the spaces between

There are times when you know that something is not right anymore or that something is over, but with that knowledge comes a sick premonition of what it will mean to you, as if you suddenly realized that the ground was dissolving under you, and under that was darkness and dirt and crawling bugs, and you want the comfort of solid ground back so much that you will keep to the thing that is not right, willing it to be right for another day’s journey, a few thousand more steps, because you want to not think about the dark hole waiting for you, and if you can delay the collapse of the ground you will certainly do it.

Sometimes, I go out into this yard at night, And stare through the wet branches of an oak In winter, & realize I am looking at the stars Again. A thin haze of them, shining And persisting.

“Security is a false god. Begin to make sacrifices to it and you are lost.”

“Private pain is easy, in a way. It doesn’t go away, but you can teach yourself to see its size. Invent a ritual. Walk up a mountain in the afternoon, gather up pine twigs. Light a fire, thin smoke, not an ambitious fire, and sit before it and watch it till it burns to ash and the last gleam is gone from it, and dark falls. Then you get up, brush yourself off, and walk back to the world. If you’re lucky, you’re hungry.”

“Why can’t you see me? Why can’t I stop / needing you to see me?”

“I must have two sides, two mouths, two minds, two lives: one that worries about the future while the other sleepwalks through the fire.”