Sometimes I wonder if we do anything. Sometimes I wonder if we are the lightning, just passing through.


You are the phone call Saguaro. You savor the succinct, succulent strand of the conversation, storing the last desiccate word in the hot air, dry as a bone.


I see you sit there with your face rested against the glass of the window, as if you have already escaped. You blow a half breath against the pane, and laugh as you watch it fade instantly. Where do you go when you are alone?


I feel as though I build blocks of silence, thick as leaves, black as rain. The silence thrives like the limp oxygen that brings your chest buoyant. It is the sound of air flooding your lungs, trapped there.


I looked at your face once, quickly, and it was vacant. It was sharp like ice. It was cold and empty like ice. There was absolutely nothing in your face. Where do you go?


My mouth is a loaded pistol. I look at you and say nothing. I look at you and my tongue licks the rims of my teeth as if they are a cage.


We are living our lives in a vacuum. The airless atmosphere is filled with our broken words that died on our lips before they were born. We live in an unbroken meniscus of silence closing in on all sides. There is nothing to hold them. There is no one. It doesn’t matter if we scream or suffocate. We are trapped in a glance.


Your eye contact makes me feel impotent. I am a piece of glass and your eyes are passing through. I feel the rustle of a cold breeze when you look at me. My heart is too fragile to do anything. I am completely naked.


I do not cry anymore. My emotions are phantom limbs. My chest is an empty gourd that nothing could live inside. I am a hollow fruit filled with empty space-------


Now.


The whole world is a dial tone waiting for one warm breath.


"Speak!"







Have you ever watched the porch light? The moths dip dimly towards it. Their wings are too feeble; their strokes are too desperate to reach it. They pass and pass under that dusty, yellowed light, their veined, silken wings beating and beating like a weak pulse.


Sometimes I know we can’t do anything. Sometimes I know we are the lightning, just passing through.