full title: every conversation we ever had about you losing me, and how you almost did


things have shifted,
the slightest tip of the universe
on its infinite axis; into an ocean
of arctic darkness
i plunge.

my peripherals are encased
in caverns of ivory teeth,
slick-back orcas and the ominous
terror of frigid waters pushing
against skin, pressurized like
puncture wounds.

slivers of glass tracing the rivulets
in my palms like fingertips,
faces carved in windshield cracks,
sails carrying me away like stretchers
on silver wings,

toes poised on the precipice of
what everything really means -
do you know how it feels
to be smaller than those ten letters?
soul in the back of your skull,
the world in one moment,
one fraction of existence,
one shard of luck and beauty
hanging haphazardly
somewhere between the collapsed roof
and the radio skipping in and out.

what i wouldn't give
to have my body sink down
into yours, cocooned
in the tumultuous quicksand
of human flesh.

i have never been so moved
as by your touch, the slinking seeping
brush. the universe dispels
and in the absence of everything,
i am less alone
than i have ever been.