Mistakes

I didn’t want to feel anything.

Not anymore.

Tomorrow I would — but not tonight.

Tonight I wanted to harden my heart a bit more,

so I could stay numb,

so I could stay a consumer,

so I could consume nonsense into nothingness —

Nine Three

I missed him today,

there were none of his rainbows,

no phone ringing,

no hugs,

no whispers of what would happen at the line of scrimmage,

no photos that I could keep for longer than us and know it at the time,

no binoculars,

no yellow cotton short sleeved shirts or baby powder,

no navy jacket or khakis,

no hats with embroidery,

no leaves covering his sign,

but there would be again

one day,

one day around the bend

Pointed Arrows

I wish I'd stop talking about all the things I didn't do,

that was air,

that was time,

that was that way,

that could be clarions,

and proxies,

and skyscrapers,

and all the things I loved to love.

It could be,

In better loved silence, it very well could be.

Aperitif Anger And Then Some

What in the fresh hell mother of fuck is this cunty nonsense you call writing —

it isn’t,

it isn’t writing,

and when he called us in there to say it wasn’t,

it wasn’t a good idea,

we got rosy in the cheeks,

and not from pride or Preciousness,

but from being full on bumble pie,

the sticky kind,

the kind that stays in your teeth and shuts you up,

because that’s what it was made for,

that’s what it was meant to end.

Bulwark

They picked on me,

but my parents always told me to stand up,

to say something when someone else was in pain,

was vulnerable,

was suffering,

I just didn’t know they also meant that I needed to hone the conversation skills with myself —

It was truly lost on me —

1934, March

Maybe I didn’t know what it was to say no,

and by proxy had said yes to myself,

maybe I didn’t like it here,

in here,

in my attic,

all that much —

which was good and fine,

as long as I could craft the wings,

as long as I could do that —

Lessons in the Heat

I told you when we handed you a pen it would be the beginning of the end,

the ripe passage of your fairy tale,

but you did not listen,

you did not care —

and so I went on about my business,

buying oil colors,

and crayons,

and things that would only bring chaos

Faux Sought

So we’re just going to pretend that things were perfect,

above board even,

for a good long while,

until we snap —

until then,

which,

to be honest,

would be very, very soon —

1943, Too

We got better and better,

and time wasn’t helping,

but the lines weren’t forming as fast as they said they would —

the lines weren’t going anywhere,

just hovering for anxiety,

for stature,

for more or less what we already knew —

Two Goes

Of course they did,

there wasn’t a loyal bone in their body,

not one —

but we knew that,

we just chose to conveniently forget it time and again —

time and again

Late Night, Eight Nineteen of Ninety Two

He was the first of the season,

with a capital A,

extraordinary when you think about it now,

it was just a wave,

a brush up,

on the other side of the world,

until, like all of us,

it hardened,

tightened,

and buckled down —

for the worst,

even by its own powdered hand,

was yet to come —

Twenty Fourth of Ninety Two

There was blood in the water,

coming from my nose,

though I thought it was the drip, drop from the ceiling,

the gurney was uncomfortable —

painful even,

too much to bear,

but I didn’t realize it then,

I was seeing purple lightning,

and the haunting, ghostly hissing of the wind waiting in heat —

Sixty So

Perhaps this was all less interesting and important than we had wished for,

perhaps,

perhaps it was,

but we kept moving like a locomotive,

moving indeed —

Silhouettes and Consciousness

Better things were done in the dark,

when no one could think about credit,

or voyeurism,

or looking the other way,

but looking inward,

better things were always done that way,

and that way again,

and maybe we would never know they were done,

but we would be breathing because it had been so,

because they had been so,

because they had thought,

this is so, so much bigger than me

Until Now

Sometimes the sadness was debilitating,

and I looked for small,

tiny laughter,

tiny good,

to distract me,

sometimes the feelings were too much,

too severe,

unkind even —

and I resented that,

I resented me,

I think,

I just hadn’t said it aloud.

3664

I was always wishing for skies to look the way they did then,

before the cold,

eleven years before the turn of the century,

and the desk,

I wanted it back —

but I wasn’t sure it would remember me,

or welcome me home —

Drops and Buckets

I wish I’d been better,

good enough to be taken,

or invited elsewhere,

or stolen away for moments,

or any of that —

But I wasn’t,

I just wasn’t.

Sticks in the Distance

There were flares from the flashlight,

people wanting to die,

saying it out loud even —

and we kept waxing on about the twenty first century,

we kept waxing on about the future,

it was all nonsense without a horizon line —

Dollops

Sometimes I couldn’t drag myself to bed,

and it wasn’t for lack of trying,

and then I couldn’t pull myself up,

and that wasn’t for lack of trying either —

things were just different,

quiet even,

in a frightening sort of way,

which was when I would look for the lightning,

and the trees —

and the trees

Scores, V. I

We tried too hard,

the way we should have years ago,

or last week even,

we just needed fire,

the new kind,

the kind that didn’t require thinking,

or thought, 

or points —