Musings

Why do people say, "I'll die without you"? Love is like
only seeing the world through water and finally
getting a pair of goggles. Love clarifies -- if you get a crack in your goggles,
you can still swim in the pool, the chlorine's just going to burn a bit.

Without you
I wouldn't die. No, without you I would live
in the same way that mountains breathe - slowly. I would crumble
into red clay and stain the riverbeds scarlet; absorb into rain and reverse plummet
until I splat - fragmentate on the sidewalks - connecting to myself by
particles and separated at the trembling of bootsteps on pavement.

I would yoke myself to the moon and climb ladders of stars to till the
planets into line. I would make myself a constellation, reducing my joints to twinkles
above our jigsaw of blue and green -- fading in and out with every illumination, a
voluntary mirage hovering near the skyline.

I would carve myself into snowflakes, twisticulating my reflection
until it could only be viewed backwards through computer screens, window panes,
Christmas tree ornaments; to clarify my face you'd have to leave the illusion,
and at second glance, I'd be only as good as your eyes.

I would melt towards volcanic ash and flake in the oxygen, glom together with
lava boils and congealing crusts -- magmate and spill over into destruction, before
solidifying, embalming memories like grass shoots in my wake.

So you see, without you I'd live. I'd metaphorphasize and rebuild, step
A to step B, and -- without you... I'd live the same way mountains cry -
slowly.