The summer we raced frozen boots up glacier scars, the night slept a precarious three inches between the tiptoe of my neck and the whisper of your mouth as we tried to dream our way out of a fireworks sideshow, and

A week later I lay on the floor spinning Evans’ sermon to peace and found black anemones sprouting from my hair.

Maybe I’ve never been gritstone enough for your darkened alley hallmark cards, perhaps

Not fractured the same at lung level to wear the right hieroglyphs under my soft sleeves.

But, listen: my chaos don’t burn like yours but no one wears a belt simply for looks, get me?

When the tooth fairy started pinching pennies, I buried patience with the dog under the raspberries and turned culdesacs into stamp books,

Traded basement bars for Buddhist monks and broken-down busses.

The truth is,

I’m pretty good at running but I’m far better at believing in quantum somersaults and interplanetary beach combing.

You merely have to ask.

For the love of all that is holy,

One that I am yet afraid to admit to myself,

I want (you)

to stop

Running.

I want to bury my mothwings in your bourbon voice

Press teeth to the honey of your cats eye mouth.

Stick lemon lime dots in your ears so all you’ll hear is my doorstep in your eyes saying “I am the lantern,

look for me to go home”

And I know (god, I know) the mud pit needs raking and

street signs are knife fights and

Highway crosses can go to hell

And that time is a paint-by-number pillow box whose crayons will ever so gently go missing with use.

But, listen.

There is never enough time

we are never enough time

And time is never more than a stupid lie about two drops of water on either side of mans folly.

But I promise you that a ribcage can hold more than a rattlesnake

and that

Eventually we will all be reborn.

If the answer is no

I’ll be fine

It’ll all be fine.

We’ll meet at the bar

And toast tequila to the ghost of my father’s mother

(The angel of unrequited wishbones)

This is all her fault anyway.