I want to marry you.
Tomorrow, if I could.
I don’t know
if you can
keep up
with me.
Sweetheart,
oh honey,
I want you,
I want you
to be prepared
for the very real possibility
that he may not live.
Books
he knows
I’ll love.
Devour,
take the bait.
Even if he does wake up,
we don’t know if he’ll still be
him.
A cup of coffee in a tent.
A cup of coffee,
I slowly realize,
he will never
think to bring me.
The nurses
watch me
fall asleep,
let me hold
him a
little
while
longer.
Friends.
What I never asked for.
The very word
I told him
I could never be.
Blue eyes flutter open.
After three days
and three nights shut,
they find mine
in an instant.
I’m afraid I ruined you.
That the next one,
you won’t believe.
Even,
even if he’s good.
He comes back
and still I must
kiss goodbye,
the sea of lies
too vast.
Darling,
don’t worry.
I will
always,
always
believe
the next
one.
Two cigars, one for each. Somehow they are both here. I am pressed between them. Light hair and dark. Long legs and long arms that don’t hold me. I taste the thick, luscious smoke billowing from once familiar mouths.
Gaze into a blanket of stars and try to decide which nightmare is worse.
But I don’t have to choose.
I, of course, get both.