There’s an ache I know too well.

It starts in my stomach and pulls its head through

my chest, stretching and testing its reach.

It’s my least favorite friend,

 

a conjoined twin. Drinking my blood,

taking enough only to linger on

buried beneath my ribs.

It loves me.

 

The ache is smooth; it is small.

It is heinous and thorny. It is sleeping when I

smile, it is there when I’m alone.

It would hold my hand if it could.

 

I met my ache as a child playing alone in the yard,

too small to recognize where I was

but big enough to know something was wrong,

that it wasn’t enough to live alone.

 

I wonder how the man in the moon must feel.

To wake every morning as the glowing earth

rises past the horizon, to see every person he could ever know

out of arm’s reach through the swallowing black.

 

When I am all alone, ache grows big.

He slithers and constricts me,

chokes me, collects my tears in a bottle.

And when I finally fall asleep, ache watches the door;

my loyal pet, my royal guard.