Words pour out of me like a faucet,
like spring water,
water on the shore.
White feather edges scrape down the surface,
curling and plunging into rolls of bottle glass,
the hiss and rumph and surgle without end or beginning.
Without warning
the Saharan blast sweeps in.
The well is dry.
Where waves once passed overhead,
fossils of crinoids and trilobites crack.
Such is the silence of knowing too much,
the stillness of regret,
and loving too little.
I collapsed on the kitchen floor
and cried like a scared child.
I didn't know who I was anymore.
My mother's mind was fading away.
I had never become her friend.
I didn't make that mistake with my father.
His pain became my pain too.
I felt as though I never really knew her.
He knew her as no one else had.
I watched him watch her disappear.
I learned what it means to be in love
and the hard roads that love will lead you down.
I hope I go first and fast.
I hope that love doesn't break me.
But if it does, I'm ready.