The First Straw
Like roses in a pill canister. I ask when magic stopped being real. Love is a magic trick. Something you applaud like an audience. It’s for magicians, not you. The things my characters tell me. About myself.
The first straw of warm sunlight when you’re cold. My feet are warm in sand. Waves curl and break. Even beaches turn chill. Looking out. Asking me to explain why I love you is like asking me to catch light or count grains of sand. Like wheat planted on the beach.
How do I explain something that can’t be touched but is everywhere around me?
How do I put into words someone who doesn’t love around my past but through it? How do I stop leaning when I have leaned for so long? How do I stop breaking? Shattering. Tell me not to be broken glass.
For so long I leaned. Through divorce. Inward. West Point. Inward. Deployments. Inward. Ranger school. Loss. Jail. Recovery. Relapse. Prison. Ambulances and hospitals. I am dense from all the leaning.
What can anyone say to hurt me? What can they do to reach me? What are they going to tell me about life that I do not know? I have folded in. And out.
If Bukowski had bluebirds. I have flowers. And it’s something what they can do in the dark. In desolation. How close a man can be to death and still live.
