to freeze in gridlock and wonder,
“Should I revolt against this?
Should I play this game of tug of warring elements?
Is that form of protest worth the tsunami?”
I am the one in the family who usually decides it is.
As I watch my tight rope walker fall
or jump
or dive from the air
I send a lifeline,
hope it is strong enough to pull them up
with all their baggage in tow
(and mine)
I cross my heart and know I’ll cry.
I p u l l and p u l l until I can’t.
[See, I have a connective tissue disorder
and that’s only relevant because my ligaments are so spaghetti that they make my muscles strain fast
and my mental is kind of like that too,
sort of unsecured and tired.]
When you have chronic pain and co-existing mental illnesses
you live pulled taffy nerve
and you walk your life
high———————————————-wire
on candy floss relationships
so sweet until you witness your partner in carnival get stuck
in the caramelizing sugar
and they are simultaneously right here with you
and so far gone.
II.
I didn’t know the confluence of us was so sticky.
I am in the doorway again
I wonder why the going
wonder who told you to turn on the radiator
don’t you know sugar melts so fast?
wonder what exactly we expected would happen.
wonder if we speak in different scales of temperature
try and remember if you asked my thermostat settings
and if I ever could articulate them.
III.
Another layer of ending
in which the show ends not by the performers doing:
a rainstorm washes away the whole damn sugar circus act,
and turns it to a disappearing.
I guess you can’t always plan for the rain,
let alone the monsoon
but can you appreciate how clean everything is afterwards?
Then again do you get lost in that appreciation?
Just because you respect the tsunami,
(just because you moon tide p u l l too)
doesn’t mean you have to mimic it.
& 