All of my past loves stand in a circle holding hands, surrounding a table on which I lie.

“Relax,” they say to me in unison.

“I can’t! You’re hurting me!” I cry.

“We aren’t doing anything to you,” they say.

“But I’m in so much pain,” I exclaim.

“Just relax.“

“If I relax you’ll leave.” I am sobbing.

“We will leave if you can’t relax.“

“I knew it. You’re going to leave. I can’t relax.”

I wake up. I chase isolation. In the desert flats with no life around me, I can’t relax. On an empty campus field at night, I can’t relax. In my own bed, I can’t relax.

When there is nowhere left to run, I crack open and out spills pain.

Into this last remaining companion, I finally relax.