fault line

i got on a bus to you today

thinking that the gesture

would at last show some shred

of how much you have always meant

to this friend-forged heart: you were never

secondary. i have, since we grew to all fruition,

held you in highest regard, in

the sincere circle of all i hold

dear. that is where you will remain.

today was your birthday. we

did vodka shots like when we were in college

and i knew we were back to being invincible

again and i was riveted to know

you felt it, too. the rift we usually feel

is part of a regurgitated fiction

we've created to somehow justify

the distance neither of us can stand

and i hate it and so i came to you

and built a bridge over the void

and we crossed hand-in-hand and

burnt it behind us so

we'd never go back to that.

i got on a bus to you

so we would both be held accountable,

so i wouldn't be the only fault line

haunting the fissured earth at our feet --

i need to at last be validated

in eyes that have too long

held me over the edge, a step

from walking off an unfair plank,

you pushing me to a fraying sea that

could never hope to contain all i am

or all you are to me.

08.2011