Were we guilt of trying to be something we were not?
Unpleasantness went unspoken:
death, ***, depression
Ideas which did not exist
in our buttercup yellow
stake in suburbia

Like a slate was held
over the tops of our heads
keeping knowledge out
keeping pain in
where it festered in our bones
and our minds became darkened
all the same

Dispassionate parents
whose fire rests unknown
bred a lost generation
I and my sisters,
our little brother
all burning up inside.
Contradicting notions
manifesting themselves over the years

Who will we become?
Where does the path
of a sterile, manicured
lawn lead?

It leads to each other
that is how we will find ourselves
in the flesh of our flesh.

I recall
the old feel of my skin.
My tiny hand, and fingers
“Five”
Dancing on tops of Dad’s loafers
released from the tyranny
of the meaning
of Who Am I?

I am
“Eleven”
under a sweatshirt
skin itchy in places
face, in the mirror
when I am alone
streaking with unmascaraed tears

I am
“Sixteen”
my hand pushing against
a boys chest
but for no or for yes?
I suppose it is fine,
no mind of mine.

I am
“Eighteen”
Womanly
singular
hiding what is unsure

I am
“Nineteen”
experiences mark me
darken me
writing with tattoos
on my fingers

I wore my clothes today
My clothes
That one greenish sweater
with all the holes

I might as well be
an atheist or a Clemson fan
crimes comparable
to wearing vans

In South Carolina
you follow the rules
unless it comes
to racism and *****

Don’t you dare look like you tried
It’s sports chic
and southern tide

You better have an excuse
for choosing to be you
“I had to wear this dress,
it’s laundry day”

If you ask me
why I’m dressed a certain way
I’ll probably just respond
“*******”

I don't feel like a child at all
I used to wish for a way out
into the sparkling world
of drinking coffee and wearing
the perfect black dress.

My young mind was fruitful
with worlds and scenes. I knew the smells,
I knew the colors, I knew the tastes.

That's gone now
I try sometimes to imagine
things like how it might've been
with you if I had stayed until morning

But all I can see are the oddest things
they bloom unwarranted in the trying
space behind my eyes

I see clocks with hands and feet
A mirror that does not reflect me
the craggy bottom of a sea

Perhaps I killed it
those parts of me
when I never found the things
I childishly believed,
optimism is not  for me.
Death of my imagination seems
just like a casualty.

My organs, heart and spleen
have the metal feel of machines
If I were to cut in half
and part my hand into flesh and tissue


Would I feel the beating?
Ticking, perhaps, mechanical clicks
I am just a cog in this machinery anyway

An institutional drone
following what I'm told
this ******* cycle
and I've turned cold,

an orbiting moon,
I want to detach,
I would, I should,
but the spinning,
out into nothing
the bleak idea of
no gravity
is that what keeps me here?

I remember the days of driving back from SAT prep. It was on the other side of the river, your side of the river. On those unholy sundays I was filled with a listless longing. I ambled at the gas station
or maybe that stoplight on Patterson Ave, seeing you for a second in the face of a stranger. At dark I rode with the windows down dedicating songs to the night, all in your name, the reverent word.  

You’re just like an angel, your skin makes me cry

I avoided crossing the bridge back to where you were not. Where ribs of artificial light fell over me
from the lonesome headlights. Those songs fading out around the impenetrable night. And I, slinking down, felt that quell of hope ebb away as the idea of your face became more like a dream.
You were untested, you were perfect. Your hair stuck up and you wore a grey zip jacket.
I marked every glance in the school hallway, my blood struck by those dark roving eyes. I mentioned your name with those first sips of ***** on my lips. I still taste you there. In that blooming period, springtime, when I felt a beckoning towards a becoming of sorts. I saw myself the way I’d be in the impression of your mind, a man’s idea of me. I think I knew our souls were similar,
maybe just by the way you walked or closed your eyes sometimes. I found you in everything, I filled you into the empty spaces.
I loved you then, as a stranger.

Underneath the seams
of weathered rock
we stir, waiting
for the unavoidable
break

The black beetle clusters
pour like coffee beans
through the cracked red earth

as rain crashes through the barrier
of its dark container,
portending change

The worms use rhythmic twirls
to gasp the air above the flooded dirt
The landscape, it was a wasteland
now, a storm flushes it with life