#saltgrave

I walk my dog outside

(The sky is clear and an unreal blue:

Venetian, Prussian, Indigo—

It is deep. Know the blue is deep.)

And you say it is a wolf moon.

It looks like an animal eye catching the light,

It is like a mirror signaling me,

Blinding me.

I grin.

You shine as that beam

Which draws my gaze.

I wish to howl.

I wish to sing to you.

My body was rearranged,

Viscerally, literally.

They stuck my back with needles

But missed the spine several times.

One attempt

Left my leg engulfed in fire, pins,

A raging pain that

Made me want it separated, removed.

The next seemed to numb me.

Some.

They said it was enough.

I had to trust them

Because I couldn’t stand another hour.

When the scalpel pierced me,

I worried.

I wasn’t supposed to feel that.

It didn’t hurt, per-say,

But I wasn’t supposed to feel that.

Tugs. Pulls.

Even though it was gentle,

I felt I was coming undone.

“You should feel pressure.”

I felt I had descended into my own personal hell.

I remember crying in shock,

The silence before I could muster

“It hurts.”

(I couldn’t stand

Any food with noodles for about a week.

I hated you for making spaghetti.)

Once the hard part was complete,

Once my treasure, my love, was removed,

All turned to darkness.

I sometimes think

I died back there.

(Even if I know someone hit a button

Convoluted in some connection to my arm.)

They told me I almost did.

They told me she could have without the procedure.

She was perfect, of course.

I felt worse than ever,

Unsure all my pieces

Would ever really

Go back in place.

“I have a low pain tolerance,”

I had said.

“I’m going to cry. It’s not your fault.”

I remember thinking,

And my—

My was I right.

How I have wept many times since then

And I wonder

If I came back right.

I imagine us on the phone,

Or maybe under the same blanket.

I wish for us to be close

When it happens,

Even if that does not mean proximity.

Some Sunday afternoon,

Far from now,

I hope to finally

Spill my guts to you

And not have to clean them up.

I picture

Violently writing my confession to you

In my blood

On our kitchen floor,

Or into a letter I’ll bravely hand deliver

With chocolates

Or whatever your favorite dessert is that month.

I’ll finally let you in

Whether you hold my heart or not.

Truth be told,

I’ve only kept it in place

By tangling myself up—

Landlines, sticky notes,

And leftover embroidery thread

From projects we bought

For a rainy Sunday afternoon

So long ago.

Some Sunday from now,

Will you sit with me again

And hear me right

When I tear the words from my cowardice?

When I rip them from my throat?

I love you.

I always loved you.

I said I was just a broken thing

And never felt things right,

But it’s okay,

Because I loved you on sight.

You don’t even have to stitch me up:

I love you.

You don’t have to write me back:

I love you.

You don’t have to bring me gifts

Or cotton

Or glass:

I love you.

Even if it makes a mess of me,

Like pulling the dandelion from the sidewalk,

I love you.

Some Sunday when I am stronger than I am now,

Let me be cradled in admonition,

Let me confess this to you:

I love you.

You don’t even have to fix me up over it;

I’m used to it by now.

It would just be nice to tell you

So I can learn to keep it together.

On some selfish Sunday,

Be my priestess and not my doctor;

I will pour myself out

And you don’t even have to sip:

I love you.

I have always loved you.

It may be the one good thing I did.

Sometimes, I hold my head just right.

I hear things

Just for me:

I hear music that isn’t real,

Some vibrating symphony.

I tell myself the tinnitus is acting up.

I blasted music

And sat by speakers

When I was young and indestructible.

The dying cochlear hair cells are screaming

And someone is playing something

Somewhere besides here.

It’s just some accidental harmony

That’s too scientific for me.

Whatever it is, the music isn’t real.

Vibrations in the lobe and canal

Are just trying to interpret something

With the best context they can.

It’s not like I’m mad, or anything.

Then again,

I still

Sometimes see

The smoking vistages

It happened on the stairs.

I was five hours

Into an eight hour shift

(Not even a long one),

And had to "run up stair real quick."

Two or three steps in,

I stopped and stared at the floor

As my mind told me there was no end to them.

"Don't look up.

They go on forever.

You can't turn back."

I hissed through my teeth

And stood there for a few minutes.

I knew the idea was impossible,

But I was afraid to look up.

I had already faced a broken alarm,

And then wondered if that repetitive,

High

Blasting

Had driven me mad.

I had stopped it though.

I had opened the store.

I had drank water and made coffee.

So I couldn't be mad

And the steps could end.

(This was my logic.)

When I did look up again,

I still had to have a second epiphany

Just to keep going

As if I hadn't climbed them

Hundreds of times just this year.

What does endless really mean?

Your voice comes through

And everything unclenches.

You hang up

And I remember.

I redress in the weights

Because I answer to another.

Linger longer at my door,

And tell me

“Don’t be a stranger.”

Trade me homemade jams

For handmade devotion,

And let us create new memories together.

Stay in that place

Between my ear bones

So I can learn your favorite songs.

Be the shadow

In every corner

And the flicker of a candle.

Hang to me like passed years

And that silvery moonlit hint

Of a future binding us always.

Let us make a hearth

And line it with ourselves

To tangle our lives always.

Let me feel when you are here,

And when you are not,

So I will value what it means

To not let go.

Haunt me in your little ways

While we live.

Be the ghost of

Laughs to come

And chattering in our kitchens.

Visit me.

Remind me.

Live unafraid of being forgotten with me.

This time of year

Brings a strange longing.

The seagulls must migrate,

For the appear,

Neither “going to” here

Nor “coming from” here.

I look upon them,

Long for the ocean,

And think I am the same.