1.
A red button isn’t to be pushed,
and I knew it the first time our eyes met.
I can’t not…..
We talked so effortlessly, instantly familiar.
Like remembering.
I nonchalantly sent you that weather forecast for the northern lights, just to have an excuse to text you.

When I get home I lay still staring into the ceiling, you roll around my mind uninvited.
A solitary ping pong ball in a storm.
Easily moved by the slightest wind, but utterly directionless.
Why this?
“I miss you” I whisper…..
but, I don’t even know you.

I think of nothing in particular,
just observe you meandering the corridors of my grey matter.
I want to know everything and to tell you everything.
You text me “thanks for the link” and “goodnight”

My finger circles slowly the outer perimeter of the red button,
plastic smooth and firm under my touch.
I imagine what it would feel like to just ever so gently push it down…..
Here or here or there.
And, what sound would it make?

2.
Our conversation has become a continual slow drip throughout the day.
Nice
Simple
Sporadic
I find myself checking my phone more. Maybe too much.
A stomach full of bees.
I am watching a coffee pot that’s just been turned on.
Gurgling and sputtering water, until those first precious hot dark drops emerge.
Drip by drip, slowly filling

I am sand.
I cannot stand the pace of a drip.
Inside my chest I crave something more powerful and devastating, like a tidal wave.
I want you to drown me.
I want to drown you too.
I want the entire city and everything to wash away and leave us.
I want to be entirely alone with you.
Just for as long as it takes to know everything,
just to think.
Until I know how I feel.

3.
Through the slow drip communications we’ve invented a world where it’s just us.
You don’t mention her,
I don’t mention him.
Though, there is the vague knowing they exist on both sides.
We are balancing on a tight rope between friends and feeling.
This place between us is a dream.
Reality will come like morning;
Too bright, too cold, too loud, too soon.
Inevitably rips off the blanket.
I am not ready….
I hit snooze, just 5 more minutes.

I stare at the red button and I consider smashing it hard with my entire palm,
maybe a hammer.
I’d like to break open the entire universe for playing such tricks on people.
The other night, I came singing your name behind my closed eyes.
I was imagining when we said goodbye hours earlier.
When I touched your forearm and you touched mine and that current between us when we locked eyes.
I feel you in every pore of my skin and dripping out of me.

Push it, please
Push the red button.

BMV 2023