Like my mother,
who believed him when he said, ‘I’ll never leave you.’
I’ll always doubt. It’s safer.
(I hear her crying, sometimes).

Like those white, open mornings on a day in the year
that is out of one season but not in the next – an in-
between day, a loose-endish day. The sky is dull and
infinite, and you feel like you are going to sit there
forever. Life is better when
taken for granted.

I find comfort in stasis, in disbelief.
I’m one of the millions who believe in dishonesty.
The opposite of doubt is not belief.
The opposite of doubt is to pretend you believe in something.
So in that case,
I must believe in you.

I also believe in the smell of fuchsia and hyacinth together,
the whistle of the postman, the rudeness of strangers and the
value of doubt.
I doubt my own trembling, my own, hungry fingertips when I
touch you, my own declarations of love. And I don’t doubt
but I pretend to believe your breaths, the rise of your chest.
I pretend that I’m not human, that you do not disarm me.
I pretend that I’m only eyes, and that makes me
able to smell the bouquet, sad and lovely, at the same time.
I can’t help believing in the human condition. I’ve seen loneliness,
and I am certain that seeing you on those open mornings
on those days in the year
will make me think about the future, which is a mistake,
because all I want is the present.

I will stick my fingertips in your wounds before
I believe that you will never leave me. I will place
my hand in your side while you swear to me that this
apathy is worth it.
I see beer bottles from the night before, I see other
mornings like this, I see next door’s cat, and the hairs-breadth
scratch in the paint on your car. But I do not see you
in my future. And you are not hurt for me. And
there is no blood on my hands.