So I was trying to write a poem to show you how much I love you. I wanted to tell you how your eyes are like black holes to me. The center of the universe with its brown event horizon calling me forth with knowing beauty eloquently tossed into existence by the random chaos of the cosmos.
But that's not enough. A simple image of me and my thoughts while I'm staring into your eyes is hardly love, though maybe a little romantic.
So I thought this poem needs motion. Excitement.
I could use fear. I could tell you how my nightmares now are of me trying to live without you. I could tell you of the times I want to text you asking you if I fucked up because I'm afraid. In the moment my worst nightmare was reality in my mind. When my senses return I realize you're asleep and won't be able to text and then I realize it's a dream and continue snoozing.
Again the image is hardly romantic.
I could tell how I'm changing the very structure of my life for us. How every plan I make now has you running parallel to me. How you've become my very existence and all I want is you there by my side.
And these things would make great poems. But they don't give power to the feeling. Because it's so much more than that. It's how I sleep on a couch or smaller bed when you aren't around so that I don't miss your arms around me as much. It's how I want to fight the douche exboyfriends. It's how all I can think of is what's best for you.
I started writing this poem to convince you I'm worth it. Though now... I just want you to be happy. I don't know what's wrong or what I've done. But I just want you to be happy. Tell me what I need to do, and I'll do it. Even if that means my worst nightmares come to life. Because you're my dream and while I would rather have it with you, I just want you to live it.

Sarah 1

Her feet hurt and her muscles ached but they had warned her that would happen, that the path is long and hard and out of the way. Sarah had nodded, reckoning that made sense. How else do you keep a secret city, well, secret?
"Are you sure you want to go? We can't and won't make you." They had asked, almost unsure of her. "If you don't pass the seers test you won't be allowed to come back. And it isn't an easy life." As if her current life was. As if she would have anything to come back to.
They had warned her but it had not prepared her.
It had been warm and comfortable in her seaside village, the air was heavy with salt, when the keeper came arrived. The keeper was a small girl with grey hair to her waist, and a mustache atop a wide smile. She spoke often and with passion telling stories of past adventures and jokes. If it weren't for that grey hair Sarah never would have believed she had seen over sixty winters.
The keeper helped her pack a single bag, stressing the need to pack light, but insisted Sarah bring a single momento. She picked an old doll that had a vague memory of who she thought might be her mother attached to it.
They set out after a small breakfast, the previous days mild heat gaveway to blistering sun and heat. Through swamp and salty marsh they trudged, mosquitos and alligators threatening to draw blood. Slowly though that little coastal village melted away into the southern horizon.
They walked that day until the sun threatened to fall below the earth and the next morning ate breakfast and started again. That day they escaped the dredged swamps and made to solid ground composed if pine forests and clay mounds. The day after went much the same as the last two.
On the fourth day however Sarah could go no further. She had walked more in one day than she had her whole life, and she had walked three of them with no rest. Her joints and muscles burned and ached.
Fear grew in Sarah that she had failed, that her keeper would leave her behind. She had invested in something too high and she couldn't deliver.
"You made it further than most!" Her keeper had told her, but this only brought more fear that Sarah was close but not good enough for the keeper and her so called "family" she so often told stories about.
But the old woman never left. In fact throughout the next few days the keeper hunted and made her soup and broth from the haul. Slowly Sarah grew stronger again.
It was around the campfire on the second night that Sarah said her first words to the old woman.
"Why didn't you leave me?" After all that's what is done with those who can't carry their own weight; they were left. Or worse.
"Because I see it in you. A want for love and love to be given, even if you don't see it yourself." The grey haired keeper replied. After another second, she added "you'll be a good addition to the family."
The old woman got up to go to her bed roll when Sarah spoke for a second time. "Wait... what's your name?"
The keeper smiled "Jessica."

