you leaned in to bite me once more, and shook your head again at my cry.

no, no, i will not leave you.

i bit you back, nuzzled where my face fits, and felt you change.

the hole in your head fits the hole in my head and seals like good sex, and so i felt it like a pulse.

you contorted your face as you do when it happens, and i swear— it was you. the other you. missing in action for weeks, burdened with answers.

i think of two people crossing a frozen river together. they have not much but each other. staying alive has been a terrible task, but with each other there is something to wake up for.

the ice splinters and one falls through, swept away by the current. the last fleeting look between them is a lifetime's worth of pain and sorrow and horror and shock and love.

i looked up at you down through the ice and i was frozen and i was clawing at the ice but i saw you. i saw you. your eyes filled with red-pink, instant chemical change. your face moving, moving, looking at me with such deep

and you were gone under, not enough time for a breath. you were packed up again and you went inside.

—

the water will not kill you. the ice will not kill you. the cold will not kill you. the separation will not kill you. you will live because you are strong.

i will live by the river all my days, waiting for the hand to break the surface. whoever it belongs to, i will hold it.

..

please stay alive for me. you can always reach out any way at all to me.