There are days when you forget that you have the closest reach to your own heart.

That only you know how you peel your oranges and balance on the balls of your feet during your first morning stretch. Where you haven’t yet brushed teeth or hair— and the first thoughts swim soft like eels through deep currents.

You forget your stories and poems and memos have all been seen by the same person— the vast configuration condensed into a rough outline of a man. The quick sketch marks that compress the paper and leave stenciled grooves underneath— as if your excitement to write everything down makes you hammer out the words when they can be released.

You smell the scent of cedar and remember sitting at a small kitchen table with a chipped ceramic mug of coffee. You studied French and thought you’d live across the sea. You didn’t know you were headed in a different direction.

You forget what you forget— and find the small, impish delights in scraps of your mind you’ve hidden about your life.

The crosscut of adventure and commitment is a tangled whorl in a growing forest— one you’ve brought a sharp ax to.

You remember soft moments— the warm spring scent of lilacs. The tender hands at your back, neck, hands, and hair. You remember it wasn’t because of doing— but because of being— that you have been loved. Like a pillar of lightning it is crushing.

The weight of not being alone— but bonded by ties that will loosen or cut. We ask ourselves these questions quietly— a dormouse whisper. We ask why we lose those we love. It’s hard to see through the oblique glass that shapes the love that spreads through our lives— you can know that it’s shifting form— but it escapes description like first day jitters. Like the weight and wait over the pool atop a diving board— slowly bending as you steady the fear.

It doesn’t go away— the fear. Neither does the love— they flicker about like the last fireflies of summer. Brief radiance in muggy darkness. Overseen by stars and outstretched cosmos. We forget we are forever— like we forget that at the end of down begins up. We exist in space and space and space. No wonder finding room is hard— within ourselves— when the universe is peeking at us from right outside.