melted

level, cleared

i promised myself a five-minute break from it all, and five minutes turned into five days. forgive me for everything further.
there are no tables in this room. we slump on the couch. your cold toes remind me that you are alive, and my coughs must do the same. it seems that sickness is a constant these days, and i hunger for hash marks to be slashed into the cushions. when i was young, i thought i would have to be worried about quicksand. imagery is cruel, its rhetoric forces its way up my throat in the form of a stuttered rasp. i have gotten you sick. you, who formed bridges where there were chasms, who threw daggers hilt-first. merciful and strong. we follow the paths of those before us. you ask me how the woman is from a ten minute's drive away and i can do little more than sigh, for they are not our problem, and my eyesight has started to falter. i do the same thing, i search for maladies that are not mine. when you fall asleep, the blanket covers your toes, and i forget myself. i have been swallowed whole in a self-pitiful embrace for too long. it seems as if history is bound to repeat itself, and one year tolls its bell-appeals in my head. this time, i remember getting up. so i do. i stumble and slant, but i do. there are no tables to clear, so i dump the plates in the waste, to start again.