increments

i should go to sleep -- i should not sleep.

i should write -- i shouldn't, ever, write.

i shiver, i wonder if i am cold, or waiting for something:

i talk about myself too much.

the sky is hanging, today, in the way that is has weight,

the clouds and the colors have personalities,

grey, restless.

but the city spreads out below and i fall in love with her incrementally.

sometimes i ignore it, hugging my knees to my chest,

staring at the clouds,

wondering where i should be, who i should be,

when i would be.

the city is enunciated outside my bedroom, detailed,

punctuated by bits of the bay.

i fold myself into a balcony corner, head resting on the railing,

and i prepare myself for unhappiness,

i shift my body until my chin is, appropriately, sadly upon my knee;

and i don't. i listen to the windchimes and i look at the city.

i listen to the barks of a puppy and the laughter of my family.

i fall in love incrementally, always, and always doubtful.

but there is gold in the sky and how flowers smell, drifting mingled with occasional ocean;

there is the taste of meals cooked and eaten together.

there are the windchimes murmuring just outside, telling me things i almost believe.

there are fingertips all around me. some in the next room, some five thousand miles away,

but there are fingertips and there are cupped hands, waiting to catch me,

and i shouldn't go to sleep and i shouldn't write,

because everything is incremental,

and what if the next increment doesn't have this.