Dear John

It’s over before it even begins. Light shreds across the sky. I walk and walk and then dip,
flee even as the scene gets good. Ginger and Danielle and I watch our shadows on graffiti,
figure out lefts from rights, norths from souths. When I have anxiety under the night sky,
the bright faces of love in every direction. Lorraine says we have all the time, her beer is full,
the night is young. I am confronted by the terror of the world. I found two pennies
on the ground, slick and dark, and I saw it as a sign, not a warning.
A cool trick I learned is sometimes I like to believe everything will work out.
But then there are other times
when the morning balcony overlooks an electricity system
and there is no other view.
I guess what I’m saying is
I know all the ways of fleeting,
of blockage, of choosing to forget. I know all the ways
of loving and refusing to love. To leave and never look back
out of fear of turning to a pillar of nothingness. And this time
I can’t even risk a single glance backwards. This time
I’m choosing to save my own life.