The Things You Can't Forget

The clouds amass, you can smell snow on the wind; on the screen, a distant poet says How the hell am I supposed to write anything in all this sunshine, it makes you smile despite the brick in your chest. It's only weather until it breaks you.

I ran along the river in solitude, the cold etching salmon-colored blossoms along my skin, numb to the thoughts which kept me up through the night (which keep me up through the winter). Not until I reached the ferry terminal did I thaw, as the questions and answers of a life tumbled through my innards, looking to connect. We stood on that ferry in the freezing dark: I told him how I would ride it back and forth across the bay because I couldn't afford therapy, and he replied that it made sense, you with your thing for the sea. It wasn't untrue. The sea which calms me, which centers me, which reminds me how all things come, and go, how we are only pieces in a greater scheme. The water was ominous then, black and shiny like oil, tossing around the boat. I whispered my reassurances to the approaching skyline. If it heard, it said nothing.

By the time I had reached the foot bridge that signals the end of my run, that tells me I may rest and returns me to reality, all the answers had connected, in that magical way they do when your muscles have nothing left to give. Hearts will always bleed, it is what they were meant to do, and who are you to be above it. But if you must bleed, bleed in poetry.

If you must ache, ache with purpose.