the day after I find out
you’re still here
I keep looking over my shoulder.
I thought you went back to Boston,
but no. now we’re in the same place.
I worry it’s only a matter of time.
I worry some things are inevitable.

people can read what I write,
I just can’t ever know about it.
that’s the only thing.
my heart is terrified again,
my heart is running the show
and I am watching
waiting for the gun from the first act
to come back full force. I am waiting
for the tradgedy to make itself known.
when I look back,
I always knew what would happen before it did
I just didn’t want to believe it.

I am a beggar. please, please, please
be here when I get back.
please, please, please
I was made to love, I know it.
it just took me a while realize.
please, please, please
I beg the world
not to let anyone I care about die,
to keep the bad thing locked outside,
to save me from what must come.
in my own head I get selfish,
I only care about myself and my own.
I am hungry and scared and animalistic
and ready to run before
the gun even goes off. please, please
let me make it out just one more time.

I can reread the messages like a book.
I barley remember who I was then,
but it’s like rereading a novel. I see the scaffolding,
I see the internal structure as it fails
and crumbles under the weight of itself.
I see the roof caving in before the cracks show,
back then I ignored the cracks. I told myself
they had always been there. I tell myself
I move my boxes out for some practical reason
and not because the rapture is coming.
not because I see the end coming up like the sun.
now it has been months and months
and my whole life is new
and know nothing about you.
I am in a new story that’s falling in on itself
like a star that got too big. I will look back on this too
and wonder why I didn’t do the math earlier.
I never do the math earlier.
I climb without knowing how I’ll get down.

I know it’s bad
because I am starting to see myself as I think you see me.
I don’t want to let you erase me like that,
but I’m having trouble helping myself.
“you little addict”
yeah right or
yeah you’re right. it’s all I am.
the common denominator of all my identities
is desperation. I am hungry for light
and bliss and warmth and
I have been my whole life.
I can’t resist. I don’t even want to try.
my attempts aren’t valiant anymore
and I’m not fooling anyone.

something about feeling untouchable
but still we’re touching.
I am begging to be squished beside you
in a twin xl. begging for the way you touch me
when I give you what you want.
I throw some of what I believe away each time.
I worry I’m running out, but I haven’t quite yet.
I can usually go longer than I think I can.