Mum looked at me with heavy eyes

‘He used to think very very deeply, a bit like you’

The recognition is a curse. Her words stain my peripheral thoughts for days; Nonna’s pasta sauce down my whitest shirts.
And other things passed down.
She told me he was

‘Cleaning a gun, when it went off by accident.’

I was too young then,
But I know now
I know now
It rings in my ears like shrapnel
My sister says she’s glad that I’m not fooled by the idea that you’re

‘Not supposed to need anyone’

But I don’t know how to need anyone else, without hurting them too.
The knowledge that it gets better plagues me with the knowledge that it also gets worse.

Alfio, where did you find the courage?

From my bed
Now that it’s much larger, and facing the window.
It’s empty, no hair to breathe in, no legs to tangle, no blanket to wrestle.
I focus on that glowing orb, proud with solitude.
It gives me something to aspire too.

Close the door.
Put in your IV, dopamine drip
With sympathy blaring like a trumpet through your ears. Down the staircase.
wait by the road, Spare the commuters
the trauma. Creeping across the bicherman, walking dead. Reanimated by duty, or was it instinct. ‘I look good disheveled’ haircut screaming otherwise, clothes hanging off of you like a bad omen.
Shuffle into the car, driver already half infected, indifference swearing as an old drunk would. I care because I’m paid to. I’m very co-operative when I have no other Choice.

At the workplace, brutalist demeanours, menial brutality.  Welcome me back to reality with plastered smiles, they smell your ambivalence.
Shelter in the breaking room, delay the inevitable. punch into the machine ‘64’ ‘D7’ coffee and confectionery like rudimentary medicine.
Collapse at the desk, you skin loosens. Falls off. a slow 37.5 hour decay begins.

Cursed with freedom

My soles drag like burning cigarettes
Asphalt kissing rubber
And sent to heaven
Wiping my cheek, blessing my breath
Outside myself
Untethered

Kicking cans
Smelling blinkers
Taste the railing, looking over the go-between
Wishing
To float down
Untethered

Clutching for a warmth
a smirk
Cosplaying as a confident man
Airing out my forced laughs
into void
Untethered

Sinking higher
Balloon chasing the atmosphere
Escaping hands I held
Head ringing
Phone undead
Untethered

Five months Southside
Open world purgatory
Office building obituary
I’ll be on the other side of the globe soon
And still won’t elude My tether

Going fast like a red car
Kale barely and avocado
Going to the park just to kick the ***** around
**** it
I want to be Aphrodite and abstain from everyone
Throw yourselves at my pavement  
I want to be so full of myself that I feel like I’m gonna overflow
Confidence in my resentment
Happiness out of spite

Wings of desire

Exiting that dark box with the crowd -
Catharsis
I dap my friends up, trot off
In my comfy Salomons, up to the cultural centre.
Board the 345, rest my head against the glass.
See the lights of the highway and the reflection of the river dance in between the bridges railings.
Subterranean
Against the window, Watch the different peoples faces as the walk down the isle
She’s going to make someone smile
He’d be nice to have a beer with
She’s missing home I bet
He’s probably someone’s dad
They’re new to Brissy.
Hop off, power walk back to the house over wavey KG hills.
Pass Queenslanders with pink lit rooms
Warmly suspended units
Glowing windows in distant terraces
Glancing into every home, a fraction of a life at time
Feeling a part of it all
Cross the road
Inspect the curb side collection
Almost don’t notice the watering can -
Perfect, I can use this for my new plants
Come inside
Write this poem
Marnie in my headphones
Solitude
And surrounding suburbs.

2. Paris Texas

Driver don’t slow down now
Keep going
Don’t drop me to my house
I don’t want to   be   anymore
I wanna look out the passenger window forever
I wanna to be a gaze with no body
I wanna be incorporeal
Rid me of this vessel and the weapon it conceals
I don’t want to be the perceiver, just the spectator
Looking out at shimmering office blocks
Meshes of rushing leaves
Languid and fluid
Evaporate me into the Ether
Undo my flesh and with it, sin
I don’t want to   be   anymore
Make me into one of those angels , floating around listlessly
Clip my desires and give me wings
Drop me in the Texas dirt, and wipe my guilt away.

3. Perfect Days

Coming into that bright globe
Reality
I hug my sister goodbye , I’ll see her again tomorrow
But after…
The sun on my skin , from euphoric to swampy
The facade of happiness or stubborn sadness
Arbitrary either way
My legs carry me across the bridge,
I see so many people
I will be okay without them
I see a little beetle struggling on its back, my finger goes down to turn him over
I contain multitudes
I am not the best or the worst of what I’ve done
I am brown Brisbane water
Stretching out to blue pacific sea
Don’t chase that ghost of euphoric transformation
Change is constant and gradual, like rocks worn by water
Like rivers changing shape
Come into yourself
Returning agency
Over lapping Shadows of perfection
52 days.

What its like to see a smile
So warm
That It felt like the sun on a cold morning
Have you ever held someone so close
Skin contacting
As familiar as having your feet on the ground
And soft grass between your toes.
Even silence,
Is a breeze in the summer
Chatter is a bird song, Her voice makes me beam
When she looks at me I know
I’m home
I’m free
I’m yours
These thoughts bring bees and butterflies to my chest
Pollinating in cycles
I might stay here till sunset - If only to see her glow
And in the dying light
I’ll lay
Let the earth envelop my body
With a stronger gravity
Pulling me into your arms, Covering me
In a blanket of moss
With the insects consuming me
Returning to you
Home Forever.