raining through and obliterating all that we made a home,
I think I’d rather just burn in the finality of this flight,
turn everything to cinders and
watch them evaporate one by one.
Because leaving even the smallest trace of us
will be too much for me to breathe in,
I would gather all the ash and dust
and any speck of bone and try to
shape them to their precise former beauty,
try to breathe light and life into who already drew
their last breath to say goodbye.
The last of me would toil away to bring back the dead
and be a man without a name to claim or a season to hold,
studying every book I could find for the right order of words
to pray and pass along to pull you back from wherever
we move along to when love just doesn’t seem to be enough
but I gave all I knew how to give.
All that I couldn’t bear to let another call their own.
If you and I become sinking stones,
sailing towards the fragile earth
and rendering this landscape unknowable,
I think I’d rather scorch an entire continent beyond
recognition than scar a city,
watch every country we built become columns
of smoke climbing and blacking out the sky.
Because leaving behind any standing ruin
would be too much to take in,
I would scoop up concrete, glass, and snapped cables,
try to stitch and weld new territories
under the cold glow of the shattered stars made with your leaving.
The last of me would surrender my name to try and
breathe love and light into these artifacts
to summon you back from whatever realm we move along to
when love cannot be enough to keep us together
but I gave all that I knew how to give.
All that I would give you again.
