we were never
    separate
only misaligned
          in spin,
      like particles
         trained on each other
from opposite ends
          of a question

     you opened a door
     & light elongated outward
            speaking my name
            in the dialect of atoms

you touch a mirror
          I bruise

        your mouth forms regret
        in my city, 
                          the sky breaks

what was said      is said again
  but backwards
    & louder

           I put the ring in a drawer
            it kept vibrating
                       with questions

I have kept you
    in the shape of a photon
             always collapsing
             when watched

two versions of us
      dance inside a box
           neither alive nor dead
     until memory opens it
     & ruins everything

some days
      I am only the version of myself
      that you remember incorrectly

    & yet
             I flicker
             every time
             you almost
             say my name

don’t look now,
but somewhere
you are already holding me

            & we are whole
            in the way only theoretical things
            ever get to be

Previously published online in Sky Island Journal