echoes

a,

we tip toe around truths like sleeping monsters. we are unarmed. our words aren't strong enough to act as shields. but we feel like soldiers anyway.

we've become good liars. telling each other our feelings are shallow. that we are only ankle deep in a tide pool.

but this distance is a vast ocean. the deepest black and empty. and loneliness is a careless companion.

my body searches for you endlessly. throwing signals out like echolocation. heartbeats bounce across states like voices through telephone wires.

and never reach you.

how do we navigate, now?

I never learned to swim. my lungs are half filled with water and useless. I would tear them from my chest. offer them to you on flat palms.

a heart cannot beat without oxygen. you make it easier to breathe. and I haven't tasted air in months. so,

look harder.

use a flashlight, a.

and find me.