before :: after

can't ask anyone for input, for insight on how to deal with you,

how to respond to your cryptic letters, every other word mandating the use of my dictionary and best

interpreting skills...

can't ask, "well, what do you think this means?"

because there is the very real truth that i and i alone am the one who can understand.

i can't look outside myself to figure you out because everyone else is more in the dark.

and i can't ask you, because asking you... is asking you.

when i ask you a question, you throw back two more, only they aren't phrased with the proper punctuation.

you make definitive statements about abstract events, entirely lacking in personal pronouns.

you simultaneously give me and withold everything and nothing; and

if it were not this way, i know full well, i would not care. if you were anybody else? dismissible.

i give you up, and you pop back again.

it is as though, once we are physically separated, we regress to these coded letters and vague descriptions. all the time we spent finding our bearings, all the nights reading poems and exploring forbidden places, flashlights after-hours, it

reverts back to strange, provocative sentence sending.

even after the moments that have passed have passed, the sparse real thoughts of mine i've let slip to you, your sparser reactions to them,

have they disentigrated?

what is this, where are we now?