most of the time, in my dreams, i am resigned to all the horror and sadness. i’ve seen loved ones die. i’ve had teeth explode out of my mouth. i’ve seen you and them all leave me over and over, angry with me, overjoyed, not thinking of me at all. and each time, i am unaffected, an odd observer to my own life. it is what it is. it was always meant to be this way. null and void to the core.

today, this morning, in the midst of such a dream, of our mortality, i couldn’t stop weeping, sobbing, i was inconsolable, i couldn’t be held, balled up into myself, heaving, overwhelmed.

and i woke up.

not a tear, just an immense emptiness. the memory of the dream so vivid but not one tear on my face. i felt nothing, passionless, weightless, i was nothing. where did it come from?

more importantly, where did it all go?

my love,

it’s been all amuck. i’ve been all amuck. we’ve built a foundation that has begun to take root. i see a path out of the woods, i see the shore. i see the waves breaking against the jetty, i hear the promise of an end in the tide. i see the seagulls coasting the sky like kites waiting for me to take hold.

and as we approach, the soil turns sandy and our feet slip, footfalls momentarily stuck and slide. and this is where we are at, so close but it feels infinitely harder. this is the shortest stretch but the most arduous.

and of all the things i promised you in this love-life of ours, this is the one dream i have my sights on, the one thing that all this effort has been geared towards. and it’s crystalizing before us, it’s as clear as the horizon in the distance and the sea that kisses it with the sun.

will you join me my love? will you dance with me through this hurdle of dunes and petrified wood? will you sit with me in the sand and let the breeze play with your hair? will you laugh with me as we remember when our children were scouting for seashells? will you hold my hand as we watch the sunset before the moon enshrouds us all?

it’s just a little bit further. it’s right there, past the muck.

i can taste it.

love, always
me

the machine moves, it has momentum. the only friction, could i have done more? it is never enough, it never ends. yes, it becomes background noise, the taunts of incompleteness, of being broken, a hobble of a man, no, not a man. there is nothing gendered about this, strictly shuffling, before the designation, before the naming, it happened all before you were even named: a still birth that crawls about and pushes on, scarred and scarring, unforgiving in your pursuit, unforgiven for what you have done