I Am Both

I am bone thin and make-believe. How many lovers must I listen to before I listen to myself? I think about my things collection dust and you sitting at lunch, and of course, I think about Montana. We are only ever as alone as we decide we are. You read that and tell me, although I am not there, that this isn’t true.

For better or worse, my choice or yours, the dressings of my life have been taken off. The years with you feel like fairy tails in castles, on winding roads, dinners in candlelit basements, and rivers so blue they must run from somewhere no one can ever reach while still alive. I try so hard to see myself in this.

I had a teacher who had to tell me for weeks, or was it months, maybe years that I would be so much better off and so much stronger if I just stopped explaining myself all of the time. He said, just make the statement and then write the next sentence. She sat on the bed. No explanation needed.

It is hard to allow myself to happy lately, hard to come down from the ivory tower of hurt I’ve made. I fear I am constantly running to catch up with myself and I might never catch my breath long enough to enjoy the view. There is a difference between being, and being where you are, and I am not sure I know how to do either.

But there is good in everything, and everything goes too fast. I collect anyway. And when I get sad, I dance.

Language is the only thing that soothes me, and the only thing I can hold in my hands. Perhaps that is why all of this is happening. I’ve said it before; we haven’t the least idea of what is coming for us. I never would have imagined any of this, and I am going to try my luck at imagining something else.

There is something I am not saying but I don’t know what it is.