He was the only road in this town, and,
rock-ridden as he was, I was afraid to wander.
I looped him in and out of my life,
measuring out how much I could stand.
Fifteen hundred miles between us now,
and I still get caught in his quake.
My heart jitters about like a teacup on a shelf,
as the subterranean plates of our ambiguities tumble and lurch like San Andreas.
He asked me back into his life,
but I feel as alone as when I was.
His coolness slaps me with a soft hand.
Thoughts of him filter into everything.
I have taken his irony like a pill,
swallowing it into myself.
But it does not satisfy, this little meal.
So I will keep
an empty stomach now;
at least hunger is honest in its emptiness.