I'm not sure where I stand,
or if I'm even in the same room,
as him
to her
I might be on the curb
burning my fingers
with cigarettes smoked to the ****
waiting on a new face
to pick me up
and take me for a spin
teach me how to hold hands again
peel away the lamenent
call me human and
drive
drive
drive
far from all the hurt
till it doesn't matter
where I stand
with
her

I think I've been looking at this
all wrong
she doesn't miss me
and she didn't know
what it meant when she kissed me
and I shouldn't expect her to
because I never spoke my mind
completely
oh god
I'm a fraud
I can only be mad at myself
me
myself
the blame is on my hands
my hands
Oh ****
Oh ****
Oh ******* ****
I've done it again
misconstrued everything
time to
reevaluate
I'll see you later
when my head is on
straight

I wrote you each August,
asking you to break the
tall, thick clouds into flat,
cold floes that vanish when
the sun vaults over them.

You bring your cool moon,
and it slides over my skin
from head to heel or hand
to hand. Cicadas feel it,
too. Like medicine on a cut.

I typically pause, let silent
vowels swallow the air
peeking around the curtain,
and until we feel fresher
by it, crisped, I stay still.

You test the leaves one,
two nights pulling with open
hands; I remember ice,
shattered on the pavement
and spread thin, whitens.

I

We lost the art of brand new sight,
of sleep unaided in dreams of flight,
when tendons grew
our hopes diminished,
we set to flame
all the books we had finished.

We faced childhood's end upon the start
of routine pain and a world-weary heart.
When sadness grew
without a good reason,
we viewed happiness
as just a passing season.

We felt parents weep upon our shoulder,
experienced loss but never grew older.
The passing of time
has kept you away,
but upon my first kiss,
I shall ask you to stay.

II

Our father was a lion buried under the mound
in the jungle grass of our garden. When trains
passed by at night, we roared our father's calls
back to him. We always felt we would meet him.

In boundless energy, we would climb the tree,
scale the back-alley car-park, parading maladies
as a badge of honour. We were going to be
astronauts, playing football on the moon.

There was no time for debts or tomorrows,
only the taste of sugar and plastic mints.
A long soak in the bath was a punishment,
with nothing but dirt to wash away.

III

I think of you in comfort
as I open unfamiliar doors,
as I fall in love with a photograph,
as I find myself sleeping on floors.

I think of you in solace
when waking up is hard,
when love has been reduced
to the print of a greeting card.

I think of you too often
as I dodge another bill,
as I waste a field to play within
and settle for the windowsill.

I thought the ceasefire had come.
I had survived the press gangs
and carpet bombs
and the drum of war had been
reduced to the constant undying
thud of my heart.
I was hoping to feign retreat.
Three days of deepest winter
before a new year in the sun
hanging like Christ over the Zodiac
and not from the branch
of my father's tree.

The extension cord came loose.
Bread knives are now curious
fascinations
and sit in my stomach like
so much red wine and that writer's pride
in greeting death.
I was hoping to gain a peace.
To place it like a necklace
or badge of honour on my breast
to remind the tourists of the ******
that ravaged the town
I had grown up in.

I have eight years left to die.
After that I will grow fat
and loose in mind
and forget why sadness is
so important in the modern world
of dying art.
I was hoping for vague release.
Something to **** cowardice
and that hesitant breath before
the pull of a blade or jump to the sea
of endless black hole
and icy relief.

I thought the ceasefire had come.
We had stood outside to watch
the confetti
fall to the ground with delay
in a wind we had come to suspect
would destroy us.
I was hoping to gain belief.
I thought the rockets  had stopped
or else been pointed to the sky
in a bottled message from all mankind
to another place,
to another time.