Dear friend, lately, we’ve been like skipping stones,

quickly passing each other before diving

into different spots of the same water.

 

If you ask me, every stone still smells like childhood:

namely, the notion of letting go

and sushi night in my neighborhood, all

refills and ranting and questions with no real answers.

It’s my last meal in the country

before I leave you for a while,

so we’re trying our best to say everything now.

 

You walk me home through the swampy air.

We’re sad but upbeat

like city frogs:

bouncing between sidewalk and street,

our voices

croaks from straining over the soundtrack

of tired adults driving home from dinner.

 

Somehow, these days, I’ve managed to stay

dry. The oblong stone that Feeling won’t throw

because she can tell just by looking at it that

it won’t hit the pond right or skip smoothly, that’s me.

At first, the stone calls this survival,

calls this legitimate self-defense. I say

I’m brave,

and I trust the future.

 

And you know it’s bullshit

because we both look back a second time

when we’re supposed to be walking away from each other,

and it’s then that I feel hands at my stony flesh,

and getting thrown doesn’t feel like flying at all, really,

and you can see it in my face,

and it actually feels more like crashing,

a cool sensation of

I-think-the-water-is-trying-to-murder-me

and I-wasn’t-supposed-to-drown.

 

But, still, I spring when I walk and say, “Nothing to worry about.”

And, still, I smile and say, “See you soon.”

 

We’re just swept in the current,

or maybe it’s raining. It is typhoon season after all.

That’s the excuse I’ll give, anyway, if you ask me

why my eyes are wet.