There is a part of me that still gravitates to you like instinct, like yes, this was what my lungs were made to do, intuitive in the way we hold our hands out when we fall to protect ourselves, flinch at gun shots. In an alternative universe I know we could have been something - a fine invention - an airplane or the serrated edge of a knife. Or the way morning light italicizes everything gold. Or something science is yet to explain. In an alternative universe we may have been friends with the dinosaurs. Bled muddy stars. Been born with mermaid scales that gleam green. But enough now. Enough of dreaming of possibilities. It is what it is. After you have moved out with your shirts and toothbrush and taken your scent with you, I relearn what it means to possess a body; grow a backbone that can withstand an earthquake, child birth, an arrow to the shoulder, seeing my mother cry. I vow now to never make anyone my entire world. I promise to never love someone like they are a religion, or air, or anything more than human.
jessica therese, “In An Alternative Universe”
(this poem is in my eBook Fight and Flight, which you can buy here!)
