as it should be

heavenly Father,

i scream into the darkness of a clawing shadow

half lit up by the glow from behind

half terrified that if i fall in

i won't come out.

-

life coasts by at an even eighty.

the world, stretch-marked and patient, rolling in weeping colors outside the window

like that finger painting i made for my sister

the day she went to the hospital. 

serpents of red and green, speckled with blue that i dropped accidentally

like sky into the blood on our stomachs.

that day, so long ago, burned like rust into my body.

you've never asked me about the riddles in my skin.

you've never asked about shadows or memories

or why she won't talk to me

or why he said those things

those things...forgotten pages in a diary i threw in the trash years ago

and God,

that's been nice.

nice to forget.

it's easy to forget at eighty-five, lit up in gold too bright to hold the feeling, words too frail to support the rhythm that seems impossible to describe but undeniable to feel.

i stand up to grab the invisible

and fall back unsteady.

fine!

not.

not fine. haven't been fine in years, when my life was hallucination purple and tasted like cherry medicine that stuck your tongue like cloth.

when i was

young.

young.

young.

i was young.

i had a dog and a little house where i kept my toys, and when the storms would roll in like footsteps across the mountains, black and disgruntled, i would cover their ears, their eyes, their mouths that never spoke except to me.

don't worry.

don't worry.

now i press my face against the pillow, lightning crashing up against my skin, wind rolling against the boards of the house and hallucinate once again

light all around me and the words ringing in my ears...
alone.

don't worry.

don't worry.

don't-

my phone rings and i answer.

"hello? i think i'm going to lose you-"

and the call drops.

-

sometimes
i wish you would’ve taken me out dancing.

dancing, just so we could try to explain the unspeakable with the metaphysical
our bodies the philosophers, our thoughts the shadows against the cave wall.
hanging off a banister that bends a little, i ask how much you love me through upside down laughter and you say
more when i can’t see you.
but your hands always say the same thing.
more than before.
more than before.
more now than ever.

and i think it disturbs me so, these visions of reality, these portraits in a long hallway going on forever, left and right, forward and backward, devoid of windows…because it's just
my life a thousand different ways.
we were young once.
hiding behind your shoulder from the torment, easily pictured in reds and purples
but now all the pain comes from
within.

we're no longer young.

i don't
hate you
for growing old on me.
wasn't it bound to happen? bound to happen to us, even before it happened to the rest.
with honest lips, from a throbbing rib cage full of trust unexpected but hard-won, comes this aching voice...
i love you more
more now than ever.
i love you in your greys and dusky tones, horrible as a setting sun
beautiful as the ending to all the days of my life.
i love the way you fade out of them and glow in me, in me, right here, brighter than ever like i swallowed the sun and laugh in beams, and the fact that i can't turn my head, knowing that somewhere in that sea of faces is you, you, smiling at me
smiling like it should be me.
like it will be me.
and like it won't be you.

you look exhausted.
and even though i just stand here, hands unlined and too small to take yours
in some other life, i'm holding you as tight as i want.
as long as i want.
as close as i want.

as it should be.

x