The Walls We Are Inside

For the man who doesn’t need me,

I am a million wanting hands growing from stones

too hard

and impenetrable to sprout

anything at all.

Against me, an ocean.

–cold.

–grey.

It is a mirror

unconcerned with the self I want to see

–always

I am facing the wrong direction

and so is he.

Sometimes,

I am an open mouth

wrinkling for lack of moisture and he is the whale’s tail

fanning warm, salty air against my tongue.

It is then, that wet and dry are the same to a wanting body

and survival

is in a difference I refuse to know.

If only I could sink beneath the water

where his eyes are.

Would I know him then?

-Angie Hoover

Art: Goodbye by Michael Harford