Happier Than Ever in an Instant

everything is breaking up

my stupid

blue sky

my stupid

blue manuscript.

All because I (past tense) read

an email this morning

note

and burst into tears, almost burst into blur                            relief

groundwater

bleeding hearts

the sea.

You see, it (the email note) was from a friend who I’ll never see again

(a metaphor from the vividry), who I was sure I’d lost forever,

because the me who first saw her wasn’t me.

But rather a shade of me, of awful fucked-up-ed-ness:

too on fire, too drunk in my shirt, big heavy shoes and a moon notwithstanding,

bleeting, cantankerous, depressive messed-up

In contrast, her note to me this morning wasn’t messy at all.

It said we are here, and we are, and fine with it.

Deep breath. Momentum. Good heavens.

This one exhortation is—like many other of my/your exhortations—the bomb!

This one says again, I don’t want to be a terrible monster.

I don’t want to be meat.

I want to be a person of character, with a mouth of character, with

a trajectory toward this moment right now and toward doing my best

among the felt things forever, the wildflowers and shark’s teeth

our lifeboat our time

and to feel as well as possible, considering everything else, which is everything

excited but also breaking up, reading electrical letters, faltering, palavering

the fact of the snow heavy falling outside, the streets and cars

and dogs of white. We are here and we are.

How wonderful to feel that so many things are more

and less important than they need to be,

only because we can,

only because we need to, only because the disconnection notice

does nothing but put us on notice

that no matter what else happens

we have to keep crossing our fingers, our wires, our sparks

sometimes magnificent and sometimes to burn us

sometimes to illuminate our words in the dark

we live and we live and we die                but we live first

and it’s the thing we know best

the thing we share between us

which prepares us

our purpose