I attribute this nonsense to the
cat walking across the keys

She made a salad of letters
as good as anything else I wrote on purpose

I saw Hemingway’s house from a distance;
We craned our necks to see the doorway to the foyer where he left.

Is it paranoia if you’re right about them watching?
Isn’t it easier to give in to the fear and build your walls high to keep them from seeing you
whether they are the FBI or the one you love?

I attribute this poetry nonsense to falling in love, to falling off a cliff,
to having the layers of a decade peeled back by the light in your green eyes.
I thought I was fine and life was fine and I could enjoy this moment in the sun and that moment in the rain and see the difference between the two but
then I read about bravery and vulnerability and even tattooed it on my arm seemingly to no avail because now I am afraid.

I attribute this fear to now having your green eyes to lose where before
there was only this cat.