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.

I’d forgotten
Or discovered

Your eyes like faded denim
The smile you’d try to hide
The way you like to tease me
Can’t make you laugh although I try

Like laying in fields of lilac,
tour Tassie attached to my hip.
I rang you like religion
Just to tell you about the trip

there are hard days, they are long ones
I bare just to hear your voice
When my head is filled with static
You’re cutting out the noise

Laying in a dingy tent,
staring at the Milky Way
You told me how you felt for them
the honesty cast fears away

We went to two different festivals
one day after the next
It felt like we were both there
But watching different sets

To wake up to you in winter
Samson whines me back to sleep
The mattress is barren without you both
But The bed’s too warm too leave

You send your love in lettered form
Like medicine in mail
and though the sentiment is old
I found relevance today

Sometimes I fret that you don’t care
How foolish and ambivalent
Sometimes I need reminders of
why I loved you to begin with

Have you ever seen a smile
that made you turn away with glee
have you ever felt a face so close
eyes contacting
like a particle collision.
This will end in a heavy mess, and yet -
a portrait with such warmth.
radiating in a such a way star beams envy it's smirk.
and supernovae would **** for the smile.
when you look at me I know
I'm here
I'm real
I'm alive
These thoughts bring tiny Heat deaths to my chest
expanding forever
I might never exhale, if only to draw in the moment
and die with it inside me.
but, I won't
superfluous words merely orbit my skull
with a stronger gravity
pulling them further from you
tearing chucks of me elsewhere
until eventually your warm glow, is merely
a scintillation

I sit with intravenous headphones
             a dopamine drip          
my dress pants are torn at the inner knee
my hair smells of yeast
my face itches
my eyes wander

we screech to a halt
and it hisses like a feral cat
the platform then filled with bodies
that funnel in
              shuffling        
bright as the undead

one seat from me
              he's balding        
and in the absense of hair, scabs
polka dotted,
uneavendly.
He barks to a younger man about his dog
but the younger man just stares straight forward

In the disabled seating, sits
a woman
who is not pregnant
             or crippled        
             or elderly        
her toenails are a browny-yellow, and curled like the petals of an uprooted daffodil
her breath is audible, from the tenth row back
            even over the bald man        
            even over the chugging motor        

At the front
a boy sits with his older brother -
who points at pictures in a tattered laminate book
and grunts
           yes        
and makes sounds
          yes, thats right, bus        
and groans
         it's okay, you'll see mum soon      
in discomfort,
snot seeping from his nose, spit
falling to the floor

Again, we screech to a halt
the alley cat hisses
only one at this platform

Her hair is neck length
her slip is long, silky and sky-blue
          as are her eyes        
fingers fiddle at the purse
         pursed lipped, she smiles      
... at the bus driver

Her boots sound the isle
they watch like its a runway
finding her way
Next to the boy
with the greasy hair
and the torn pants
and the sauce stained uniform
and the wandering eyes
and the inability to start a conversation

          and she sits      
          and they sit

Dude,
please slap me
bruise
tongue and cheek
island week
you and her mightn't speak
I wonder if you wondered
if anything could ever feel this real forever
if anything could ever be this good again

Table top deity, piggy backing best friend
carpool in the morning, mourning in the evening
mispronounce words from every second reading
take us back to kindergarten
girly  hair
cut my crusts
imagination runs amok
yet reminiscing isn't always forgiving to you

Siblings parrying sincerity.
Brooklyn to Scranton to Bristol and back again
couches embrace
rewind it.
Front yard fabrication of a happy family
play pretends in the paper bark tree
squeeze my arm and ask me

are you okay con?

Passenger seat canary
Jeans in 40 degrees, out to the rock wall
downpour, Shaq soda, ephemeral lyrics and a deteriorating weekend
when I'm meant to see you i may sleep in

Laundry detergent
shoe gaze averted
to the scintillating ceiling
imposer supernovas
feelings frayed like a grad dress hem
two inches became an ocean apart
complacent as I am
I flagellate again

Play dumb act smart
school bus pant-less
cocktail of prank calls and parental figures
you'll push me mungo, to the brink
but it makes you grin
I hope it sticks

static voices through the speaker
our monitors are beacons
guiding us through schooldays to each and every weekend
hack smoke
crack jokes
art room artifice & insubordination
I'll retrogress

A few streets from laughing fits
pine wood guidance's
park land Midas's
hills consume hours
as insects do our blood
parents expect you home
but I'll stay at the lots

What you are feeling is not love
Love is not this envy coursing through your veins turning your skin green.
No,
Love is the skeletons that climbed out your closet, content with being seen
It’s A Still of the best moments  
Still alive when she’s dead
Still, in a hurricane of emotions, that reside in your head

Love is not her hair, her *******, soft lips or strawberry scent
Not the contour of her body;
It's porcelain touch
Nor the way her voice fades at the end of a sentence
Instead, it’s in the absence
In the things you can’t sense, but still feel
In The parts of her that are least physical but most real

Love is not the way fears became a blindfold
That hid you from the Truth
Torn from a blanket of jealousy
Covering you up,
Keeping you bitter

Rather,
Love is the tear-stains on your jacket shoulder
The warm embrace
The eye of the storm.
She kept that jacket
And Maybe
Just Maybe
She’s wrapped herself in it
And realized that:
Love is the only reason you didn’t want to leave her
And the exact reason
Why you did