thinking about you,

i realize

i imagine we are already partners

at some deeper level than our lived experience

-as if-

beneath the horizon of our skin,

we have a life together.

Inside me are the landscapes from your poetry.

I couldn't leave them if I tried,

and i have tried and tried.

they are my home,

the one i carry with me.

Inside me, we walk together through the marshland,

stopping to pull our hearts from the mud,

like roots we’ll cook for dinner

medicine

for loneliness

beneath the iris sky.

the trees are our hands,

and they rise

from the Earth,

like stories,

bent fingers.

In this life,

i may long for you,

i may ache

but in the life inside this life,

the trees hold us,

when we climb them,

and we walk along the lines in their palms,

and remember our futures together,

and the places we broke.