In July,

I fell

through

the barn,

filled with abandoned things,

piles of lives

that have long since left,

carried themselves elsewhere

in backpacks and boots

that we dug through,

with dirty hands,

looking for something.

I fell

because there was

light coming in through the dusty window,

and I fell

because 2 chairs framed the light

as if 2 lovely people

had just been

sipping tea,

fondly,

as if,

in the stacks of abandoned shadows,

they had found their home.

Staring through my camera,

at the imaginary scene,

I put my foot out into the open air,

and I fell

and falling was like flying and I didn’t know if it would ever end.

Later that summer,

I kissed you in the barn.

We sat on the orange hill

and I cried,

and you said I was safe there,

that you would paint my body on the roof.

Later that summer

night trapped us,

sleepless,

in your bed,

in the woods,

in a blue tarp

in deer stars,

held by a thin wooden frame,

just bent saplings.

And later that summer,

your dirty hands

dug through me

looking for something.

And later,

I knew. suddenly. that I had been broken there.

But then, I was just falling,

like a dream,

like a whistle.

And there was nothing in the world but air.