Dear Jam

Dear Jam,

It’s not that we have seven years behind us.
Or that half of it, sunbeams
filtering through silent rooms:
our bare hands eating off the same plate,
voices butchering songs,
hours bellowing with laughter.

But that halfway across this lake, your heartbreak
and mine,
we are twin ropes tied beneath the water,
its sharp edges weakening
our threads.

Even then your sunlit filaments
oxygen fanning
my ember.

They were beautiful when brazen.
They are beautiful in hiding.

Know, as you are,
I am in the water
as your strands thin.
Until your knot loosens
and everything becomes beautiful
again.

Your sister in heartache,
Butchie