TIME

could be seen to be eating away at all of this. our being together. the way the light shining through your lashes makes you look softer than you are. we are growing into the ages now - like like two ugly ducklings realizing we're geese - our beauty there, long before we've known it. i have thought that i could live without you - have imagined scenarios straight out of a movie - you and the kids gone in an instant - forever - the shortest distance between here and heartache. i labor alone on a hillside somewhere, picking tiny yellow leaves off an indigenous plant that needs no pruning. years tick by like sunsets. my heart, as quiet as a log.
there is an emptiness to imagining. bereft of the certainty of impact. feelings evade the folly -only being real when they are. i lie to myself. pretending strength in situations before they occur - getting ready for the truest of battles should it ever come. what i would do i think, really, is crawl into the cavernous places of myself and sleep there - until i found you.

sleep

i pretend i am someone who might actually go to sleep once the little ones are down. i pretend at it like an art. eyelids are here to remind me of weight and dawn and that deliberating on delirium is about as smart as a box of hair. my pillow mocks me from across the room. i visit the bathroom as if every time will be the last.