being able to recognize that it was this time 365 times ago
when i finally looked at you—like really looked at you
not the “let me check before heading out” or
“oh that’s her in the zoom window”—today, 365 days ago
i realized you exist
now perhaps since our reconnection, i’ve been bombarded with reflection
but i’ve accepted that that’s just how you are
you’re loud and quiet—sometimes too quiet or a whole crowd in a corduroy jumpsuit, rarely in between
—and you make small things seem like big elephants singing alone at concerts the way you do
the run-on sentences you seem to just keep in your back pocket and the times your hands find
said back pocket, knowing that the world can get a little too much, even for you
lately i’ve seen the weight you carry on your back—though i’ve carried most of it before
—seeing the bubble wrapped, leather strapped cargo that is your mind is both terrifying and
breathtaking assurance that people recognize
how they are just as much of the universe as the universe is of them
and i don’t know where we’ll be this time next 365 times away
but i read what you wrote to me today, 365 days before
and i know that i don’t always sleep before i see the sun
or stop enough to differentiate what i want and who i am
but when i remember to—
that is when i know that i exist
—i want to make sure that you are there too