there is a something that is coming.
it is coming and coming fast. it is colored like death
until the stars come out of it and dance around me,
and they become lighthouses, impartial.
but that is not yet. i am sailing with you now,
we’re on the way. it is dark.

soon, we’re going to come to a fork in the road.
you have to go left
and i have to go not-left.
i helped you pack - or i guess i should say
i watched you while you packed; all i did
was stare at your mouth and wish
things hadn’t happened like they did.
i held your hand and looked at your eyes
because there will be a time, too soon, when
i will no longer be able to experience you.
i want to experience you,
all of you,
all that i can.

i swim in the sea of you. i wish i could drown.
if there were a time when we could have been more than we were
and better, and good,
then i would revisit that time often in my mind. as it is,
i visit all the times we spilled things on each other’s shirts
and couldn’t get them out in the wash.

what would it be like, i wonder,
to walk in the path of your heart?
making maps of your veins?
i still don’t know you, and i guess i will never know you
for too soon the darkness will take us and the fork
in the road will part us and it will only be
rare occasions when you happen to chance into my life.
while i can, i’ll listen
to the marvelous dirt-road mumblings of your voice.
the way you say things
and how the branches of the trees bend down to listen.

am i a fool to hope for redemption by you?
a cafe in brooklyn in winter. snowflakes.
and conversation passing over steaming cups
like we’re fourteen and wishing for home.
wait for me at december sunsets.
i’ll be there and we’ll make for vienna
just like we always wanted.
maybe i’d ask you to play the piano again
and i would rest my head in your lap for all the times
we couldn’t be everything, we tried and we tried
and we couldn’t be everything. and as
your hand slips out of my grasp
and i cry out for Heaven,
please wait for me.
at the sunset, like i told you,
with your arms open to catch the fallout
of how this will destroy me.