I.
Sometimes I can’t help but wonder
at the forks in the road.
Paths not taken.
Discoveries not made.
How would they have turned out?
No different than anyone else
looking back on their lives,
but I feel infinitely ill-prepared
to face my own demons.
II.
I keep you at my back,
your sword at the ready;
you face them with me —
you are my greatest weapon,
and I hold you in my shadow,
keep you in the dark
to keep you mine.
You’ve never complained,
even when I make everything about me.
Even when I bleed you dry.
III.
The world is laid open before me,
all the cards face up.
Sometimes I know a thing
before it becomes.
Sometimes I see.
IV.
In all my tellings of my wounds,
I know you are the one
who could tear me apart
instead of bandage me.
V.
I love you.
There’s something about reading you that makes the world feel right to me. Like I should always have known you, and do know you, and that we see the world in a similar way. I am so glad I know you, Jones.
I wish I had bigger words for thank you–as a writer, I feel like I should be more adept at communications like this.
But thank you, Lewin. I feel the same way.