The great machine

in the dining room, i sit at the table. it's dark and cool and the sounds of the refrigerator and the occasional train passing by are all that surround.  did i leave the life i used to know by mistake? by becoming too comfortable? or was it something far worse, that i truly was happy here once before.

i seem to have forgotten how i got here. maybe it was all the reckless smoking or the shameless sex. maybe it was that i used to drink to forget, just to wish the world away. odd enough, i've forgotten without a drink.

and so you'll call, or more accurately, send a message via social media because that is how the world works now. and i'll tell you, "it's fine. i got out of that place." then the pause. the big gap that illustrates everything while being nothing, we no longer have a common ground. the exchanges are short now and they're as cold as the coffee i'm not drinking anymore.

you were my lover in the darkest days. my soul and my passion on the brightest. i drew you with lines that seemed infinite and painted you with strokes so delicate no one believed they were ever mine. you were the one thing i could never believe was mine.

so i threw a kayak into the back of our old farm truck and drove to the end of the road where there's just open shore line and this dying grass touches the waves still wildly alive yet cold as though they are no longer. i paddle out until i can see the sun rise and it's still the most beautiful thing to me. the way it kisses the horizon and ignites the entire hemisphere.

it used to be you and me on this frozen sea. but you spent your whole life begging for a connection.  imagining and demanding a kind of love that would surpass even life. and you found a way to cling to everything; something like a god, cigarettes, a song, and at one point me. i knew it was unrealistic and the only way something could last that long was if it were internal. so i tried to teach you how to run from it all, "let's get out of here," i'd encourage. 

we never went anywhere. we never lasted forever. 

when you allow yourself to be so vulnerable, so truly exposed, it's like letting go. it's like i just opened my mind and let it seep out; what a mess i've made. what a horrible mess. 

out here, on the water, i'm vulnerable again. the waves crashing into me the wind howling. my own body working against me as my joints begin to ache, lips chapped and nose runs. it's cold and the water grows rougher as the winds pick up. i guess it was because i became an addict early on. i turned to drugs and escalated quickly. nothing was ever good enough. 

then you came along and i was addicted to you. i craved you and i long for you in your absence. i would carve the wound you became just to feel it deeper; to keep you closer.  out here, i can watch the world spin like a great machine. when it comes to you, i am blind.