until never and again

fists clenched (hold on, hold on, please).
crescent indentations of red
etched into the palms of my hands
but still
it slips, slips, slips

pulls away from me until my fingers grasp at empty air.
it is weightless, I am weightless, floating, helpless
nothing left
to do

but fall…

through all this strangeness,
chaos controlled by months and days and years,
through a shimmering wave of gossamer weave -

when you’re gone and you’re here and you were never really,
anything more than a flicker in the distance
of possibility

but

you smile, and I fall

sinking into you but I’m only falling
into whispered sighs and the want, aching want, so wanting that it needs.
the press of your body against mine, the frantic undress of your lips, fingertips,
arms wrapped around, over, between, everywhere

my skin is alive,
it jumps, electric

pulsing, pulsing, pulsing…

Oh.

your tongue tastes like vodka and half-truths and I drink it in,
thirsty, desperate…. until…
drunk off nothingness

i am empty

gone

fingers cannot unclench, they do not know how.
holding so, anchored, sane
a tightly wound coil that is ready to spring

At….
….any….
….moment…

… falling, weightless. Everything into nothing.
Alone with my memories and this fall, this constant fall,
this rushing wind in my ears, this

drip, drip, drip like a leaky faucet.
tap, tap, tap at my brain

a drum beat.

bum-bum, bum-bum, bum-bum, bum-bum

I lose my fucking mind.

(stop)

please, please
pick out the little pieces of my brain, my heart, my soul
that contain you, every inch of skin you’ve touched,
lips, throat, inner thigh.
the moments that contain you, wherein you exist
so wholly, so you

take them. they’re yours
they murder me,
leave me slain, bleeding, an empty corpse…

…twisted and tangled in confusion
nothing is as it seems (seemed)
and everything is everything

weightless and heavy. light and dark. lost and found. love and nothing

you and me…
you and…
you…

(wait)

you are me and I am you and everything all rolled into one shapeless formless mess of bones and hair and skin and veins everything all that I have ever met and known and thought or considered you are part of this uncontainable universe that is ever changing pushing outward swallowing whole everything that lives and breaths and loves and dies and…

me

you are a moment,
incandescent happenstance

(end)

you smile, I return

…let it slip away

a long ribbon waves back to earth
I stand and watch (destroyed, glad) as
a single balloon floats away toward the clouds,
stretching up and away and gone.