Sixty-five. On the subject of illumination.

It is often difficult to see moments reconstructed and replayed
in another person's words. Your voice translated into text,
clean and precise, without any sort of stumbling or mispronunciation,
which means that whatever has been written is already
a half-lie, which probably creates a perfectly sensible balance,
as every line that falls out of your throat is only half-truth.
What the other half is? Well, we're not far enough along in the story
to be able to tell yet. Once upon a time, a boy met a girl
and he named her home. Are you seeing a theme here?
Can you sense the loss? She had a name for him but she never said it
out loud. He used words like delicious and drunk,
and it carried them through the winter all right, but when summer came
her hands stayed empty. It wasn't what anybody wanted,
it was barely worth keeping on the tongue. Sometimes
you see so much brightness in a person, you can't look away.
It's like looking at the sun, it isn't any sort of good for you
and just because you feel it all over your skin, doesn't mean it's yours.

Sixty-four.

So you searched and searched
and then found the thing that you decided
was warm enough and kind enough
and right-fitting enough to be called

home.

Tell me then,
why you would go.

Sixty-three.

There are questions
that I don't want to answer.
I wish for things, all the time.
Mostly for undiscovered continents,
a warm body to come home to.
I don't know what sort of finale
you're expecting. Rockets, fireworks,
one last passionate kiss in the stairway.
It was me that wanted the flash of light
and secret messages or really anything at all
that would indicate, "You are not in this
by yourself." Like I said,
I wish for things. It's not as if
I'm the first person to ever stand
in front of the bathroom mirror in a panic.
"You're welcome to sleep over
and there are eggs in the refrigerator."
It was the same answer every time.

Sixty-two. Hair.

Like most women,
when stepping away from a relationship,
I participate in necessary rituals.
I do not put together boxes of mementos
for the dustiest corner of the basement,
nor do I bitterly burn photographs
or cry for precisely 2.5 days.
Two years ago, it was the darkest color
I could find. One year ago, I began
the growth process, a curtain to hide
behind, to warm my neck.
If I change the shape,
then it means I've never been here.
If I change the color, then I hope
I won't be recognized on the street.
Sometimes, a new shampoo in order
to change the familiar mixture of scents
left on the pillows.
This time, afterward,
the locks were soft in between my fingers.
There has not been this much before.
Covering the top of the garbage can, the
forest that you would throw your hands into.
It wasn't enough, taking it away
from my collarbone, my chest.
I put more color into it, this is
superficial, I'm aware, but
I don't know how else to separate
my substance from you.

Sixty-one.

This is about happiness.
Just because the timing is right
doesn't mean he's there to save you.
You fall out of a building and land
directly on top of a mourning dove
who is diving for his breakfast.
This does not mean that he exists
in this pocket of air in this moment
for you, and besides,
six ounces of feather and hollow bone
don't stand a chance against
your plummeting mass. Do you see
what I'm saying here? It's more
than physics and coincidences,
it's the pretty girl visiting
from out of town with an internal weight
equal to his own (note: balance is always key),
it's the increasing number of nights
spent in separate rooms, it's
the day you held a string up to the map
and each inch meant twenty miles and
when you were done with all the measuring
you could wrap it around your wrist
seven times, and who the hell decided
that the number was lucky anyway?
Now, hang up the phone and admit
that you don't have the answer.
Admit that this is the wrong way
again, that you have one last hand
to show and it has nothing to do with
winning, and fall asleep with the fan on
because you desperately need
the noise.

Sixty.

Go?
I don't understand the word.
There's nowhere to follow.