do you ever sit beside someone
and the rest of the world goes quiet
or maybe that’s not quite the truth
the rest of the world falls into to chaos;
stir crazy,
violent storms of
should have and would never
and can’t now and won’t ever
and could possibly, probably can, maybe —
but your head goes quiet
and you wish you could just pretend for a second
that you are someone different and it wouldn’t mean as much
from your hands and your lips and your eyes or your mouth
and maybe someday the right words will come out
and all that fades into nothingness with swing back around
and mornings won’t feel gray until the sun comes out
and running won’t be away forever
but to some place in between then and now

do you ever just sit beside someone
and not know what to do with your hands
but wish they belonged to someone braver;
that you were a self-made man
and do you understand —
that you gave up too much of yourself to survive the hands of a lesser man
but the press of this one’s shoulder is more than you told her you wanted
but you wanted it