Collaborating On The Structure of a Flashlight.
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The ideas are dramatic but they are true drama;
so what should we do, turn our back
on melancholy, desperate expressions of trust?
No. I'd rather go ahead with these plans;
and even if they all are hatched moments after
I am already gone, at least I can tell you.
Look; I would have grabbed your hands;
looked you in your eyes and tell you a promise:
There is nothing now to make me go away.
I don't care about the possibility of a selfish motive,
or whether you are with me or without me,
whether you shake your head at what I'm writing-
or not.
If there is you, the you that you know, then:
I cannot leave. I will have to love you, at any expense
for as long as I am able to know your name.
Look, I know you're feeling awkward now.
That this is the stuff that makes you uncomfortable.
I know better: I wouldn't actually grab your hand.
But you need to know that there is no distinction
in my mind now, between "kinds" of love.
There is you; and that will have to be enough.
The structure of a flashlight is made in this way.
You. For all you are, and all you aren't;
and the light is only so bright when you are gone.
I only noticed your eyelashes when I noticed
you were brilliant enough to be a guide
in your own lost way. I knew it, now I know it.
If only the truth could be more ironic, then maybe
I could convince you of the awe you inspire
without falling victim to eye roll inducing melodramatics.
There is no real living in this life, without you.
I don't care if it is mutual. I don't want to know.
("Rule #1: No more conversations about "us."')
But you have someone who cannot go away,
who can never really, really go away,
And that is all I needed to know.
-e.
