The summer camp
Isn't what you love-
It's the trees
And the acceptance
That you don't find
Back home
Because back home
The air is filled
With too many chemicals
For anyone
To really accept anyone else

Because instead of
An occasional reminder
It's constant awareness
That we
Are the problem

So come here and pray
To your fictional gods
But know
That if there were a god
It wouldn't have created
Beings capable
Of only finding solace
In something so untrue
To the reality
Of themselves

I didn't even think about it.

My metaphorical
All-encompassing
Grey mist of time
And uncertainty
Was literally there tonight
Clouding the moon
And the hills
And the present

But I didn't even think about it
Beyond appreciating its beauty
I didn't notice
That my favorite metaphor
Had shown itself to me

Perhaps I've become less scared
Of all the meaning
In that grey mist

Or perhaps
I simply still struggle
To find the truth
In all my fiction.

I like reading old poems
And thinking
About how I'm different
Even though I'm still the same:
Just a four-year-old
Trapped in the body
Of someone who now has to try
To act like an adult
And sometimes
Messes up the charade

“It's all about consistency”
I said one year ago
As I walked into the same room
And put my suitcase on the same bed
As the last time the two of us
Had visited that
Remnant of childhood

My best friend from forever ago
Gave a silent nod
And followed my direction
Returning passively
To the bed opposite me

Now that bed
Is empty
Because he gave up trying
To make the past present;
Gave up trying
To be friends

But I still sit
In the same bed anyway
Because
“It's all about consistency”

A year later
The smell of black coffee
Will still remind me
Of a sad morning
Spent at Lake Erie
Hiding silent
Beneath blankets and books
And sitting across from a girl
I never quite
Got done loving

Embracing for the first time
Our ultimate future
And disdaining for the first time
Our previously unshakable present
We sipped idly at our coffee
And dared not look up
From the pages of the fictional
Forever
That we had created-
Trying unsuccessfully
To worm that ephemeral truth
Out of our minds

That wolf we saw
On the pavement
Used the stairs
To escape our gazes
Having adapted
Slowly and sadly
To a world
Designed and created
By the hand of man

The way it ran
Suggested an understanding
That what had forced it
Out of the forest,
Onto that black reminder
Of total human *******,
In search of food scraps
Wrapped in styrofoam
Was staring straight at it

Maybe that wolf resented
Its inability
To dominate the world
With suits and pavement
But maybe not.
I hope not.

Sitting on that
****** excuse for a bed
I dreamt of a world
In four dimensions.

A world in which
Every version of ourselves
That had ever sat
And would ever sit
On that bed
Were there with us then.

And I heard and felt your
Hundred different
Heart beats
From those hundred
Different moments

I felt all of your life
And pure energy
Pulsing into the hundred
Different versions of myself
And suddenly
I understood
Why the heart
Is such a powerful metaphor
For love

Of course there were
Two hundred different laughs too-
Four hundred kissing lips,
A thousand
Whispered secrets.

But then slowly
All those different versions
Of ourselves
That had ever sat
And would ever sit
On that bed
Filtered out
In the order
In which they came in
Until eventually
Just the two of us
Were left

I was unsurprised
By the lack
Of future selves
But that didn't mean
The fact didn't dig into my skin
And make my heart beat
A little quicker;
A littler more urgent.