it is worthless to be sad
it is of no importance
so put your face on and smile and pretend
and these fears will not hold you hostage today
go shop consumer
go nails and eyes go sing your surprise downtown
go wide mouth poem lips
go spots and scars and peeling zits
go flawed and angry belly to sleep
wake up aching
wake up again daily
driving
home in the rain

sing noon and lunch out of yr chest
scrape the depression gray in your brain
forget the insane and the warning labels
say to me how sorry i am in shades of yellow
say to me how yellow is just an ocular experience
say to me bible verses via text message
say to me how nothing helps the word prison
say to me how america is rich off prison off people
say
say why you came no victim,
how we question these realities
say you miss me
when i m not around
say how
surgery anaesthia'd me
say how strong you are for not crying
say how

SAY HOW SAY HOW SAY HOW

we're alive too
too alive to die
and we're in love all the time and my sister says life is a movie
and every movie has a love story
and life is about love

which is why I
will starve my ribs to Adam
will return to dust
will Eve your lips, the darkest hue of moon I've ever met
insomniac hips guide constellations to lucid dreaming
constant smoking and distraction
we gather in sheds and houses

in shreds the ways we forgive and forget
and weigh decisions, the weight of responsibility nagging at my shoulders
ripples of anxiety
curdle in my throat
it is Thursday
i let an infant pull my hair
i rub your sick back

I miss my blood/ my brother
detained
by four walls of injustice
know
one
knows
the
truth

but I
believe you
and now your family
in various states of uncertainty
holds the threads of stories that you weave
stolen money and crimes against humanity
repossessed cars
bottles of liquor
sisters in law
above the law
held up by the law
interrupted
interpreted
and moment we spent was precious,
we laughed and were normal again
the satellites in yr eyes
who knows what they've seen
what they choose to believe
their is such madness in our blood
it runs
thick and rampant
galloping in our genes
and we
live for a living
you alive even when you dying all the time
swollen tears/dynamite boot you/hungover father/ surprise maker of cigarettes and smashed porcelain
born again/seventh day sinner/ come clean out the water/ baptized coffee
working class hands hung the rhythm of the drum in my chest
the tornado of my soul

too big
energy contained not mine anyway
for you i would unlearn so many consonants
i would forget to speak in sentences
for you make moonly gestures
move me to guessing in 14 degrees with ward of the state AWOL passenger seat
spill yr worries sister
we are not alone tonight

you are so much of my blood when i forget what we are made of
we come from the same stardust
however toxic

i pick you up from the armpits
shining in the December of yr adolescence

this morning a 19 yr old boy asked me how to spell achievement

this afternoon i saw exhaustion in a single mother's fingers

I saw peace in the bald, pink cancer patient seeking holistic remedies at Whole Foods

the weary barista delights in his tip jar

and this
this is the tip

of the glacier

that is hope

a shipwrecked shore to call home

you are not from here

sailor

do not anchor

yr worries to reality

we all beat the ocean
in our sleep