Micheal 1

Nothing moved in the hot southern sun. No breeze blew and no animal stirred. Only the sound of cicadas rang out over the cracked and crumbled pavement. Waves of heat rising from the remains of the broken shopping center.
A man stepped from the bushline running parallel to the road. He stood tall and straight even with the weight of his backpack and rifle. A beard covered his features and his hair sprouted in chaos.
He moved quickly in jeans and with a Baja slung over his pack.
He enter an old store front with the words "AL*MART" above. He strode past the broken and empty shelves to the back room to find a horse tied to an old equipment shelf, a worn saddle set beside it.
The raggedy cooed softly to the horse tracing up its head with his fingers and followed along its spine. He then began hooking his rucksack onto the horses back using a series of straps. When that was finished he hooked on the saddle put his rifle in the holster and began leading the horse out.
Outside, he climbed on and headed down the old country road. All around lay giant mounds of broken cars with vines covering them.
After many miles the man stopped suddenly and looked around intently. Grunting he unslung his rifle, urging the horse on slowly.
After only a few steps a blur of yellow smashed the man to the ground turned and jumped at the fleeing horse. The mountain lion missed it's mark and landed on the man's rucksack and tumbled to the ground.
A shot rang out and the lion fell back to the ground softly. The man limped slowly back to his steed. When he reached it he reached out and rubbed it's head whispering soothingly. When it settled, he climbed on grunting in pain.
He rode in silence for a long while the meandering ever closer the horizon. When it threatened to touch he stopped a shop called Bruno's Deli. He dismounted and unslung his rifle. After tying the horse to a parking meter, he limped into the store rifle at ready. Briefly eyeing behind the counter, he burst through an Employees Only door disappearing into darkness.
The wind blew the trees and vines gently, as the horse whinied nervously. The man came back out smiling a small piece of jerkey in hand, chewing obnoxiously. He then led the horse through the store to a freezer.
After tying the lead, he went in search of a well. Finding one behind an old residence he filled a painters bucket drank fully, refilled and returned to the store. He arrived just as the sun dipped below the horizon. He laid the bucket in front of the horizon letting it drink.
The man cracked open a chemical light and closed the freezer. He then moved over to the corner where a box sat and began loading bags of jerkey into his backpack. When he finished he sat back against the wall and drifted to sleep.

Beeping filled the freezer bouncing off its walls. The raggedy man woke to the pale green light washing through it. He clicked his watch silencing the beeping.
He stood and began stretching his leg, obviously moving better. Gathering his things he caught the horses lead and began outside.
Exiting the store he felt the nip of dew. Birds chirped and scattered at their approach.  The man led the horse to an old mall parking lot overgrown with grass and let the horse run and begin grazing.
He sat down and began building a small fire and once it was burning pulled a percolator from his pack and poured water from a bladder in it. After patting himself down momentarily he produced a bag of ground coffee, barely enough. He then pulled out two cups and set them down.
The man leaned back on one of his arms and lazily scanned the area. A while longer the coffee was finished and the man filled them both then leaned back again clearing the sleep from his mind.
When it was half way to noon the man stood up slowly, with a grunt. He reached down and poured out the other cup of coffee and began stowing his gear. With that finished he whistled and the horse came bounding over stopping next to its rider. For a long minute he laid his forehead on the horses head, brushing it's hair.
Finally they set out again into the broken roadways lying beneath slowly heating sun.
Many miles later the scenery changed from tree and vine and ruin to neat row after neat row of a waxy leaf plant. The horse whinied uncomfortably and the man brushed it soothingly.
A man's face appeared between one of the rows fear covering his face. Quickly though an embarrassed smiled washed over it and he whistled loudly. Other workers raised their heads from their hiding places to watch the stranger who had come.
Further on he came to a wall of cars with a wooden gate. Two men with rifles stood atop it. Their faces were windswept and sunburnt but soft. For a long while the two stared at one another, Sentry and Wanderer.
The sun grew hot and the cicadas rang loudly. Finally the silence was broken by a grunt from the rider. "And wha'town might'is be?"
"That depends on who you are rider."
The wanderer laugh a deep guttural laugh and the two sentries looked to each other uncertainly. "I am a Seeker of te'Truth, boys."
The sentries looked as if they were about to laugh when the gate opened before the rider. "It's him!" Rang a third voice from in the wall. The wanderer spurred his mare in slowly smiling widely.
"T'ank ya, gents."

The woman sprang forward from where she lay, sweat covering her dark body. Her pulse raced and her mind flew.
"He's in Pawtee.  He'll be here soon." She smiled. The man beside her grunted in confusion, his tattoos seeming to move on their own as he slowly sat up and lit a candle. The light from it brought evidence of the sweat soaked sheets and the true darkness of her skin. 
"What did you see?"
"He's here Jason. Micheal has returned."

I don't want to tell her the truth, that her absence is just a minor thing, another kink in the way my day should ideally go. No this is a hole. A pitfall. An emptiness in me and everything around. As if I can feel her leaving the city and the distance between us growing. The world grows quiet with that false silence that is the cold of loneliness.