Should I tell you all my dreams, quickly and
at once before the shock of it all sets into
your life again or should we only pretend
that what is happening is only a day and an
hour between two friends?

I once was willing, so easily, to give the rest
of my life, sixty years or more; now I fear for
the time remaining, maybe a day and an hour
or maybe twenty years fading away into the
recesses of conversations and silence as if
there is a gap that could actually be filled
with meaning

How could you possibly compete with the
things I value that are always with me, songs
that make me cry, words I think of for weeks
on end before finding each other as we once
did, freedom to wonder about the beautiful
faces I see all around; how could you compete
with these things except to be so vulnerable
that you would be terrified enough to run away?

Are we thawing in the winter and freezing in
the summer; is there something that is so
different about us that we can be together
and give one another the freedom to climb
trees as leaves returning home or like the wind
that would blow without oceans swirling
or mountains standing in our way?

Is there?