Eclipse

Art by Elizabeth Crabtree (2018 archive)

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        Everyone tells me I’m never getting that damn earring back, but I'm a stubborn one and I push and push until you regret our sleepless hours. Antsy to leave, yes, exhausted from restlessness. Rising, clothes, your toothpaste on my finger, a hug and kiss goodbye. We keep doing this to each other. Back in the sheets, you’re an expert on the life and death and resurrection of Christ. But I know time is cyclical: We will ramble on about historic pre-vowel Hebrew all over again when we are equally infantile, never prepared for anything silver or scratched or sacred. Laying on me, I know you wouldn’t be here long this time because even His forgiveness is illusory. I am the weighted blanket you force off at night, a false confession scrunched up at the foot of your bed. When I pray just so, I hear your snoring, a haunting pattern. If I could study time and build you a calculator to make it all linear I would. Imagine us, a normal progression across the coordinate plane, never repeating our tired mistakes. Do you remember when you squeezed me so tightly? We sweat through your duvet. Yes, you were trying to stop my shaking. My divinity books tell us that nothing is ever really destroyed and that's how I know it's already happening again. It means nothing to be alone, building religions for each other then tearing them apart, and begging for forgiveness, yet here we are.

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