Somewhere between excitement and the ground,
a young boy loses control of his feet.
Quickly, he stands back up; the tumble
seeming only to scuff his pride-
until a precarious glance down at a scraped knee
cause his eyes to burst like water balloons.
Somewhere between our first hello and the ground,
I lost control of my own heart.
And now, long after last call, I still pour drinks
hoping to sleep in until after the mourning.
For months, I’ve been telling blank pages
that I’ll write, that I’m alright; but
I can’t put pen to paper without remembering
the last time I saw you. I fell
for you like skydiving without a parachute.
This is so much more than a scraped knee—
I’m trying so hard not to see the damage.

Some people ache for pain,
yearn for the burn of rope on their wrists,
lust for the sting of ******* on their back,
go so far as to pay for their own subjugation.
I am not the sort
yet here I am bound
and flogged
and utterly dominated.
I didn’t ask for this,
didn’t go looking for this.
I just didn’t know there were any pictures of you left.

I tried to distract myself with a movie the other night,
something tragic, something ridiculously catastrophic,
something to say it could always be worse.
On screen, Earth shuddered
violently, a magnitude
never felt before. Even my own walls quaked
with the boom of the speakers to get the point across.
All of our monuments toppled,
all things we built to be proud of crumbled,
and there was yelling and fright
while in every direction people were dying.
If Hollywood is to be believed, this
is how the end will come—a natural disaster
so unnatural in its magnitude
with a penchant for destruction.
And it will not come quietly.
It will not come quietly.

But there was no deafening groan of Earth,
no terrifying rumble
no swallowing everything into its gaping maw.
No, just the empty air of unanswered questions,
a goodbye you whispered like a eulogy.
And only I crumbled.