I do not know this body in which I live anymore
Like a house in a dream
I wake up in it
I move from room to room
But everything is different
Alien in unanticipated ways

My thighs which when bare
used to crush together as people
on a Tokyo subway car
Now barely kiss
Close cousins in childhood
who only see each other at funerals these days

Hands and feet have become knobby at the joints
Tendons undulating as the digits move
Pulse fluttering periwinkle beneath the veil of flesh
They used to wear a thick cloak
Hiding their intricacies and vulnerabilities
Revealed only when bombarded by high photon energy

But it is not only the appearance
of my body which has changed
So, too, has its function
Where once 13 stairs were a chore
117 no longer quicken my breath
I hurl myself to the floor
Kick out and back in
Jump up and reach for the sky
Over and over
Because I can
Standing from a sit effortless
It doesn't require working up to
After a pop quiz of physical calculus

I draw my knees to my chest
Hold them there
Embrace myself comfortably
The whole of me encircled within my arms

But this house I'm dreaming
Is drafty
Cold all the time
And so easily bruised
Blood blooms beneath the veneer
In oily rainbows
Spills for which I cannot account
I careen into things
Forget the impact
Left with an ugly souvenir
Like so many blackout Amazon purchases
Without the economic drain
Or the surprise awesomeness

I know this thing is assuredly mine
By the scars
And the freckles
The keloid chicken pox scar on my shoulder
The anime eyes
But I wonder for how long
Will I always know myself
Or will the scene shift and leave me in a nightmare
Of my own unmaking

Scenarios ripe with possibility
Taken home in paper bags
Part of a meticulous plan
Place them on the counter
Attend to other things
Lay them on the cutting board
Slice them open with gleaming knife edge
Only to find them rotten inside
Blackened
Furry
Larvae wriggling in their hearts
And you starve

In early childhood I learned
To beware pretty people born of money
I'd been plunked down on a chunk of rock
Toiling with celebrities, their children, their grandchildren

They taught me they didn't understand need
Let alone want
The words slipped from their rosebud lips
And the thing appeared
Glistening and unmarked

I was an heirloom teacup
Packed and moved a hundred times
Hairline cracks mottling my insides
A chip on my rim
I'd never been filled to the top
Because the money wasn't there to do it

These golden godlets would think I was fun
Pick me up
Roll me from hand to hand
Pretend to make their dolls drink from me
But they would grow tired
I didn't have the bells and whistles of modern toys

And so they would throw me to the ground
Hoping I would break
Little did they know
I'd been enchanted, too
But not like them
There was iron in me
If they'd looked closely
They'd have seen my cracks
were grey and not cream

Frustrated, they would discard me
And a poorer, wiser kid
Would pick me up
To fill me with clear, cold water
Seeing in me what they knew of themselves

Refusing to climb the mountain
you know will kill you
Is not passivity
Spending money and time accumulating gear
Getting to the base
Hiring a Sherpa
These are all steps in your procession
Because you will run out of oxygen
And fall asleep there on an outcropping
Perhaps your hypoxic dreams will be exciting
But you won't wake
Your body frozen in place
A monument of predestined failure
You will be a landmark to those who follow you
"At Green Boots, you're halfway"
Because the search and recovery process
Is too dangerous
And too expensive
For anyone to mount
Your best hope may be that someone
Will kick you off the side
Send you for one last flight
Before shattering on the ground
A perverted sky burial

Better to save the effort
Mount smaller, survivable expeditions
Put something toward retirement
Fill shelves with photo albums
And die quietly with those who love you
The Last Stand isn't as heroic as it sounds

I have never had an inkling
To make our years grotesque
To dishonor the time we spent
loving one another the best way we knew how
I wonder what can make someone say they love you more than anything and don't want to lose you
But then be unwilling
to take the steps needed to keep them.
Is it unwillingness?
Or inability?
Would your discomfort have been so great
at having to go from static to dynamic
that you could walk away once the denial wore off? That when push came to shove,
​you shoved yourself out the door?

