obese sadness
Footsteps heavy through mud and blood
Goodness and badness
Feel the same sharp splinter spear
Invisible pit
Too steep, unlit
Tendrils of lead
If only it were something that bled
Maybe they would understand
Drowning on land
And in a bed sheet
As torrential as sleet
It tears down every ladder
And all they say is,
"What's the matter?"

"Draw things about relief,"
he said
(because he doesn't know I write too).

Relief--
The smell of California air,
hot eve in December.
Finding out he really does care.
Yeah right, that I don't remember.

Relief--
the end of a knife fight.
Tight pants unbuttoned
by his hands.
The last list of demands.

Relief--
a noxious pill,
the bottom of a hill,
the thing that often looks like failure.

"Get a degree
a high G.P.A.
a piece of modern adult identity.
Drive onto the racetrack with a real job--engine revved,"
say the boys:
Washington, Dad, and you.
Voices loud
Ears Deaf.

Cinnamon whiskey
Burning hot like unseen lace.
Him and her: Frisky.
In my mind, her face.

Dark and structured
Cheek bones and jaw line
Imagination fractured
But all the same: Mine.

When I don't know
What he is doing
I imagine what is so.
Despite rationality shooing.

I dip myself in gold
A hot sizzle
Does it catch
your eye
your fancy
The edge of your shirt
Beckoning you back

Do I call to you
As you call to me?
My hair will grow in either case
The geese will fly
The world will turn
And whisper it's infinite terror
It's infinite beauty

But now
it's done whispering

I whisper
eyelids red and pink and black
in hand blade and broken compass and sack
what could I have done?
who could I be instead?
Here, let me switch off this head.
I whisper
insides red and pink and black
I count out each crack
between you and me
I whisper

when will you see?

You turn the ***.

Bile collection
Right at the base of my neck
All lined up
Disgusting brown to putrid green
Cup by cup
It all tumbles out of my spine
Onto your new white t-shirt
Try to assert
A muffled apology.

I somehow ask you
Sorry about your shirt, you see?

You reply
It looks white to me.

There are white streaks
in her hair
on your arm
in his blood vessels
between the lines I say and don't say
below the dark sea
above the "you" and the "me"
See them or don't
won't you unveil
prevail
re-sell this vision of adulthood
with all it's woulds and shoulds
with all it's white streaks:
where you are just a "hi"
and I am just a good "bye"

You are the light
The blood
The reason I fight
You are gold
In the center of the sun

You are water
Through my fingers
In my fingers
Something that doesn't quite linger

You are the reason I live
And the reason I die.

Free falling
Water up my nose
Am I smiling or am I frowning
Am I swimming or am I drowning
Isnt it strange
How putting your leg between mine
Echos like we are still
In that cave so long ago
Grabbing and racing to fill
This bright void
No question marks
Because you are all the answers

I find myself
leaning into
the pain.
Studying it.
Microscope--
blurry at first,
fiddling with the ****,
finding the perfect point
of clarity.

Mechanisms clean,
neat ball-point-pen
hand writing
describing the chemical
deficiency,
structure
of love.
Reduce me to carbons:
microscopic lines and arrows.
Maybe that is a little easier.

Words' palm to push you
Out of reach

Sew my lips
To keep the words
From escaping
From covering
The space between your fingers
And mine.

But

Pain has spit
One final revenge
Choose to shroud
Choose to hide
Choose the needle
And the thread
Sew everything shut
Go ahead

When you can't see clearly,
look harder
Through the pebbles and stones
Of sentences
Do you find nails and glass?

Are days all clones
Some simple
Sublime

Color

Just a small scrape
On the prefrontal cortex
Just a small ****
With prefrontal latex.
A maze learned latent
You always said I wasn't patient.
A black river
A moon shivering sliver
Of guiding yellow
Take every large thing
Burn it til it's mellow.

You are the last drop
circling around the ice cubes
and I am the fish
at the bottom of the glass
tossing and turning
looking and yearning.

You are a wide net
to let
all my lions out
and I am the metal
you should have used instead.

You are no amount
infinity isn't enough
and I am the stuff
you ***** out with *******

You are a rough that lingers
because you scar,
and I am one, single,
shooting star.

You. Stupid shoulders and sideburns.
Turns
We take
To Make
Ways to harm
Charm
Your way into my mind
Only to leave me behind
Under folds of fabric.
Brick
Thick
Stick
Is your ooze to my brain
Crain your neck
Hold on, here is a check
To even out what I lack
Track
Back
Begin again.

All I have right now
is youth.
And maybe a couple o' words:
A little truth.
Flexibility and time
Beer with lime
Climb
Claw
Saw
A map to a clue.
All I have right now
Is you--