by Tanner X
A river of speech separates you from me.
When you sat on your bed, crossed-legged, spilling out all the sounds the rain made Inside you, things I could only guess at. When I swam out to you through those words, found you huddled inside you, shivering and beautiful I didn’t tell you about the cracks you made In me, about how confused the way out became.
A vessel of speech separates you from me.
Now when I sit to write about you I find myself in a thousand words meaning distance, a pool of sky crying a thousand spilled epitaphs for all the worlds we created and left, for all those stories I packaged away for you in great jars, colored stars cooling even as I brought them out.
A skin of speech separates you from me.
And I saw you, laid out in the soft language your body makes, and I understood why God created death, why every love is desperate. I understood the words before words, the God before the Father, speaking like mad, fingers dripping creation stains with love for everything at once
