As my car approached you, surrounded by flashing red and blue lights
I knew something was wrong.
We didn't know yet, until halfway across the bridge
And there you were: grey hoodie
your caved yet rigid figure
standing on the bridge railing-
Grasping the streetlight pole
like a life vest
But delicately- only one arm wrapped around--
You were ready to let go.
Even though your head was down
hidden
And I couldn't see your face.
As my car took me across the bridge on the opposite side
I cried for you
I cried for you to know
That I love you.
I prayed to a Jesus I don't know exists for you
I cried out loud
My tearless, painful cry
With weight in my heart and stomach
That everything happens at once
Everything is happening at the same time
A baby was born every second you stood there
In the cool damp air
Your hand icy wrapped around the pole
A soul left a body every second you stood there
Your mother thinking of you
Loving you unconditionally
No matter where she is or was.
A mother cannot un-love her child.
It's a one-way street, no backing out of it
No matter what happens
No matter what goes wrong
No matter how many times she fucks up
She will love you
Unconditionally.
And my car passed you, also
just
happening.
And I cried for you
I wanted to scream at god
I wanted to hold your cold hands
in the damp night
I wanted to cry real tears
for once in my damned life-
But the universe doesn't make many choices.
It just exists.
And so do we- for a mere moment
a second--
Just long enough to matter to someone else.
Just long enough to matter
to someone else.
I do not know what happened to you.
I don't know if the 12 cop cars did any good.
I don't know that I can face the morning news if you decided to let go.
When I drove back across the bridge several hours later,
You were gone.
The lights were gone.
As if nothing had happened.
It almost didn't occur to me to think of it, The silt of it still clogging my brain
But even so, I drove quickly past like I have done
So many times before tonight
And I didn't think of you
Until now,
Lying in my bed
Wondering about you,
Crying for you
Closing my eyes looking for you
Your figure burned in my mind
You hooded stranger
Who knows exactly what it feels like to be human.
I share this experience with you; unwillingly it seems
And with so many others:
We're a tiny spoke in a huge wheel spinning out of control down a metaphorical mountain of an endless universe-
How can any of it matter?
But you remain here, in this moment, in my bed as I live for you: alive.
And your life matters to me, if it is over or not
It matters to me.
I am lying here and
You matter to me.
You and I share
that darkness
Standing on the railing
The late autumn night sea air drenching your grey sweatshirt
And chilling every molecule in your body
Until there is no feeling left besides
A lacking
That empty silence of a soul in mourning
For what it's lost: itself.
The hardest part is the hopelessness.
How can any of it matter?
The answer is not discovered.
The answer is created.
It does not matter. I am a tiny thing amongst billions of other tiny things
Amongst billions of enormous things
Black holes and red giants
Expanding space
Uncharted sea depths
Parallel universes
Where one of us has chosen to let go-
And one of us has chosen to take the hand down
To hold life like a plain face,
No charming smile, no violet eyes
And say: I will love you, again.
I don't know which iteration of the universe I am living in-
But I love you
You matter to me.
