Everything

It was summer that we lost ourselves in. How it could be so hot though the sun seldom rose. How long the days could be though we scarcely ever woke up.

Life was an ocean and we were the sand. Smothered in its incessant embrace. Built upon and demolished over and over.

There were songs. In manic rotations. Offering reason where there could be none. There was beer. And Xanax. And all the drugs that are synthesized when bodies wrench.

Every moment fatted like a calf. So plump with a hunger gone long unsated. Eyes above and neck below the blade.

It was long and it was short. Like all loves are. A ladder without any rungs. And still we tried to climb it.

Until every last layer of skin had been peeled from our palms. Because what's at the top of it must be why we've let ourselves live this long.

Now I know what it means to have everything and nothing.