IV

I can't. I won't.
I'd rather she die than I destroy her life, he says.
And I say, I know.

I can't. I won't do this with you again.
I distract my mind but it doesn't help; it leaps down that path the second I let it outside.
I am lost in fantasy.
Don't let me be lost.
I don't want to be beyond the sound of your voice.

But I don't.
I don't hear your voice.
I hear its murmuring and laughing,
A vibrant and swelling discourse until I bring up this subject, and then it subsides.
Like a tidal wave. It's just the tide.
It's to be expected. The tide.

"I can't. I won't."
"Bloom." "Ache."
I am sick.
I wish there were not two pages to this blog.
I want to be whole before you.
More than breath.
More than food.
More than anything.
More than life itself.
A life divided from you is no life at all.

Remind me of what I know.
But my heart doesn't know what it knows anymore.
My brain likes to pull out old vignettes —