Saved

invisible heart scars itch

the stitches saved time

I’m fine now

I’m fine

The trees pump

All summer the trees pump the rust-red up through roots, trunks, branches. Now, as it reaches their leaves, they heavily, heavenly, fall.

She made him laugh, a good sign. Then her words touched his heart and made him cry. He wiped away his tears and smiled in the mirror. Yes.

He stood in the rain holding a tray with six glasses, singing “Happy birthday to me” as the glasses slowly filled.

Jac mixed each drop with amber, pulled and twisted with pliers and a knife forming teardrop red pearls. She would show them blood money.

I’ve been waiting all night and now it’s five in the afternoon and the sun is forgetting its place in the sky. Tonight again then. Again.

There’s only one you, I said to your twin. You are my one and only.

“Once I had a secret love.” They stopped washing up and drying and twirled around the room. “My secret love’s no secret any more.”

There was everything.

Then nothing.

The absence of something,

of that something,

was worse than the knowing you had gone.