the idea of it

I don’t want to part with… I’ve been walking this city knowing that you aren’t breathing the same air, and when the admission hit me, I found myself suffocating. It wasn’t the kind of breathlessness that I get when I hear the haunting tones of Bon Iver. It was the kind of inhale that hurts because it’s so cold and the lungs are empty. In sincerity, this is a poem without the breaks and without the pauses, just as this is a lengthy sentence woven to explain in a womanly manner that I want to write a public note telling you to come back and make this city alive again. But I never submit those words because they are not for you, they are for the idea of you that can be translated from one person to another, and they will be transferred when you are out of sight, out of hope. Without reality, these feelings are safeguarded.