what i think about when i look at a telephone

(Or, sometimes I have some intense, melodramatic feelings.)

It happens often: either I read it, or I hear it, or I see your childlike mouth make those shapes, on a glowing screen a second in the past– but every single time, the heat under my collarbone blows outward, bursting every artery, every streetlight bulb for miles. I hold my breath forever, I swim across the Atlantic. I am the Atlantic. I am every shipwreck between this city and you. I get quietly drunk, alone in my apartment.

I dream about high-speed trains. I overcome my fear of flying. My telephone commits suicide. The ice melts in my whiskey ginger.

I get minor chemical burns. I have a cleaner kitchen. My bed fills up with tepid water, floating with dead leaves. I am a person in love, and a person in love knows no physics.

Sometimes I think I could fuck you up, bad, with a knife or a broken bottle and all the indignant rage that I can muster. But even still, I hope that every time I wake up in the middle of the night in terror, I hope that I see your eyelashes on your cheek, that it is your hand on my arm. That the small and overwhelming sun under my blankets is always you. 

I want you to be here. I want you to be quiet. I want to hear your voice. I want you to love me until whatever is left of my body scatters in the breeze.