so we can't give the right answers
and that's okay and everyday for everyone
but it is not okay when we become those people
and we ask ourselves the wrong questions
because we are just afraid of what we know
and of hearing the right answers.
Rooms partially lit, yellowing
as evening seeps into night
and then it's morning,
one spent ignoring
the tsunami as it taps
a warning.
There is still ash on the sweater I was wearing
the day that bridges started burning.
Terrible things happen to good people everyday.
That is why I don't mind so much
if I'm not one of the good people.
I'll be one of those terrible things.
You told me to look the universe right in the eyes
but I am not brave enough,
at least not yet,
because I'm thinking of what you said you found
when you looked and you saw
only the distance between the middle of things,
the nucleus, and all else around it,
all the feral electrons,
and how everything you thought you could hold
was slipping away from you
between your fingers
until you finally felt it,
the universe,
the emptiness of space.
