It was there

I’m told I have

eremophobia

which I don’t understand

and the psychologist waves his hands

to tell me it is a complicated word

that means that I am afraid of being

alone

and I try to say the word

that is clunky and poky

and rips my tongue out

to slip through the gaps in

my teeth that should be snug

and together

and the psychologist says

he can’t understand what word I’m saying

and I give another attempt

and he says the same

and I scream,

though it sounds like a whistle

with the spaces in my gums,

if only to get some more attention

while my eyes open

and I’m in my room by myself again

and my mouth is missing

its blood

for the openings have been filled

with me

until I swallow

from the nothing turned to something

lump in my throat –

eremophobia

*

And it was there

good and bad

filling each other with each other

to make a normal

where a tornado

is a common occurrence

a moment of the season

that’ll come again like summer

or the winter that guts the summer

into a young death and skeleton trees

and me in my mittens

seeing that

it was there

when I held her hand

and could not feel her skin

over the warmth and padding

which was okay

because both were cold and itchy

for it was there

in her

like a word she had memorized

when she was younger

with a finger scribing it into flesh

and a tongue clicking the syllables

only because the adults passed it around

but she had since forgotten

until it peaked out

because it was still there

when I wasn’t

and when she found out that

another’s lips

and cavities

and being

exhaling bit by barely bit

tasted like me

and sometimes

better

for it was there

when she was here

and I was everywhere

except where I should’ve been