somethings you can say twice: all i ask for is a warm body, to keep this winter from killing me
in the midst of the emotional snarl of most things right now my immune system got pretty scrawny and now i am friends with a cold. it's late and sleep seems inaccessible and my legs feel full of fever instead of blood. dorothy's butterscotch coyote puppy is curled up and tiny on my lap.
laying awake:
at one am i was thinking of someone leaning over to kiss someone else, two people who share the same earthquake and the tectonic plates shifting inside of them are like heavy, lovely furniture being abruptly rearranged. i sat up in the dark and wrote down found all of me because i realized how important that feeling was, after everything, and i didn't want to forget.
at two i was thinking what is that goddamn adjective that everyone always needs? the weight that sits like a rock on your tongue, impossible for your voice to lift.
by three i was thinking about how i used to believe there must be places carved out in time for certain things, tiny grooves big enough for a breath, a leaf, a thimble or a kiss, one armchair being inched to the left inside your heart. now i believe that coldplay is pretty but wrong: love never goes to waste, although we each find sadnesses to tack onto the lengthening list.
january first, january second, january third
new year, new sleeplessness, new alcoves in time for leaves and loves.
thinking this is the room one afternoon i knew i could love you.
thinking what can't stay goes away.
thinking: the sadness which follows the murmured sound of the word loss. the sadness that has nothing to do with you but belongs to you because you can see it in someone that you love. the sadness with no origin that swells like a jellyfish in the cradle of your ribs. the sadness of almost knowing that word that renders sadness with such grace.
laying awake:
at one am i was thinking of someone leaning over to kiss someone else, two people who share the same earthquake and the tectonic plates shifting inside of them are like heavy, lovely furniture being abruptly rearranged. i sat up in the dark and wrote down found all of me because i realized how important that feeling was, after everything, and i didn't want to forget.
at two i was thinking what is that goddamn adjective that everyone always needs? the weight that sits like a rock on your tongue, impossible for your voice to lift.
by three i was thinking about how i used to believe there must be places carved out in time for certain things, tiny grooves big enough for a breath, a leaf, a thimble or a kiss, one armchair being inched to the left inside your heart. now i believe that coldplay is pretty but wrong: love never goes to waste, although we each find sadnesses to tack onto the lengthening list.
january first, january second, january third
new year, new sleeplessness, new alcoves in time for leaves and loves.
thinking this is the room one afternoon i knew i could love you.
thinking what can't stay goes away.
thinking: the sadness which follows the murmured sound of the word loss. the sadness that has nothing to do with you but belongs to you because you can see it in someone that you love. the sadness with no origin that swells like a jellyfish in the cradle of your ribs. the sadness of almost knowing that word that renders sadness with such grace.