Butterfly Effect

July 5, 2017

the music is quiet, but not as quiet as it was two nights ago when

i played songs i haven’t heard in years. not since

the last time i got my heart broken.

it is good for you, i think, to once in a while

admit to yourself that you might still love someone

and then surround yourself in soft atmospheric bass lines and

guitar strings light as spiders tiptoeing across silk,

so gentle in the way they step,

learning from the second they open their eyes the

best way to spin life into the branches of trees

unlike me, air heavy on my shoulders, webs

catching on my chest and stomach and knees, sending

echoes down to their bones, knocking every which way into

the natural order, upending the smallest fraction of

earth—somewhere else, a landslide.

for someone, to whom the niagara falls are endless, or

the grand canyon alien as the moon, i will

run a peach under cold water and slice it,

for something that sweet must surely come to an end, as

does a mug of tea slipping from the edge of a countertop,

honey staining the floorboards,

ceramic shards lost under the weight of careless feet.

for that someone, maybe,

i will wrap a pair of shoulders in blankets,

tuck my warmth into the space left empty

by collarbones. far behind,

the memory of august heat and the sweat slipping

down my spine, what with exhaustion or nerves, i don’t

remember. somewhere ahead, gardens, and a gazebo

hidden from the sun, rarely discovered.

we could sit there, watch new spiderwebs grow, tumbling

gently before they find handholds in the air.

Header image courtesy of WallpaperUp