Of Nights

You are lonesome and frustrated in
a shelter, bus long overdue,
with a woman standing beside you.
It starts as nothing, but when the sobs begin
they are barren and bereft, and you're still waiting
anxious and still when the bus blinks
into view and for a second you think
she'll force herself into the grating.

She doesn't. Sorry, she says. She sits
cautiously, as if the seat would bite.
You try to look out but it's too bright
inside, like there's nothing left in
the world but that sky, these cheap seats,
her overcome, devastated skin.

He's telling me about a superhero in DC where it's like magic instead of science and she makes things happen by saying them backwards.

You can't feel your toenails growing.

In a moment like a peach but where you eat the stone and it is dates and bread and solid and nourishing and a glass of water is coming soon, in those moments we like so much where you're happy and not ashamed, sometimes when you let the water hold you, floating, you are eating the peach as it falls from the tree to the ground, you can feel how good the moment is to be, different from <end>, that time subsides and all there is are fingers. And peach juice. But no stomachs, and shouting doesn't feel loud.

[I just want to say that I am spurting out love that is just for you, and my blood bubbles are angry that I'm telling them that they have to go through my mouth in order to speak to yours]