i saw you on tv 
no, yeah 
i did 
i did, i swear, and your eyes were green and brown and amber and gold and on fire and you were looking down the barrel of the camera at me like you could see through my eyes to what’s left of my heart and i remember why i loved you now because this isn’t you this is a correspondent in washington comma dc and behind her is a celebration of the end of the world and the beginning of all things and i pick up the phone. 

“are you okay” 

i saw you on the news 
i did! 
come on i did i promise and your lips turned up into a sticky-sweet approximation of complacence but it didn’t even pass your fucking lips and i know what it looks like when you smile because your eyes crinkle up and you look almost surprised by it but you don’t look surprised right now you just look a little haunted and vaguely like you’re going to throw up and the hours are sliding by like the tears on my face leaving salt and despair in their wake and paving the way for the hitch in my breath when i remember i can’t reach for you

“not great.” 

i see you, you know. 
i see you on the news and i see you in the night and i see you when i close my eyes so i see the way your lips form those words and i ache for you and i’m holding my phone in two hands like i cupped your face when you looked at me once all those months ago and your mouth was held so drawstring-tight that i could absolutely believe everyone bought your shit when you told them it was okay even though you came apart in my hands that night 

“but we’ll be okay.” 

i saw you. 
i saw you then as i see you now. 
i don’t need to promise it to you.
you know i saw you because you saw me the way i saw you in the lights and the wicked tilt of a pundit’s smile and the smoke and the ashes and the tears and the grief and the anger in your chest and 

we did, didn’t we, we grieved together once and we carved our love out of it and i could tell the world i hate you but you know that the earth will burn and our grief will remain and so i will love you now as i loved you then as i love you always 

                                 to hate you is to forget myself and 

                                                      there is a fight to be won and 

                                                                     you are cut from the same cloth as me and 

maybe someday when i am sitting by the shore and i draw a deep breath of salt and sunshine and have forgotten the feeling of smoke in my lungs and blood in my eyes and your hand in mine at the end of the world 

i will hate you, 
but 

we are so small in the face of war.