What is worth recalling of yourself before the age of eighteen?

You could mention, briefly,
the various rises and falls and manias and
melodramas cured with forties of Old English
in various public restrooms and upturned furniture
pieces and feigned illnesses and ringing eardrums and
refurbished tractor parts and secret purchases of
gigantic reptiles and alternate personalities and
obsessive yet unnecessary rituals and
self-inflicted sacrifices
all of which
invisibly
governed
you

You could picture, vaguely,
a youth enmeshed in greenery and
the swelling chorus of cracked wails from
dust-faced vagabonds who, in your memory
are somehow perpetually draped in scarlet
and earthy patches of torn fabric
and of course
the unmistakably
poisonous
stench of
need

But in this moment
these topics
seem irrelevant

If we become thick
and syrupy with love,
we'll suffocate
and my utmost
thunderous roars
shall be muted
by the honey glaze

I'd rather crawl
on callous palms
through wilted flower-beds
caked in dirt
and wait and look
out and up into
cauliflower clouds
and create
my own extraordinary visions
of what It All should look like--

drowning and throbbing
and motionless forms in my mind
savage
silent wanderings
devilish and perverse

and I'll add them to the list
of things I'll never do
while in the background
through an anonymous window
"I" make love
to "you"

I can't
Decide
Whether to stay
Or to leave you
Bright eyed and naked gleaming faced
And breathless in
The white tiled room
Flueroscent lights burn brighter when
You're bored out of your
******* mind
No regrets
No looking back just turn
And walk away
****** handed
Aghast faced
Shock dismay
Me
I can't be swayed
Either way
I am livestock
Paralyzed and frazzled
In perpetual panic
And no one can save me

I can't
Decide
What to do with my eyes
When you streak across linoleum to
Kick over the garbage can
When you tell me I look tired
What can I say?
We line up like soldiers
I tell you things on a post it note
I put my hand on your shoulder
Awkward comfort
Where to draw the line?
I say it'll be ok
Mom and Dad problems are not ours to bear
But I am the adult here
Isn't that insane?

You're only nine and I can still gape into
The blackened flames in your eyes
I cannot let that extinguish
Please my precious babies don't
Give up oh! let me plant the seeds of self worth in your self consciousness
Ah, no
I can't
Walk away

I can't
Decide
If it will be today
Or some tomorrow that
I'll just crack up and die
You tell me things will get better
I promise, and so
I swallow my heart and drink the panic back down
Too much to feel too much to regurgitate

I teach.

I am in the throes
of a force beyond
my cognizance though
we haven't known
each other long
me siento que
I've already met you
in a different life

como un destino
binds us together
tan poderoso
these ropes of desire
so raw and primitive
they ache me, like
you felt so
inevitable to me y
a veces it seems
we are only vaguely
aware of what we
surrender to so unquestionably

emociones tan surreales
como sueños
washing over me
gently until they are more
than they were
when they were born
more than dreams
estás fisicamente
taking over me

and yet it does not feel scary ni
como un sacrificio
it does not feel like I am any less
of a Self

for I am más de mi when I'm contigo
I am whole and
renewed,
I feel Found,
porque me encontraste,
al final
I am home

I wish this
is always what we could be
pero me siento que
fueras tan precioso que
I can't possibly be allowed
to keep you forever

so in preeminent defense I think
no puede ser
this cannot be
so sacred a gift?
not meant for me

i am sick, mad, crazy
still in love with you
always thinking about not thinking about you
and whenever you incessantly creep in-
to my thoughts i scold myself
it's too late--
i haven't crossed his mind in ages

and i drive myself to tears at night lying awake,
feeling far too naked next to him
(who i can't stop comparing to you--
how mediocre he seems after you,
how everyone likely will be)
and i suffer in silence
from the dreadful
chill of lingering
hope
a hope
that maybe
you and I
just might...

it's like
how i can't forget
that summer afternoon when we were
sun-drunk and
bleary-eyed in your hammock and you
put your hand on my stomach and said,
one day, we'll have a baby in there
and i was stilled; i loved so profoundly then
i had thought,
one day
we could be magical

and every part of me hates how cliche this all sounds,
and how our stupid tragedy has turned me into a cliche
but it's true
every single day
my raw hungry love, still alive
looms over me,
plagues me,
decays me,
i try to push it away but
it lingers like a nightmare
that will not go away

i know we exploded, turned to
shattered glass,
smoky ash but
i still yearn to know why
and so every time
someone dies in the newspaper
or i read a line in a book that moves me
or our song
comes on the radio
or someone mentions your name
in passing, with painful casualty
or worse-- nauseating familiarity,
i feel a sharp pang, with every
accidental glimpse of a photograph
i still can't bring myself to throw away,
my heart sinks deeper down
into my stomach
and once more,
i am sure
i will never truly feel again
without you

sometimes i have the urge to stand on a
pedestal somewhere,
high and tall and proud,
in front of a
bustling crowd like
in the movies
and scream to the universe
i would still do anything
to be with you
and wait for you to run so fast towards me that we
crash and then you pull back, hold my face and say
shut up, i had you at hello, or something

i've tried so hard for so long not to feel any of this
to numb the breaking-away pain with
blue, white, green, orange pills and
sweet smoke
i've tried so hard to detach myself from the reality
of our tragedy
to avoid responsibility
for feeling anything at all

but my new year's resolution is to be clean
so now i am finally letting myself
feel
it
all
from my mind through
my cold meaningless fingertips
all the hurt

now i know
the darkest face of sadness
is regret

and i want you to know
that even though i pretended not to,
i heard you and
i'm trying to change
and that i hope one day you will actually
forgive me
for doing that awful thing i did to you
last spring
and that
i'm scared i will love you forever

but if there is a chance
you feel something too,
why have we wasted
so much time
not together?

I rediscovered you under my bathroom rug
I was rendered artistically silent
Blindly fighting
Fierce winds of consciousness and
Eternal sadness that
Tastes like ***** bathwater

Now I’m glowing
Aloft and permeated
The ***** dishes are right where we left them,
unfortunately
And you’ve gone and
Stolen all of my rosemary linens and
Devoured them
One by one
Plus –
I’ve overcooked the Dali Llama
Oh when will love’s agony end?

Don’t harden your eyes at me
Or lock me in the back of a limousine
I shall pour
liquid charcoal
methodically
into
your
moonlight
eyes

There are certain things you shouldn’t ever think too much about
Math for instance
Math,
Death,
and the reason you decide to get naked with someone

What if
everything got all crunched together?
We’d go deaf from all the noise
blind from all the light
our organs would burst and flatten against each other
everything condensed
into one small round ball
and the only ones to survive
(not even the ants, for they are too delicate)
would be the tiny little atoms in the air

All of our atoms, floating around
like pure elements,
unbroken
unfazed
by all the diseases of the world
the disasters
the heat
the freeze and the condensation
everything that has ever wrecked
and ravaged our earth
and the world would begin anew.

What if
in every breath you take you’re inhaling everything else that has ever existed?
the rough dirt patches on the surface of the earth,
the ozone,
the warm UV rays,
the cheese that has broken off of the moon?

What if
the blood of Adam and Eve
is in your glass of orange juice?
or
the prehistoric stony eyes of a dinosaur
hides in your pup's timid glare?

And what if
every water molecule contains every
feces that has ever existed
and has been swept inside of you?