A man sat on the bench next to me
We wedge ourselves in the armrest
with empty seats to our rights
A bottle of ***** in his hand,
A juicebox in mine

Our eyes tunnel onto the empty space
that envelopes this busy street
in possessed silence as though
we were sat in church pews,
facing the altar,
affixed in prayer.

as if a breathe of fresh air
I saw you on the olive stream
a haze of bendy trunks and quiet
not knowing where the roots will cling,
but it travels the soil nonetheless

now, to hold you at dusk and dawn,
in the gaps between the tree crowns,
a robust engine in a tender, muted forest

I hum to the echo of a whispering twitch

and as you run from edge to edge
I wait for you at the center

i said you think you're invincible,
mind is a machine you said, it does
not need rest yet with all
this labour you still
reside in feeble fissured skin
features lacking in outline the
eyes that soak pleading excuses
for delirium to do more labour
of correcting what is
faulty the machine does not
function when it is faulty
but you believe, you said,
if it runs for long enough
it will fix the bugs somewhere between
the night and the morning
then i see it and i see you
fretting down the wires
gusting the leaking chip, i know
you will hike the circuit again so
i leave trails behind but
you pick them back up, you said
you are tired of cleaning
up after me, i said
i think you are just tired

you're in the final rest
before the ground swallows you back
whole, in pieces
stacked on top of yourself,

you,
a huddle as dense as your bones are hollow
a refuge for bugs that fear the light
a lesson for curious hands

weeds inter-stitch between the tiny gaps that you allow
they may be the last life you care to pierce your skin
and the next life that proudly takes over

you,
you cannot give without also being taken

your final rest, so sure and surely uncertain
it is yours, before the bugs come to feast for the last time
yours, before the curious hands set you ablaze
to help them see better at night

it is yours,
as it is a space that you occupy

coddled in this blanket fort, for now
to be contained is to feel bigger than space
fragile fabric slowly fraying at the seams-
meant to protect me, for now

the sun makes it hard sometimes—suddenly,
it's a hug that feels too tight, too warm

nauseous of the collective breathe
that fools itself to being one

a.r.

Keys misplaced from billions of pockets—
open the rusty lockets
piling under bridges;
rockets,
for the palm wide enough to hold them

Bulging eyes are folded
in a chamber slowly dimming like bruises;
black and white,
backs against the walls,
coating palates in dry, brackish tones,
a charcoaled conversation.

The same echoes whipping against skin,
ripping the same warm bodies thin,
the same red-brick teeth
raking the cold, bleached soil

As the ice melts into water,
it is no longer the miner,
who smelts for power;
it's powdered noses that never sweat—
from pounding, bronzed pulses  
too big to leave the net

and as if it’s not enough,
it's stretching out a golden hand,
pelting doubt unto cardboard ceilings,
sealing silky mouths
and plaiting amber limbs,
felted so tightly to cushion Your seat

a.r.

Paint me in hues
of red, paisley clouds
over the ragged linen
wrapped around my
small, limbless body

Tell me I'm an older man,
enough to grow my spine,
tire my eyes,
break my skull
and still make it home in time

Touch the leather, know it's real
feel the bumps, fill the cracks,
reminding you and I are the only colours
when the lights switch off
and the universe turns blind

For now everything is matter,
for now, nothing even matters
so feed me what I can't ever say
and show me the parts of you
that would never rot in clay

a.r.