We’re on a couch somewhere, with our feet up,
watching something stupid on TV
and we’re laughing
and for the first time in a long time,
something feels simple

We’re on a couch somewhere,
and there’s wine in our cheeks
and cracks in our hearts
that don’t feel so deep when we’re together

Our words move easily here, like breathing,
like an exhale from some center part of us
that can be hard to reach

You’re leaning on me,
on a couch somewhere,
and you’re not afraid of getting hurt.
You’re not afraid,
of being so close to me

there are grooves that time has loved, deep,
into your pages,

memories, that warm the color
of your skin.

There are notes you’ve scribbled
in the margins,
soft strokes of ink to part,
each moment, from the last.

There are words that you keep hidden,
like secrets in your bones,

and you,
are the only story
I want to read

I prefer the questions sometimes,
to the burden of knowing.

For while they persist, unanswered,
all possibilities remain

and then at some point you realize,
that none of us know

that our lives are a series of chances we take
on one another

that all we ever have is a good feeling
and the choice
of whether to follow our heart,
or turn away from it

And sometimes we take a chance on someone
and against all odds,
against every sliver of possibility
that person decides,
to take a chance on us too.

And other times,
they don’t

There is a garden, inside you.
In it you will find
the most beautiful snap dragons,
begonias, ivies, and lilies,
that you will ever see;

but here and there,
are a different kind of flower.

The petals are
a rugged black,
and they bear no name
that you would recognize.

And there will come a time
you must be brave enough
to face, their gnarled thorns,
and pluck them.
Endure what is the horrible discomfort
in their tendency to claw
everything up, on the way out,

and you can toss them,
still gasping, into the water.
Watch the black
bleed from them
like ink, as they circle the drain.

Or you can press them
between the pages of a book,
and they’ll become a poem.

And while they always grow back,
I promise, there are long nights
amid the churned up soil where they once were,
where you’ll feel nothing but relief

I am
emotionally gutted,
every nerve raw, exposed

each breath I take
I can feel it, deep
in my bones