A Thousand Words

This morning I was sitting on a park bench, thinking of someone who is far away. I took a picture of the place and sent it to him. Later, when I looked at the picture, I felt a million miles removed from this place that is, in fact, just a short walk from my home. That was the beginning of today’s draft.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThis picture is -- nothing.-- a place I have been hundreds of timeswould know with my eyes shut by the texture of its smellsThis picture fills my brain with wordless hungers.This place, these people I know in my bonespinned like a butterflyslowly dying in a glass case to be stared atadmired for its beauty.None of this is the beautyof your hot breath on my neck when we embracethe ginger-colored sweat bee on the pale expanse of my inner armthe way my skin lifts away when your skin comes near untilthe molecules between us become us