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You say you’re coming home next month, that paradise is over and reality returns with the spring flowers. I want you here, did I mention I want you here, but you escaped the storms and the darkness and I don’t know if I can forgive that absence. Must everyone suffer to win my praise? Could it not be enough penance if you let me run my fingers through your wavy disheveled hair?

The deadlines arrive at last in a fire. I emerge charred from the rubble, more questions than answers, more uncertainty than poise. It’s only February, was this how the year was meant to go? They’re only growing pains, she says, but how are we not to cry with the breaking of our bones? There isn’t enough bourbon on the isle of manhattan to quell this despair, it doesn’t mean we won’t keep trying. 

It’s only February. It’s only winter storms in a pandemic, it’s only a world at the edge of crumbling don’t worry. You come back when you’re good and ready, see if I won’t be here still. 

See if I won’t be spring flowers and a house on fire, all at once before you’ve even landed.