Positive/Negative

I write this because I cannot say it.
To admit this is to admit
That the all-damning positive
May well be the truth.

Watching you in the kitchen
Laughing at some ridiculousness in the world
And washing up,
I am seized with a fierce love
As though that will be enough to protect you

Clutching straws shakes
Even the firmest of beliefs.
Atheism, (please God,
Let her be alright)
And liberalism
(only bad people get sick,
And deserve it.
You are good, and therefore safe)
Crumble.
The lie in this weighs heavy on my chest.

I am so sure,
In your solid, corporeal presence
When you, drunk, collapse on my bed
And lie with me, back to back,
That you, sister-friend,
Stealer of my chips,
Listener of my soul,
Thought-splurger,
Laugher, thinker, fighter,
Are too real, too here,
Too alive
For this.

In the clinic, you are there
And then gone,
Whisked away, to another room.
I want to follow, to protect,
To stand between you
And what is already true.

This is how it will be,
If you are positive.
(the irony of meanings inverted
does not escape me)
I will be able to follow you
Only some of the way,
Leaving the rest for you to feel
Alone.


The minutes yawn.
Thin certainty cracks.
The world, surely,
Should pause on its axis.
Bubbles glug in the water cooler.



Suddenly you are here,
With a word that coldly denotes
Anything, and everything bad,
And today is the best thing I have ever heard.

We smile,
And hug and laugh,
Joking,
Like we are too silly
to feel the wind dragging
behind the high-speed train that just missed you,
Too flippant to understand
How fragile those moments
Revealed the world to be.