You represent half of my life
I can't throw you away
Or erase you
Or tell you I hate you
Because that would mean I'd wasted my time

You weren't a waste
Aren't
Nothing I can say or do
would prove that to you now
But nothing I can say or do
would make you prove that to yourself
So now I am here
In this home I bought for us
And you are there in someone else's
Have they grown tired, as I did, of your reliance?
Or are they handling you, as I did, with kid gloves?
Not because you belong to them,
But because your ego is fragile and
you are their mirror
Reflecting back at them all of their failings

Looking at it from this distance,
I can say it's not my fault
Looking at it from this distance,
I can see nothing was right
Looking at it from this distance,
I can still say I care

I found a box of old letters
Handwritten and yellowed
I thought I could still smell her perfume
She signed not with love but with a lipstick kiss
And just a single initial, R

His were in there, too
Gruffer, more perfunctory
Smelling only of aged paper
Written in capitals to her cursive
Signed with love, Peter

She talks about missing him
How her days stretch long before her without him near
Her irritations with the typing pool and her sister's upcoming wedding

He talks about ice and cold, hard work
He encloses a penguin feather
A bundle of rusty nails held together with twine
The letter says "Shackleton's hut"
There is a photo of him in chunky white boots
One knee to the tundra
Looking steely into the lens

Either she never sent him anything more than words
Or he kept them
Hid them from commanding officers and other soldiers alike

I arranged and read them in chronological order
I wanted to feel what they were feeling
Across continents and time
They longed in the ways they knew how
Some of his were blacked out
Intercepted by censors
Sensitive information that couldn't be shared

I didn't notice that the last one wasn't in his writing
Nor in hers
But someone else's
"We regret to inform you..."

There is a scratching inside the walls
Partnered with occasional moans
I tell myself that it's mice

But mice aren't the reason I keep to the center of the bed
They aren't why I tuck myself in tightly
Mice don't taunt you in the small hours
Chattering like teeth about bone dust
Wetly mouthing your exposed toes
Leaving itchy slime down your leg

Like mice, these things have tails
I see them as they snake through my doorway
But the light is so low
And my head still fuzzy
And they move so fast
That I convince myself I'm seeing things
And go back to sleep

A snow globe shaken too briskly
And with wet hands
Will inevitably fall
Crashing to the ground
Snowing glass shards
On unsuspecting feet

Upon examination
The fantasy held inside
Is just flecks of plastic
An anchored figurine now unmoored
Its face chipped
Antifreeze, the irony
And water

The dynamic scene presented
Now revealed to be static
False
Bits spread across the floor
They'll cut you if you're not careful
More careful than shaking a thing
With slippery hands

What if the whispering of fairly tale ghouls were real?
Would they come for you in the night and snatch you from your bed
Bony fingers tangled in your still damp hair
As they pull you across the hardwood floor
Your arms and legs flailing for purchase
Knobby elbows and knees catching on the gaps
Giggling at your whimpers
Please please please let me go

Would they put you in a cage made of bone
Lashed together with sinew
Dine on you so slowly
Sharpened fingernails the color of rust
slicing slivers of flesh like homemade egg noodles
(The bits on the inner thighs are their particular favorite)
Forked blue tongues lapping at the seeping wounds
Thirsty for every drop of blood and lymph
Eager for you to move because it flows so much more quickly
Oh no no no no no please I'll do anything

Would they take you out and hold you
Wrap you in scratchy rot scented blankets
Caress your filthy cheek with gnarled knuckles
Smooth your torn nightgown
Sing you screeching lullabies
Bile rising in your throat
Rock a bye baby in the treetop

Would you hear them as they return
And know that they won't keep you much longer
Because they've brought your replacement
And she smells so nice
Her skin so perfect
Her eyes so clear
Her hair so shiny
Her teeth so white
Her thighs so full and unmarked
You could just eat her up

"Luke, you are the piece I hadn't known was missing. Today, that piece will be permanently joined. I promise to love, support, and care for you in all the ways you need, in fair weather and foul, illness and health. I vow to be respectful, loyal, and honest -to laugh and cry with you. From this moment, I join my life with yours, standing by you always."

I spoke those words eight years ago today. He is, and always will be, a part of me. My promises still hold even though we've grown apart. The strangest part of everything about today is that I feel surprisingly little. It's as if it occurred in a parallel universe and another me had that day.

Oddly, the furrow on my finger where my ring rested for so long looks deeper today, but that might just be because I'm looking.