People,
they’re made up of all the things they’ve done.
Like an early love letter resurfaced
during an ugly custody battle.
The only true takeaway
is how much has been lost.

What we refer to as present
exists only in the context of futures
which never arrived.
Often containing just enough time
for a single dream.
Not the kind where we learn a single thing
approaching profundity, but the kind spent
sweating, waiting
for the sun to tell us it’s finally over.

Lives are only ever lived parallel.
Adjacent neighbors in the same drafty apartment. Walls thin
enough to hear someone hitting their children, but without
the clarity to sort out
which door they’re cowering behind.
So we wait it out, and apologize
to a tiny corpse
until nothing is left but bone.

In my spine I can feel the season
about to change.
We should step outside and look at the sidewalk flowers
while we still can.