I see your sweat beading
I think I could rest.

Funny how
you built this house -
no windows to face these fields.

Just know,
I will be here
in the field of your mind,

to shine like a black river pebble,
to show you your face in the dark.

Lines on the road,
heart beating,
and you in the passenger seat
like we've been doing this forever.

Am I the rhythm
of broken lines on the road -
how it all feels ready for collapse?


Sometimes I forget I exist,
and I can't touch enough
to know this isn't true.


But you touch me
and I am part of this world -

I am the lines on the road,
I am the wheels turning.

I damaged up the tissue -
not to say that it's a scar -
it's an old wound, ever-tender
from that time I stumbled in the dark

I feel it in the nighttime!
Place the traffic cones around me,
and cover all the mirrors -
I don't need to see you leave

Is a goodbye really goodbye
if it feels more like good riddance?