Rest Is An Obstructed Fall
in the weeks following his sudden absence,
you wake up every morning with dull pain
occupying strange places on your body
like the area between two nonexistent toes,
or the skin that separates your nose from your mouth
you begin to derive comfort from the fact that
everything in your life is potentially something
but you quickly discover there is nothing glamorous
about allowing someone new to think you are beautiful
about watching him perform vaguely reciprocated acts onto you
about facing away from his blind and motionless body
while you are kept awake by the knowledge that
your own life is distancing itself from you
Derive Comfort From Calculated Distance
in your presence i came to discover
that you don’t have to love yourself to love another person
you only have to acknowledge that both people are in pain
in my presence you learned
that you can’t rely on others for your own fulfillment
why would you allow someone else to disappoint you
when it’s so comfortable to disappoint yourself?
i could tell that you liked my company
you probably even loved me
so, during our last few nights together
we created an enormous empty space
and we filled it with the impossibility
of expressing all the things we claimed to express
through art, and through language
or, through language as art
i guess that space we created still exists, somewhere
because unlike you,
i never stopped reaching towards the hallow idea of us
hopefully one day i will find meaning
in struggling to remember a sudden shift in our power dynamic
for now, at least i am able to recognize that distance is created
when two people stop allowing thoughts to control their feelings
don’t worry, this poem will be over soon too
but first i want to say that i hope you remember my childhood bed
because i remember yours
and i hope you know that i want us to feel the same pain
as much as i want us to feel the same innocence