#writtenconsiderations

all that is left of you is tethered to a tremor.

your absence widens, and keeps on widening until we are finally separate.

the gulf between us is a star-fed river.

the gulf between us is a light-starved chasm.

I watch you convulse, collapse into yourself.

you, a soft nebulous shadow that grows warm and bright, incandescent, from a seed.

so quiet. so very quiet.

you spin away in the vacuum of space. pulse light. scintillate morse code answers.

i hear the silence.

i hear everything you want to say.

every time the other crossed our mind, I wonder,

what that would look like?

Would it be a nice and even ebb and flow?

Or would your thoughts come only in a slow trickle, egging on the raging currents of mine?

Would my thoughts be a tidal wave of all the little things and all the big things and all the good and the worry and the affection?

Would I be

reading about my eyes and my lips and my touch and my embrace, as often as you'd be reading about yours?

How well would our oceans of thought, mix, I wonder?

Would you only text when you chanced to see me?

Or like me, would it be with, or without you, near?

Would the currents combine to carve out land, anew?

Or would I drown you out?

Within these seemingly mediocre sunsets I get lost,

even in midst of people, away, far away,

from myself as well.

Despite all my efforts, or perhaps in spite of them,

the head hurts in agony, heart rages on in fury,

and the civil war never ends.

i know how to be a good starved dog.

not the calm that comes after the storm, but the silence that makes the storm forget it ever existed. when you are near, even my ruin pauses to listen. every thought that once screamed inside me softens into something almost gentle.

you are not rescue. you are not salvation. you are the quiet between my disasters.. the proof that peace can exist, even if it is borrowed, even if it flickers.

and yet, that is what makes it terrifying. to know that my body, so used to trembling, now flinches at the stillness. that i have grown to crave the ache of calm, knowing it might vanish the moment i name it.

still, i would say it again. you are the absence of chaos, and somehow, that feels like love.

at least, it felt like it was. at least, it felt like you were.

the day begins

with quiet time

training myself

not to get

shot out of

the cannon

it's a struggle

to defeat instinct

with mindfulness

the dragons

impatiently await

their slaying

while daily expectations

hover like planes

circling O’Hare

yet I find the strength

to close my eyes

to listen to the sounds

of the natural world