this is where we sat
my elbows bony
your mouth a hard line

some walls are painted yellow, some
lined in mirrors, yours
bare
i was

ancient
crude

drawn in eternal by words that mean
things that they don’t sound like, building
materials that belie their insides
lengths i’d never go to

we are both what we say we are

maybe it was on the dam, graffitied
by hummingbirds
where i counted red ants
and minutes
on the bridge of your nose
at close range

and where we said goodbye
shrugged our shoulders
and never came back

or maybe it was on the brown couch
opposite the copy machine
that covered my hands
blackened them while you were away
you might have been proud

maybe it was in the recesses of the library
where i drank too much coffee
and found the only thing that drives me

or maybe it was right here
where i made up a nightmare
and never could shake it after that

it’s difficult to articulate the precise difference between drawing pictures and writing words. neither is particularly honest, especially when you ask me. there’s always a temptation to let a small truth stand in for a larger truth, and that is inherently a little bit dishonest. universality is only for some, only sometimes.

but imagining it is there more often and more broadly helps put a leash on the chaos of coffee shops and prison cells and tenements and castles. to imagine we are all held together by a shared sensation is a thrill irreplaceable by a one to one experience, by a touching of foreheads or being in love.

that’s only if you’re a good artist, though. sometimes you just have to draw exactly what you see, and then the only stretching of the truth is acting as if the chair legs aren’t there because they aren’t visible behind the table. if you’re a really honest human being, you can draw them and then erase them. but nobody is.

To grow up a restless gull, itching to go in every feather, spreading fingers across continents and craving every one of them. To finally go and lose your hunger. To settle into the next place like it’s the last, tuck your head under your wing and know only parking lots. To forget the sea was yours.

To need to hear the same song every day to keep your head. To paint a mural of where you’ve been so nobody suspects. To avoid eye contact because you’ve got nothing behind yours. To forage and forget. To forage and forget. To forget.

dizzy from the onslaught of the springtime I thank
my lucky stars for strings and steamboats I thank
my quiet mind for resting sometimes I think
my lungs are stretching in your absence I worry
that I ask too much of you

to find a place to call home
where the bed nests flush in the corner
and the arms don’t loosen till you say so

to show all of your teeth and blow away
the bombs and dark purple air that cloud your sleep
and invite you to stay a minute longer

to live in boxes if that would make you closer
to knowing what it’s like to be a maypole
or a wild turkey or a king

to square your shoulders when you walk
and when you shudder
and when you listen

to find a place to call home
where you can leave without asking
if it’ll be there still at dusk