Before normal returns
I want to lay by your side
holding hands
and simply talk to you
forever
until
I die.

Death of another hero
In a whiteout landscape
On the edge of the world
Across the lake, the wind rips
Like a lash across the face
Pillars of black-smoke soot
January in this Seventh Wonder
Desolate

They are falling fast, too fast
So fast
In this so-far cruelest month
Seemingly from nowhere, and
Without reason

The man on the corner with a sign that reads
One Love
Wrinkled and craggily
With winter oozing from his nose
Lord you know it’s the freaks
Who make the world
Spin round
Even after
the eagle lands, and
The airplane crashes
and the spaceman
falls

We are on the same road
Headed in opposite directions
Wheels turning, going nowhere
Fast
How maddening it is that
We can’t
Get this
right

Pieces are missing
Others don’t fit
So much for the payoff you expected
We are all suckers on some level
We are dogs
Sheep
Fools misled
Lemmings being led
off a ledge
Somewhere there must be someone
Laughing

This is the day of your extraction
Do you remember when
we made
The paint melt off the walls
Like God moving Heaven and Earth
Until you decided
The wind no longer blew
And the sun no longer rose

This evening I woke up knowing
The years past went by
As quickly as the decade ahead
Time is a thief
and all of us are
Stark-raving mad.

I’ve always adored the fact that you have parts missing from your face,
creating this sort of perfect imbalance
that makes it seem as if you were a member of your
own race,
like some far-out cat from some planet
on the skids …
You once had this strange haircut
and I wanted to slap you in the back
of your head
with an open hand
as I stared into your narrow and angelic countenance.
But who didn’t,
am I right?

So I guess that’s when it all began,
But that’s no surprise, really, because
it always begins
with very weird hair —
Anyway, when I was young I used to marvel at the primates
in their unnatural habitat.
But many years later I was
saddened by the realization that you had never
bounced around like a monkey in
form-fitting garb inside my cage.
So what am I supposed to do now
after stumbling upon you atop the furniture?

I hope that you know that I
will never, ever be the same —
And all that time we spent
turning avoidance into an art form,
which is why when I saw you squirm that day in your chair
it felt like victory despite my exhaustion.
Though I have tried,
albeit, somewhat awkwardly, to make amends,
I am convinced that every word
you have ever said to me, about me, about this,
is total *******
slung with the intention of
hiding your disdain
behind sweet words and a laugh
that cuts me every time.