remember when
i pulled you into the hollow
of my fractured ribcage,
we practiced
breathing, what a
thing to
believe in forevers
without blinking
i scribbled the future,
paragraphs in permanent marker,
showed you and
saw you
time was a makeshift line
of polaroid stories, arranged
with tender hands across
the hardwood floor, before
the wind, human hurricane,
time coming loose like
fibers from the floorboards
to call more than one place home
is always to be aching for somewhere,
sitting in an airplane seat,
craving the earth and everyone on it,
ginger ale and crackers,
untethered and wanting
i am sorry for everything i have
missed and will miss, sorry for the
way my voice breaks, sorry i am so
often there when i am here,
i am here, even when i’m there
we once believed there was a
time and place –– for us, for
the aching and healing, the
births and deaths of our
highest hopes, regrets on
the shelf, out of reach, we
were believers, then, we
michael king 