"The longer you think,
the less you know what
to do"

It's such a horrible way to be faced with a realization,
but it seems to be relatively standard when it comes to love.
It isn't until you're threatened with losing someone,
that you can properly understand how much you love them.

I responded to each "Why?" with "I don't know",
digging my face so far into my palms that my self induced
darkness has become a comfort.
He stormed off, I grabbed my keys.
I prefaced these actions by confessing my tendency
to wave my white flag without reason.
Our distance grew and grew
until the space became immeasurable
and our silence allowed us to start again.

I am lucky enough to have pinpointed this very moment
and I now know what I want to keep.


We both wore black tights. We were the only ones.
Even from across the room, I could see that each of our
breaths were labored and our chests
rose and fell in a synchronous pattern.
We were momentarily unified by all the things we did not know.
Her voice was more delicate and sincere than I had imagined it to be;
her posture and demeanor, however, were accurate depictions
of the fiction I had created.
This encounter fueled countless conversations
of doubt and insecurity. But he and I survived.
It seems like we are always escaping inevitability
by a frayed thread of misunderstanding.

Emergency rooms, despite their population,
can make you think about the things you
told yourself you would never think about.
Although I was not a patient, I convinced myself
that I was in fact dying. I have no real evidence
as to why this might be even close to truth.
I can't feel safe in a place where reflections don't exist.

My entire life my inadequacies have been adequate.
It is the most painful, yet loving feeling to be pushed
beyond what has always been expected of me
by someone who loves me more than I do.

While driving home at 4am, staggering under the posted speed limit, I hummed in a desperate attempt to stay awake. With equal desperation, I tried to leave an emotionally challenging 24 hours behind me, forcing it to fade into the ever growing dusk of a new day. While approaching a familiar intersection, I saw movement to my left. As I stopped the car and paused my humming, 3 deer darted through my headlights. They bounded with a dreamlike inelegance across a stretch of road usually bustling with traffic, now desolate, to an forgiving patch of land behind a strip mall. Even after they had left my field of vision, I couldn't bring myself to release my foot from the break. I couldn't help but see hidden parts of myself through this one, seemingly insignificant encounter. Certainly my fears could not measure up against those that must surely belong to the deer. But like my four legged refugees, I startle easily, overcoming each struggle with a swift dash far from its origin. I eventually trekked forward, rhythmic yawns replaced my out of tune humming, my eyes blurred with exhaustion and by some miracle, my car found the way home.

Down the street resides a tree that sets itself on fire long before the others.

Every year I rely on this tree to reintroduce me to
each color in the pallet of the harvest.
The leaves turn to flames and make their annual descent to the ground,
while all the other trees remain stubborn and green.
Once the tree strips itself naked, the other trees eventually fall suit.
I admire this tree and its willingness to set precedent for change.
Every day, while driving underneath this brave and fearless Oak,
I am tempted to shed my leaves, baring all that I have in hopes
that everything will fall into place. This, of course, is just a temptation;
One that I force to the back of my mind as I admire Autumns fallen embers.

Summer knows nothing of permanence.



(photo: christianog.com)