all
i can do is
not comport my
self that way if
we ever run in
to each other
again.

it is like i can hear you say:
you say that every time
yet you do it every time

& if so, i am sorry.
how sorry could i be?
to repeat a pattern i half
remember only in the afterwards?

very.
& sorry is not good for much.

i lost the benefit of doubt ages ago.
this defies belief.
this cannot possibly be innocent.
be chance. be accident.
the size of this singular anomaly is the size of a fairy tale.

too large of an ask of anyone.

perhaps it means i am intrinsically
this way?
perhaps that is intolerable to you?

i am pretty sure i am still
growing. i think i am, anyway.
it certainly seems so. maybe by
the end of it all i will
be something you like & we will
be inside time together.

maybe i will become something soothing to the nerves. something just right like
goldilocks.
maybe tomorrow?
maybe never.
no rush.

perhaps i am more innocent than
you can hold between your arms
& not shatter in the immensity of
what that implies about well--
everything?

i am pretty sure your arms are growing though. maybe tomorrow or the morrow after that. maybe once the last star dies out. im not sure what you've sworn. (& i just imagine you have as it would be natural to do so.) i tremble before the strength of your will in anger.

on my end, we are star-crossed in innocence, as truly as i can account for
confounding never the less
all ways the more

that reveling orientation. sexy guilty electron spin.
all ways making an entrance
hogging the lovelight in reckless abandon. rainbow shine.

what orients you? is it paperwork math? the physics of it all? if i am, you must be the other? i guess that is how reflection projection works.

i was so certain i saw you through a window. im not, now. but i am still.
if it's a dream-- it is a good dream.

in my bones do i know it. & i dont
think dreambones can be wrong.
spooky, yes. but wrong? not likely, but then, what do i know?
i never meant you to have
polarity in my eyes. reflect-bound.
again, not good for much.

i am sorry that no matter
what i see you in mercy.

perhaps that is the
excruciating part?

whatever promise
whatever broke
or stepping backwards from the future or never was ever at all, Miss Truly Delusional--
whatever just in twilights or parallel living
wrong way round
long way down
in tandem tumble
however way, ok?

im here with you & i
never am. i hear you
& i dont.

there is a ghost between
us & some times more than other
times it is without rest.

i read you between the lines
or i have them backwardly
implied like you right to left
& i right to write & in that
field,

yea i'll meet you there &
behind the bookcase i'll find your
eye & in a creek, the mirror,
will i catch you if i can & only if you
would like me to do so. i would like to try.
i am fond of tag.

or maybe that's the ghost again?

& maybe that's the problem.
how can i know you & chase you?
how can i know me & chase you?
what it means. meant. what happened. will become. it's just a magic trick, i think. falling. flying. gravity. the phantasm.

i dont know me or you.
i just like tag. or that's the ghost, again.
maybe you just dont like tag?
or tag with me? what it turns us into?

i dont know.
i know not what i ask.
three's company.

at times, i fear i am your haunting.
ever my fault, while yours--
i rush to admit are ever all ways
perfectly understandable before i even know them for what they are. before you can even tell me for yourself!
that is the fault of the rosey love ghost.

& those jasmine dreams were a sickness of wellness everlasting.
maybe somewhere Before It All i chose savoring your absence instead of your presence? maybe that hurt most of all? traded you
in to have all my words for the
world instead of peace & quiet
between entangled limbs?

i had never loved anything more than the world before. i had wanted to reincarnate forever! that was My Pre-Determined Grand Plan. who knows why. a coin toss hunch.

so the immensity of loving you more than That was too much to have & to hold.

under-stable to feel so flipturned off a flash of glancing skyblue that brought me to my knees.
the frightening expanse of you.
the freefall & whirling compass of
suddenly startling in a plane heading nose over tail.

the collapse of my xyz axis from the heights behind your eyes.
i didn't know how to land.
i tried everything within grasp to get you out of range of the crash that took months to finally hit ground.
(& on the holidays, of all days. what a deeply stupid christmas eve.)

i never imagined i wouldn't survive the crash yet still, inexplicably, be here.
brand new & in the same place.
some sick video game save checkpoint respawn.
it was simply not in the schematics reality of possible outcomes in the Before You for me.

love did this.

lsd on a lunar eclipse the day before i re-met you did this. love did this.

how did love do this?

it was an accident.

i respawned in some kind of hell so furiously angry at me. at you. at me. spill sloshed all over.
i sat down for long while. waiting for godot in the dark.

moving simply Hurt in how much it simply Didnt anymore.
i was capable of anything.
& that liberatory thought did not put a smile on my face.

it is brutal to be bare of conscience.
bitter juice. monster mash.

i hated it. i could only snarl. so i snarled for awhile. & once i could grasp a more civilized language, i wrote to me at you. & then i wrote to me towards others like a foghorn, like headlight high-beams, begging for a map, a meal, a meaning in all this post-math wreckage.

i felt nothing like the crash sight was made of anti-matter. i hated that for both of us. it wasnt your fault but i wish a piece of Chernobyl didnt live in me now.
it wasnt your fault. i mean it.

it was a gift, i think. from you. that apology. guilt. just-what-you-say, i dont know. if you didnt mean it, i dont care. it's ok. any which way, i wish i could have received what you said in aliveness.
i am spilt milk in some places now.

that said: im curious about you. LMAO.
(or is that still this fucking forever spectre at the feast?)

maybe we are closer to the same size by now? maybe we could high-five? maybe tomorrow? maybe never ever ever not on your life?