sometimes, there is a second campus

that drapes over the one you know

as night lifts lightly from its perch

 

its cellophane tucks silently under branches

in the new light, the world is

glimmering and plasticky at its edges

 

if you’re anything like me, you’ve seen it

on mornings that feel slow in your stomach

on days that drag their contents downward

 

the air between you and what you know is thick

dripping with slick memories and pulsing with the possibility

of wrenching you further from reality

 

when you reach out to grab

at the door, it’s too far

separation cuts close and rings with its ruin

 

outside pulls itself inside you until

the boundaries bulge and the straining

you’ve been doing in your body falls limp

 

then all at once the cold curls down your throat

icy whispers wash the skin of your face

and the ground knits itself back together underneath your feet

 

you fall, the winter wind neatly knocked out of you

coming down crashing, you reach out to

tear apart the tapestry that has torn you from yourself

 

until, gasping, it’s just you, filling out your edges.

look up, the stars are still there.

now I can reach out and touch them.