Cross my heart.

all the people i have ever known

have become the opposites of ghosts,

blown-out, overexposed versions

of themselves, all technicolor

and high contrast and psychedelia.

everyone seems so alive and permanent,

models of humans that have jobs

and people they love and things

they are passionate about and

strange nuances and pet peeves;

all around me there are people

growing up and having sex and

getting married or strung out

or finally getting a grip on this 

enigma they call a normal life;

i don't know where i was when

these people were living.

all the people i have ever known

have been some part in creating

this mess that i am, or, it is

not their fault, it is my fault

for losing each person who soon becomes

a participant in the same conversation

as ever: "how are things going?"

"good, and you?"

all the people that i have ever loved

and mistreated or being mistreated by

or turned into a teenage emo queen for

are gone, visible to me through 

the internet or strings of gossip

and so very much there, so close

to my fingertips but never close enough

to actually care about, be cared about.

i've lost every single person i've ever loved

or cherished or enjoyed the company of

while looking for the next person

who could take their place;

and now, here i am, existing as a giant

spread-out cloud, like a stretched

piece of a cotton ball, particles

over the great plains of north america,

little molecules all over, not pieced together

but something broken up in the counties

of all these past and present people.