these are the sinking hours

the hours where you sink

and prepare for a quick ride

to the bottom

where the words get hard to say

and the heaviness is hard to

navigate through

the keys get blurry

its hard to breathe

the pull from the moon

feels personal and intentional

soon you close your eyes

and

sink

really

really

low

at the bottom you are a god..

I didn’t know you well.

Didn’t even really like you--

if we’re being honest.

But here you are

ten years later.

To think--if you’d lived

I’d have forgotten you long ago.

But instead I still wonder

about the bridge that let you go

and the water that swallowed you.

If you were afraid

or changed your mind.

They say it happens.

I remember

your father’s voice on the phone,

the hollowness of it.

Gathering together

your toothbrush and alarm clock,

apples and coffee mug.

The striking banality of

things left behind.

I notice the indescrepancies.

I see the flaws. The cracks in the designs. I see them in people. I wish I didn't.

I see the hypocrisy. More prominent in those whose conviction is loudest.

I see the problems. I hide. I feel my cowardness tearing at my soul. Unable to break from it's fatal grip. I become numb. Moving on from one thing to another. Keeping everything close and everyone far.

They tell you life is hard. They say it gets better. Maybe it's true. I've just gotten used to it.

She has eyes like Elizabeth Taylor and a smile like the sun on a dark gray day

Beautiful

Quiet

Powerful

Everyday she is with me is a surprise

everyday she holds me in her arms a dream

I think of years and the tears and the time and it's worth it , it worth more than gold

more than a pound flesh from my broken back

I sit thinking of myself as Joseph Merrick a lump of angry emotion boiled and formed in broken bone and blood and lumpy skin

Patience

Care

Love

These words twisted in meaning now clear

concise

resounding

I understand them all for what they should be and what they can be

There's no place I'd rather be than circling the sun with you.

A recent discovery of mine is an application that allows me to alter my pictures. I can "fix" every flaw, correct all of myself.

What have I done?

At first I was ecstatic. I "fix" a family picture we take while visiting my grandmother. My mother is overjoyed. She orders me to "fix" all of her pictures too.

I start to go back. "Fixing" myself. I thin my arms, pull in my stomach, shrink my breasts. I post a picture or two. Wondering, hoping, someone will notice. It isn't me. Whiter teeth, and unblemished skin. Toned figure that comes with dedication I have never possessed.

Like after like. Compliment after compliment. No one seems to notice. They all approve.

Does it matter? That these people I seldom see, perceive me as something I'm not. As different than I am. More traction on a picture that isn't real.

I stare in the mirror. No makeup. Uncombed hair. I see red irritation. I see cheeks that are too round. I see an almost invisible jaw line.

I look down at my phone at a picture I have "fixed". I wonder which one is me.

I turn away from the mirror.