Sidestepping (Like frogs and the day this has to end)

It's almost ironic that I'm posting this now. But I am.

You're soaking wet and getting
cold
dodging frogs on the sidewalk.
“You're my good luck charm,”
you say without thinking,
and you can't tell if you're talking to
him or to the
frog
you didn't step on in the dark.

It's the feeling of laughing so hard you
cannot breathe and barely even notice
because whatever was funny doesn't matter—
what matters is the way
your air
runs away from you and you
gasp
for the words to explain what is
shaking
all the demons from your
ribcage.

You are crying and it
doesn't
matter why.

And these are the only moments you're alive,
seconds like bare wires to unsuspecting skin,
filaments in a
light bulb
that ignite in a blast so strong they
shatter your perceptions like glass,
plunging all else into
darkness
deeper than the gaps between the stars.

Close your eyes and wait
for the flame in the cold.
It will reheat your blood the way anger does
the way summer does and you will
gasp
for
breath
and live again
in the moment your fingerprints fall in line
with the rhythm of his heart and the
song
of canvas-rubber footsteps rasping on
pavements
you do not know by heart.

You're my good luck charm, you think,
and you're not
talking to the frog—
only to an outline
in the dark,
a thousand miles away.