You will always follow me
Like melting canyon walls
Grown of glass
Forever folding inward
At my back.
In my mind;
Even when the rain clears up
You still stir
Your whitened waters.

One day,
When you left me
Mid-November,
heat still settles in only the South
The sun stole every sip
Slurped up every drop
From every pore
In my thinned body.
You almost killed me
I suppose-
Even then-
You tried to save me
Saving you
Hives across my body:
Holding aquifer pockets
Of your own blood.
You tried to warn me
With swollen, itchy
Reddened feet
My fingers burned,
But I went to sleep.

Awakened with delusion
You kicked at the curve
Of my knee
I; collapsed
Unconscious
With only pain running through my bedrock veins.
You left me,
With white running down my face.
You showed me how much mama loves me
Barely breathing
Bent over my body
With her own salty piece of you falling in my face.

Neaseous,
I could no longer hold you
No matter how much I longed to.
Mama took me to you.
Again, like glass on a November morning you sent ice through blue blood and back to my heart.
Like mama,
You screamed
Until you brought me conscious.

Twice mama had taken me to you
And on the first I'd fallen in love.
Hooked to an EKG
My eyes rolled back to when we met
As they pulled tubes of my blood from body
Weakened, I held only a blurred memory
Of three years ago
When you carried me over your muddied body,
Still with softened white ripples,
And warmed- no matter how far upstream- by July.
It was there
Touching the silk of your skin
With sun on my chest
And life at my back
That I promised
One day,
I would save you too.