The last thing you said,
holding my hand,
missing lips—
ever so slightly—
on that silent drive,
after the angels—
did you mean it?

The brutal catastrophe
that’s been our colliding stars—
stings with subtle beauty,
that persists,
the stem of a flower
after the first frost.

But now our future—
once infinite and entwined,
halts, like bent time.
And I die,
for our present bodies—
still bathed in new love,
and you, filled with me,
over and over—
are still living.

So I hold onto dreams,
as the new year dawns.
Because when I panicked,
when the material world collapsed around me,
your love was calm and gentle,
selfish and selfless at the same time,
unconditional, for me.

That profound love
I’ve never experienced,
that I’d been searching for
my whole life.
The way you held me,
and stroked my hair,
and made it go quiet.

The way you heard me,
made me laugh again,
let me be both man, and boy,
and cry again.
It was everything.

In a life
where my mother resented me,
where my wife couldn’t reach me,
you, so effortlessly,
wrapped your silken ribs
around—
kept me safe,
gifted me a world,
brushed in new foreign color,
blossomed with spirit.

-

When I kissed your shoulder
in the night, in San Francisco,
while the universe zoomed around us,
when I reached out into the dark—
like every soul
that’s come and gone—
were you dying like me?

And maybe we never needed
a thousand miles to breathe.
The truth lived close,
in tiny rooms,
and tiny beds,
under pale light—
our souls touching,
hiding from the world,
exhausted but warm.

all that was ever missing,
this entire life,
was you.

-

But now your book has ended.
And even though I sent that text,
and even though I chose you,
all I have now is a new door,
and everything inside,
is bleak.

Tell me,
we’re not just fucked up souls—
made of broken glass.

Tell me we’re a mosaic
meant to fall into place—

Cry out to me,
that “even when this world
is a forgotten whisper of dust
between the stars,
you’ll love me”.

Tell me I’m not alone.

-

Please, whisper that you’re dying.