A relationship is a versatile compound
in the sense there’s many different ways it ends
this time — a conversation on your couch
where I make the call to be friends.
I used to treat intimacy
like a substance
but that was just a different way
to be cruel.
I’m nearly two years sober
with many relationships over
it’s time this heart had a different fuel.
I’m not sad about it -
I had to either fix my heart
or die, I know
after being sick, an addict
since the big one-six,
I’m finally unafraid to grow.
The wind that tore me up, threw me about,
I just try to move with it’s flow,
so maybe I’ll find an honest way out.
I still don’t think much of myself —
a small speck of dust in the human race.
But is solitude so bad?
Stars have no problem
in the emptiness of space
and even then, in the void
they’re always in relation.
So far away, to start
and yet each a part
of a greater constellation.
So yeah,
I’m a lonely pile of sundust
not made to be a lover.
But I’d like to think
intimacy on a cosmic scale
is found just in each other.
You’ve probably stopped reading the poem
to say:
‘Sure, collective love’s is good,
hell
maybe even great.
But love’s not a currency with equal exchange rates.
The love I want is a different kind,
so personally, I think you’re full of shit.’
Maybe that’s true,
but I think you’ll find
you can still be alone in a relationship.
Today, no clouds in the sky, the air is calm.
Today, my heart is an open palm
Reaching, reaching for the rest of the species
bringing crude messages spoken through touch:
hold me, embrace me,
hear me, see me.
I don’t know what the future brings
but the world will turn whatever it holds
and the heart will burn however it gets cold
and still a chance remains
for the overturn of the old.
This poem’s a bit of a pile at the tip —
thoughts jumbled together, but it’s fine.
I’m just announcing an unspoken truth;
I’d be alone, whatever relationship status —
that’s everyone’s motto,
and mine!
