On Leaving

to Juan Pablo, who knows.

A few things stay the same. Coffee in the mornings, Tolstoy at night. My nails are still the same orange they were when I left but the fingers that hold them are tenser, the hands that hold them are tanner, and the body that holds them traumatized by absence. Who knew hours could be so hard, who knew vulnerability could be so easy. Time and space, my mortal enemies, I am keeping them close. Stitched into my emotional fabric, unravel, burn; destruction of the fibers remains an impossibility. But they are not the only ones committed to orientating my reality.

I am puzzled by my sudden willingness to violate my own maxims, as if I could be the one exception to the very system I erected.