Som Du Är Mot Mig

Late nights on the South Island, didn’t he say he had to be home by ten and here we are closing out the bar. Run-on sentences melt into each other’s superlative affirmations, how much love fits into the months of our absence, how much there is to say in the few hours we have face to face. You write because you have to, he says, and his every breath explains the words you forgot you had. New York beats inside my pale wrists, this is a good reminder when I forget, there is a purpose bigger than my own. He writes from across the river and you think there is a home here, when I bleed I forget the peace that rests within those words, why must it be so hard? Life is complicated and simple all at once, you are an ordinary miracle at every turn, take it with you to sleep in this strange bed, the street is quiet but your skin is always yours, you are never entirely lost. Life cuts at your very gut, but aren’t you also somehow invincible?

There’s an alarm clock waiting underneath the pillow. I do not pull the shades. There’s no sense sleeping through all these things

just because they hurt.