Here We Are, Aging Together, Just Like We Said We Would
For your birthday, we pretend
prehistoric. I fill our apartment
with inflatable dinosaurs, scaly ice
cream cake, and raw meat.
You have always wanted
a birthday just like this: carbon
dated back
to before humans
decided to chew
all sorts of things. We play pretend
so well you can barely smell the plastic,
or remember anything about outside
and the blood moon that hangs there,
red and wanting
to become
a whole new animal in your eyes.
Time is passing. We can feel the second
hand, gently carving
new trails along our skin.
I recently eroded the landscape
of my body
by choice, and you
drew a fresh map,
topographical and understanding.
My blood was outside
my body and you kept
the carnivores at bay.
This is what we’ve promised
one another, to try and live
and live and live
until the earth caves in.
We have built a home
and the ceiling is so high
everything feels about to echo—
all the things we say
growing older, and quieter, and
drifting further away.
