Too Much

How do you know it's enough unless it's too much?

AI image prompted by the author

Too Much

I dream of a dusty restaurant 
a wooden building with rusty
nails holding up canvas.
You are there, pacing

looking for a booth or a place
to set your worries down.

Sand is filling up our shoes
as we hunt for comfort
in food. Gritty, brittle

annoyance begins to fill our
very souls, the irritation building
toward an explosive burst

of anger. And then, a softening
into sadness, a release
of years of withheld
tears

a collapsing, a resigning
a sighing, a relieving
a reviving.

In the morning I am
on a small island
traversing a canal

filled with hope and algae.
I meet you again, and you nod

with the glint of intimacy
in your eye as you

seem to recall our prior
nightmare, its aching clutch
and you hold me
and you say

All your love is never too much.

AI image prompted by the author

Thanks to

The Starfire Codes

and

Gloria Horton-Young

for providing the inspiration and context for this piece. Read Gloria’s excellent follow-up poem “Too Little” here.