Sincere but Unkeepable Promises

Something is wrong but what? Drinking coffee in morning darkness, rehearsing later encounters. Beyond Christ, there is no other way, that is how it is for me now. What you are calling order, is it really?

Mountains deep blue, here and there a maroon blur. Wanting to see deer again, wondering how it came to be I don’t.

I remember walking home after hunting, circling the potato field, how Dad stalked before me, silent and disappointed. The moon is what tenuous link to our shared history?

Straightening, setting aright.

Afternoon blowjob in the pantry, both of us laughing after, my cock so silly and beautiful how can you not. She is kind in reply to my email, and my nervousness evaporates accordingly, replaced by the frustration I always feel at having to navigate complex social dialogues. Unknown save for the little towns in which my bitterness became a monument.

Losing it again. The universal plan so far beyond us it's crazy even to think about. She looked lost when I ended the conversation, and it entered me, her lostness, and became a great sorrow that haunted me for years. Sweet sixteen, what bullshit.

Winter collides with desire, breaks up the ice jams, letting the sea breathe as it flows through channels we carved into the cosmos with sincere but unkeepable promises.

Neither praying nor not praying. Cider doughnuts sprinkled with sugar, how did it come to this.

Waking from a dream of lilies to Chrisoula moaning in her sleep, old fears, old Greek gods overseeing familiar terrors, the bad things men do, so I murmur Dickinson’s “My Life had stood a Loaded gun” over and over not to wake her but to settle her dreams and it works, her breathing slows and quietens, she shifts to her side, and then there is silence again, then there is this silence.