Telling the same story, another way

ate all the fruit candy - didn't taste like fruit...scuse me sorry (need a minute, need six minutes, need six hours, need twelve-thirteen-fourteen hours)...ate all the caramel popcorn - tasted mostly of salt...should i say something about the ocean though let's be honest, if we're honest, it's been said

between drinking all the soda and finding the cookies on that high shelf (sometimes I stand on chairs) FOUND OUT what tub thumps up against the solar plexus, what shakes up the insides is simply a collection of space anthems by space girls like weird, alienated reverberations distant cold, but i mean really distant-far-away-underwater

just enough distance, just enough space between so no one has to feel challenged because let's be honest, if we're honest, there were always wary glances between us from one to the other when neither of us were looking or looking at other things like the lamp or the mug or the scarf on the floor, honing in our beams on the mug-lamp-scarf (still space objects, freezing surfaces having been invaded by the vacuum, to keep us from getting too warm)

because, again on the theme of honesty, it's abject terror that fuels us (after all what if I/you am actually just the blanket on this bed?), shoveling crunchy pot stickers from that one terrible restaurant, over/undercooked lentils, veggies with the bad bits cut off, and pasta pasta pasta, noodles noodles noodles, rice (and still candy that says it tastes like lychee, apple, mango, peach), squealing squelching tummies quietened - just a replacement really, for the fact that my/your sentimental attachment converts itself to a desire to crack open my/your jaw and force your/my head into my/your mouth WHOLE

tippy-toed on the kitchen chair fingers scrabbling around on an unseen shelf looking for crackerscookieslollipopshardcandiesgumtictacstinychocolatevodkagin filling up the bottles with a little bit of water just to make sure no one notices that i had that drink to fall asleep at a regular hour (my tummy hurts and I lay face down on the bed so my organs don't feel too squished) - the thought, "uh um um um um uh, ouch, really, ouch" wiggles into my brain

so stop...

oops

here we are

what labor we committed to in order to find each other

what searches for wheres and whens,

what riddles of this corner or the next,

this stranger's bed or that.

how we got to know one another through the voices of others

and the conversations with chance that assured us of our path.

how we danced around one another,

our lines grazing and flirting,

so close to touching but no not yet,

memorizing shared places and things,

learning of the other only through footsteps and echoes.

the way we patiently prepared to lock eyes one mere day and know

that we'd been here before

and it has the warm smell of home