Finally the wave of mourning for some little lost hope flicker overtakes me. I want to take to my bed. I want to run away from home. I want to sell all my things and get a little RV. Flee south, only ever work on one thing at a time. 

What a trick of light, to hold in your hands that which you most desire, feel it firm under your touch but not to know how long it will hold, how long until it yields to time or better judgement or foolish fear.

Everything, all things, will be lost to me; the only difference is time.

I hold you in my arms for sixty years until death sweeps us quietly off, one and then the other. I hold you in my arms for six hours until something in your thinking changes, the calculation of your action shifts. 

Each moment that has come to pass hangs in the air at once, our lungs are thick with dewy time as we try to craft a story of our lives that moves in order: this, and for this long, and then this. 

I longed for a feeling I did not possess, and for a brief pause in all this longing I held it to my chest, and then again I longed for that which is not mine to have. This is the way of it.

I am a woman in love with my own aching wants, we know. 

You are a man of armor and tricks, we know. 

It’s too late to unravel all the years of my young heart’s sabotage, it would seem. This is fine. This is fine. Another tingling down my crooked spine is no breaking news, although this blood drips redder in the clay than most. Your taste in my mouth will never fully fade, and this is not a thing that should worry you. No regrets, not for this. Never. 

I guess I’m just goddamn sick of nights like a lone star.