How I Wonder What You Are

I was wondering about the last time you looked up. The last time you let the sky swallow you. The last time you felt small. The last time you left this Earth and everything that keeps you tied to all this borrowed time you never let yourself cry about.

I found you sitting at the center of a universe. You looked so serene there sleeping next to stars. I knew then I wanted you to spread out across my shoulders. I wanted to feel your weight. I had lost my life and I needed it to keep me in one place. To keep me from drifting into the bright black nothing.

When I was young I wanted to write about what it sounded like when the sun sang. I wanted a spirit to move my hand. I wanted the notes to penetrate my soul. I wanted to see angels in the ink and hear heaven ringing in my ears but the years had other plans for me. The highs and lows settled into hopeful prose but there was something else behind the words now. A graceful pain. A sacred sorrow. Prayers and pen strokes and promises waiting on the other side of tomorrow if I would just kneel a little longer.

There’s faith in falling. A kind of restless religion in the dreams that keep me up at night. I wanted to whisper God into your ears and write these verses across your chest. I thought that I could find peace in all those pages. That I could drown amongst the sounds of something divine, your voice…

These are the worlds we create. The continents we construct, stitched together with every kiss and every sweet nothing spinning from the tip of our tongues. The oceans we cross. Sails spread wide and catching the wind of all your laughter. All of these carefully placed paragraphs we walk through like gardens, picking up punctuation and planting new letters to let grow, hoping we say what we mean and that each sentence can live just a little longer.

You see…I have trouble living in the lands beyond my breath. I know where every rock and tree I’ve spoken into existence sits so I never stumble when I’m rambling down your pathways. In here I’m still strong. My hands can hold themselves still and all of my fears don’t shake so bad. I tried to follow truth where I couldn’t go but maybe I was just afraid to see where it would end. Afraid to find that there was an end waiting at all, when this world can live forever. With you still sitting next to singing supernovas and me still blinded by the hope of all to come. I think I’ll leave today though. I think I’ll let those stories rest. I’m too tired to tell them now and they’ll still be here when I sleep. It feels good to open my eyes and if I squint, just right, I think I’ll find that it’s not so bad at all. And it’s beautiful outside.