I didn't know what would happen when I encouraged you to write.
I didn't know I'd helped you fix together the jagged ends of the circuit you ripped apart as a teenager.
I didn't know the electricity would destroy your bones, illuminating them like Christmas - and mine.
And I didn't know you'd turn the dial up, hell-bent, even as you vomited electrons.
I didn't know when I said darling, travel-writing's not beyond you;
I didn't know the only journey you'd record was the return to your own bomb-scarred history,
I didn't know you'd go back to the garage, tearing up the ghosts from under their gravestones.
And I didn't know your grandfather would barrel you over a cliff again.
I didn't know I had asked you to untwist the long screw that fastens your sanity;
I didn't know it spanned the length of your body - hair, chin, stomach, ankles.
I didn't know that even untamed lovemaking won't close the five-and-a-half-foot wound.
And I didn't know I'd done for both of us, inoperably.
