Your photo still comes up on my phone sometimes-- do I want to talk to you?
Well of course I do.
But I'm not sure the person I used to talk to so candidly even exists anymore.

I've had a lot of people vanish behind their own eyes,
Victims, lost causes, lost and never found-
Send out the search lights and dredge the lakes:
They aren't coming back home.
I've known a lot of vanished, lonely souls
People who give up the good fight and jump from the bridges of their ribcages
And fall.

And Fall.

They hollow out, shallow and craven,
Just the skin and bones of something that used to be
A universe
But was too afraid.

You don't have to be God's favorite
To dive from heaven.
Not when you carry it within your kindness
Not when your words are light
And your fingers make piano keys ache for them.
You can fall
With your feet on the ground, my friend.
You can cast off grace because
It's just too hard to be
Loved.
You fall
Every time you are cruel
Because
Cruelty doesn't live in you
If you don't give it a home-
I've said it before, you are of the earth,
And the earth is never cruel.
It is brutal, it is wild, it is tumultuous
But it
Is never
Cruel.

When your photo comes up,
I look close,
Although it hurts.
I search your eyes for cowardice.
And maybe I just love you
But I never find any.
I find certainty.
And maybe that is worse.
Maybe the certainty that alone is better
Is more despicable than weakness of character, more damaging than fear.
Maybe fangs, when used to fend off every touch,
Are more foolish
Than tears ever could be.