No Matter the Wreckage

, it is less about fear and more about curiosity.

When I meet you, in that moment,

I am no longer a part of your future.

I start quickly becoming part of your past.

But in that instant, I get to share a part of your present.

And you get to share a part of mine.

And that is the greatest present of all.

But I see the impossible every day.

Impossible is trying to connect in this world; trying to

hold on to others when things are blowing up around you; knowing

that while you are speaking, they aren’t just waiting

for their turn to talk. They hear you.

They feel exactly what you feel at the same time that you feel it.

It’s what I strive for every time I open my mouth:

That impossible connection.

I see the moon and the moon sees me.

The moon sees somebody that I don’t see.

God bless the moon and God bless me.

God bless the somebody that I don’t see.

If I get to heaven before you do,

I’ll make a hole and pull you through.

I’ll write your name on every star.

And that way the world won’t seem so far.

—Children’s rhyme

How strange,

that when you are away, I reach for my

cell phone’s buzz as if it were your hand.

Each shiver in my pocket, a way to find you.

There are parts of me I only recognize from photographs.

Today lasted so long, by the time I arrived at nightfall,

I had forgotten that this morning was this morning.

I’ll always keep

an extra supply of chocolate and rain boots nearby,

because there is no heartbreak that chocolate can’t fix.

Okay, there’s a few heartbreaks that chocolate can’t fix.

But that’s what the rain boots are for.

Because rain will wash away everything,

if you let it.

There is hurt here that cannot be fixed by Band-Aids or poetry.

I spend most of my time wondering

if I should be somewhere else.