under slime that sticks
between hairs and fingers
you felt stuck between
the Pontiac
and my duvet
so with a trudge
through oceans of time
and cracks on the pavemnt
leading the apartment and my hand
to your rainboots
and wet smile and bright pink umbrella
with too much vitality
for this neighborhood
to handle you were scooped
up by my arms
and with raindrop pellets
landing awkwardly
between nostrils
and between eyebrows
and through the sticky weight
of break-up politics
I took you back to our bed.

and bed and closet
and solid wood dressers
and mirrors
hung on each wall
so when you stood in the middle
you could see who you were,
four different views,
spin quickly in a circle
and all four become one
dizzy smear of fleshy skin,
dark strands of hair
and constant brown pupils,
trying to focus. Spinning
and getting nauseous
this room's walls inch foreward,
closer, the ceiling lowers
the jagged plastered lines
and edges **** ceasessely
forming a cube condensing
and swallowing your form
up with it. A diamond
shaped prism with your
twirling reflection bouncing
off glass and your life
beaming from their lenses,
out from the geometry
and from the fake wooden beams. underneath white socks
as you fall back
through claustrophobia,
anxiety and time
and lie with your back
on the bed,
reminded of its emptiness,
with the room still circling
you, as a cube
with especially pointed edges,
and you think the dizziness
and headaches would stop
if only he was in that same
shrinking bedroom as you.

You all the time
to feel your loving
Glance to hold you close
and be your ride
Past the park
Some little longing
To exist by your side.
I need you baby
I want to be around you
at all time's you're the only one
that I want when this world turns grey so please let me be around you
Don't even need to hold you
just let me breathe your same air
from your lips your the only suger
For my bitter world.
So climb over the front seat
into my uncle's Chevy.

We walked across the bridge
Over the mud from the creeks
Leading to downtown and the bay
Giving gracious curtsy
Holding up from the fray
From outside windows and panes
Plucking time from a bottle
I wonder about you and think
Could you see me and want to
Break down hopelessness and fear
And be one with the winds
But I know you're a house cat
And wouldn't want to be near
The forces of nature and god
And *** and what's pure
Go back to the cage and purr
A lifeless being still unsure
But I know we can swim
Through these rain drenched streets
And find happiness together
But first in these sheets.

With small colonies
Of rain water
When brushed form together
And make a fountain
When hung from the neck
On wooden coat racks
Wobbling from the storm
Outiside, compiling a lake
On the white **** rug
Hopefully your aunt doesn't mind
The newfound guests of water
And mud
And myself, quiet as this farmhouse
And the land it shepherds
Let the raincoats stack
One on top of the other
And let the puddle grow into
A sea of collective belonging
Because behind these walls
And a way from the thunder
Our family can stay soggy
Together, despite being
A funeral for uncle earl
We're just droplets.

I can see the pale white wall
With nothing painted or pinned
And I reel through memory
And come to you
And back to this bed
And the comforters are warm
And I feel at peace
But moreso
If you were beside me
Holding my heart in one hand
The other arm around my chest
Pinning me down
To what matters
To lovely summer days
And fresh air
And the bamboo forest
That sprung out
From around your home
And the days we'd spend
Brown from the sun
And muscles sore
From doing nothing
Floating on my father's
14 footer,
Sailboat and knowing
That the summer would be out last
And that the pale wall now
Is as empty as my bed.

Time's clock ticking, drops
infinity into the rust of bedside tables.
In Bed-Stuy, in D.C, dear Baltimore. And you too,
Ferguson.
East Coast warriors raise high heavy heads.
Break loose shackles, blushing muscles. Veins
of ancients pump through us.
Now we cry for peace. Resilience and time
******* out from present pleasures. T.V screens.
Longing hours contemplating
forgotten dreams. Nightmares,
trickle blood out of nosebleed section patrons.
An operatic multitude of greed
and insanity. Corrupt millionaires
spit down on struggling, stuttering
lost and alone
actors, poets
the good politician.
The neighborhood bully weeps after swatting a fly,
and immortality feigns existence. Be here
now death, let them know the coming of peace,
spiraling black holes
of emotion and pride and dead boys.
Broken time continuous, and hearts.
9-11, 2001 rocked a nation,
what rocked you?