ROPE BURN
Those were the days of death
and baby monitors
and these are the days
of messy apartment
and procrastination
and wondering
if I’m straight enough.
If I take a male partner
will it feel like he’s tugging at my tits
like a child I’m trying to wean?
Subjects of frequent recollection:
All that I love will be separated from me
hence— yet—
deep confusion
about what makes me happy,
what impermanence means:
Birth ends in death.
Meeting ends in separation.
Accumulation ends in dispersal.
It’s just the way,
it’s not personal.
Yet we grieve.
Deep fragility of humanity,
we are always in the posture
of going away.
It’s trying to hold on
that causes the suffering,
not the rope slipping.
published in subTerrain