words and patterns

 she'd turn to me and say "You deserve it" but not in a mean way she'd say you're alone by choice there's only so much one person can do and even if you haven't done it no one is counting. no one but you. then she would tell me i'm handsome, a compliment that always lived somewhere in between genuine sweetness and a purposeful rerouting of topic; like a quantum bit, never deciding which it truly is until it truly is. Or was. I should be writing this with a bottle of whiskey, but I'm not. Christmas Eve, 2021

So afraid of failure that I ran straight into it

 forces beyond comprehension immeasurable perception caged in ignorance and knowing it like tying your hands together with your own fingers like tying our hands together interlacing fingers and the moon looks on never wavering its gaze for aeons i have loved you i can stay in orbit a little bit longer you dont have to ask i'll always stay a little longer you dont have to ask

I have mixed feelings about hope

Maybe living into and beyond your 40's is so enigmatic and strange because we've only been doing it for a short period on the timeline of humanity

A quiet you can taste on your tongue No one loves/moves Now/no one breathes Let it go Or you stir the wolf Am I at home with a lover Or in a cage with a stranger I awake like a fairy tale I awake from the fairy tale I didn't know that was the good part The ceiling is a mirror Reflecting everything I've ever done Was it always there? You kept the worst parts of me from seeing their reflection Now that's all I see Left behind in a dead bedroom

Stuck in the border between day and night, like a demilitarized zone between black and white, where everything in between is possible.