Status Updates From Distant Transit

years were torn from the calendar,

and we write each other cards from places
we happen to be, which we observe
for one another but still only half see.
our bouts of homesickness become ever milder
and in the process what unites us grows
as does what divides us.

language
kept me in thrall to the world but left me
unsatisfied. were i to bite through it,
i would taste its desolation. i left little behind,
even if it was all that remained from the years
i’d combed through.

on my desk, fictional characters
practice missing dialogue.
i sit here as if at the root of an old disturbance,
forcing air into my memory cells
to keep them alive,