I wonder what it’s like being 28 and waking up knowing you’re going to ask her to marry you tonight.

I wonder what it’s like being 30 and waking up to her gone for the week on a work trip and having the entire bed to yourself for the first time in ages so you starfish the fuck out of it, but somehow drift over to their side because you already miss them.

I wonder what it’s like being 42 and waking up for work content that the same pair of tired eyes as yesterday, and the day before that, and for the past 13 years, still look at you like you have the ability to reverse time and stop the sun from rising any higher, then you could both stay in bed. You blink, smile, and kiss her forehead softly as a reply, silently acknowledging your shared distaste for mornings, but not apologizing for wanting to wake up to those eyes again tomorrow.

I wonder what it’s like being 49 and waking up beside someone who still makes you nervous when they look at you that close up in the morning, especially now that you’re nearing 50 and fully aware of the wrinkles you have and the ones on the way.

I wonder what it’s like being 61 and waking up at 2pm because you were too sore and sickly to get out of bed that morning, but when you hear her key in the door after coming back from the store with some medicine, your favourite soup and a kiss, it still makes your heart beat fast enough to propel you off the bed and into her healing arms.

I wonder what it’s like being 87 and waking up next to an undisturbed pillow and an unwrinkled half of a quilt because she died 2 years ago, peacefully in her sleep. It was just her time to go.

I wonder what it’s like to live life in that much love. And when you do, I wonder what it’s like to lose it to something as trivial as your body passing through time. It’s heartbreaking that the body can’t last as long as the love between two people. But it’s also kind of beautiful that love transcends physical nature. All we can do is experience it while it’s here and while it lasts.

My mother is always early until she isn’t.
She wears glass jewelry and only rings the doorbell once-
Crossing her arms, holding her purse, knuckles white.

She doesn’t believe in anything but she believes in me.
I come home at 10, at 12, at 4
And there is always someone waiting up although it never seems to be for me.

No floral nightgowns or scotch on the rocks in shaking hand.
I get a glance and I take it and I tell them the night was fine
And that they don’t need to wait up for me again
But I take the water I’m offered and when I get out of the shower
The crack of their door is still the squint of a distant lighthouse in February.

My family is always doing well until it isn’t.
We don’t take many photos anymore and our mantelpieces and bookshelves
Are strange altars to past lives that stopped but were never mortal.
Stories without characters or settings.
Guestbooks full of unfamiliar names in green ink.

Sometimes I hear Chinese opera from across the hall and
Am ashamed of my naked body in the window.

My father is always here until he isn’t
And then we know where he is and still can’t bring ourselves to call.

I stopped smiling in school photos after 5th grade but my mother
Kept buying them out of habit and I never saw them
But I knew they were around somewhere.

I lost my wallet one night I had too much wine and threw up in my bathtub and into my shoe.
It was a day that comes once a year although I don’t remember which or why or the weather.
We took photos and in them
The flash had turned our eyes red like our cheeks and my friend’s mother’s cocktail napkin of a dress,
And my smile is crooked and loud and toothy and I wonder

If I knew my parents would call me four times after midnight
And find me on the kitchen floor wondering
Where I lost my wallet and myself and my self.

My mother doesn’t spend time in her bedroom unless she is going to sleep.
She cleans when she’s sad and cries when she’s tired.

I am always well until I’m not.