december carves me hollow

bittersweet empathy
will no doubt be
the death of me

i have explored the depths of my psyche:
fear of abandonment,
desperate need to find self in others,
tendency toward self-destruction

i have known the boundless pain of love:
frantic kisses beneath a barrage of tears, two languages,
a one-way ticket home,
three thousand miles from the real thing.

here i sit, untethered and alone,
fearing, above all things,
that you do not mean what you say.