“I don’t know,” he said.
As I lay my head on his chest, I hold my breath to ever speak again.
And suddenly, I could feel the space between our atoms.

What should I eat?
A simple questions, but I only have one recipient in mind.
Only one person who knows me enough to know what I want when I don’t know it myself.
One person who knows what I ate yesterday, and the day before and narrows it down from there.
But, you don’t know what I ate yesterday.
Because I didn’t.
I ate my pillow and drank my tears.
The salt and cotton sat in my stomach like the butterflies used to.
But, those butterflied never died, they just got hurt.
Had their wings plucked off and bodies scorched with a magnifying glass.

I want you to like yourself as much as I do.
I want to like myself as much as I liked you.
I want to nurse you and those butterflies back to life one day.
Release them in the botanical garden and start a new holiday.

162 days until it’s all over and done with; real life starts then.
For now, I will play pretend.
Hide these feelings in the empty boxes I hoard under my bed.
Not to think about the empty spot in your heart and head,
where there was no room for me.

When I came home, everything was changed.
I found you to nurse and hold me, until love replaced the pain.
But with you, I was just hiding from it.
Like the boxes under my bed, I hide from their emptiness.
I hide from the raw meat body that used to take up half my spaces.

I have no foundation in this far too familiar nation.
Busy bodies twirling like ants from different colonies.
We will not go home to the same place tonight.

the sorrows of breath will seed the
                                land with bare fruit.

As the voices of nature reveal there
                                                          truth,
               that were just ants in a flood.

Silly little things, a food chain of nothing,
                  for earth is the hunter
                                    So don't upset her.

and it is certain, as certain as wisps of hope and grey smoky prayers can be

that although distance clambers before us, the moon as i see it is the same for you

the days and the nights and the schedules – to hell with them

for all i know we are breathing together, we are inhaling and exhaling as one

two bodies, as one in our mind’s eye

and i cannot help but to feel over every pore what it feels like when your hand flattens against my neck

it burns through my skin even as i sit here, eyes closed to a bright sphere which passed your vision hours earlier

i shudder as the sweet burn runs through me like honey straight from the jar

sugar travels fast and far, on the backs of trillions of ants like stars splayed across the earth

and the earth is just a canvas where we paint our struggles

though i hum at the bursting sparkles above many atmospheres

they do not keep an account of the way your tongue creeps past your lips and onto mine

only the earth knows the way our gaits come together and our bodies exist at the same level

stretched out between us, from one son’s antennae to another’s

the Queen entertains stories of those eyes that i miss, thick black crescents soft against my face

things immeasurable, things untold, things i do not own

you only share these with me but my access to the feelings they leave behind is limitless

the distances i would travel for you to remind me of what i already know, is something the moon understands

despite all else

it is heavy and slow but it always returns, waiting for the inevitable yet dynamic

if you tell me tomorrow what i want to hear today, i’ll get your message on time

just whisper it with those rosy lips of yours and my ears will open their arms to you

better yet, scream you love me into the quiet night sky and the sun will vibrate, causing the moon to chuckle

the ants will find me first

i sit here and i echo

i love you i love you i need you i’m with you i crave you every breath

until we breathe no longer i’ll say it and i’ll listen

we only speak it in breaths apart

i want those words, oh how i need to hear them in person

and i’ll swim oceans and levitate just to hear you again

tell me what i already know

i’m listening with my lungs

——-

Red ants, black ants, yellow ones to. Some large some small. Building their own war.
Huge mounds with tunnels. Millions of you around. Watching how you change the ground.
What is your purpose? Only one we see is you eat the aphids that really annoy me. You are food for the flighted ones even the lizards with teeth.
But here you are beneath my feet. You bite me with no reason for sure.
If I stomp you many more will come look for you I am sure.
My land looks like tiny villages of mounds. With new property lines established by your armies you create.
Can you do me a favor and vacate.