i'm a broken compass and a delayed train and a set of faded curtains that don't quite keep the sun out and the glare they make in your eyes, but i love you in ways i don't know how to say.

so you can spill your guts to me and i'll clean them up with rags made of "sorry's" and that won't make it better but at least i'll have tried. i made this mess.

you are gasping for the air that i took from your lungs and my betrayal-bruised hands are much too slow to fill them at the same time i'm trying to patch up the holes.

eventually we lay together in a swallowing and somber silence, too many ******* miles apart, until i break it in half with not-good-enough words that serve as my version of an apology.

but i swear that i will shatter every bone in my legs before i run from you when you need me most and curse at the doubt that plagues my mind like black death.

i will shake my fists and scream obscenities at the uncertainties and banish every "what if" that begs access to my consciousness.

i will slit the throat of yesterday, and watch it bleed out - know you're more than enough for me, and hate myself for the pills in your body.

for you, you, are more than oxygen and no amount of salted regret that pours from my eyes could ever convey the thoughts my lips can't seem to form.

so i am shrunk to a pitiful half-whisper, muttering over and over and over and over, "i'm right here. i'm right here." and somehow we manage to be okay.

- m.f.