“Shine their shoes, boy.” Of ancient Ulm,
Or was it Hanover, or Vietnam news?

Whatever lives in a coptering leaves breeze flail
Burns, maybe, wrinkles over evening-orange contrails.

From ‘75, with backpack, an American teen.
You lay in a blanket that’s jungle green.

Born of tension, your luggage weared
Containing the last, probably-more, hundred years.

Pressured under coupled oceans that wash
Pepper, in the coasts, of gunpowder shells.

Every bit, godless, and landless there tread
Which is historically typical of a golden head.

You wait, with a significant loss in sheen
While much younger shoes uncover you from the rain.

“My, what a piece of ancient Ulm! It sits
Only in mud! Yet, what of the rest?

Whatever hasn’t yet lost its old meaning
That shining truth which, before, kept it going!”

Glossy, in all youth, in all sorts of sweat,
Heeded a call to consult with a death.

This set-on, and scattered, and ducked into flight
Mind unconsidered so decades might march out of sight.

Lo, quiet perforce a deep trench, or its field
Moving, not across that diptych unperturbed

Every hole through the air punctuates, shreds
The almost-last scream of a now golden head.

You run, run, run, run. Count how many feet touch the mound.
You envision how best you could look underground-

“Now, see: pressed up against its own shoes,
This thing of gold, it’s deformed and bruised!

Wherever we bore— past some trees, down a road;
Far from Ulm— we made a hole which, in it, erodes.”

Grisly, but plaqued, and so, covered up
The very remnants that resulted its death

From long ago, “This- It’s ancient!” some people say
Shipped back with laurel shawl now as its display

“Perhaps you are ageless wrapped in the old war.
Yes, tatters coming back are worth all the more.

Maybe, yes it was sent through so much wreck.
Before, far back it was born of some thread.”

“Shine its throne, man.” Of ancient blood.
That, on his deathbed is a golden head.

He showed up in the hills at our house made out of glass
He showed up in a daze worn of the past years we let pass
He walked inside knowing everywhere to step
He made only the sound of the depths
The depths
The depths

There
An absenting stare
Over fog lights in the hills
I drove to
Exhausting my last cares

I knocked
My hand felt heavy like a rock
I stood still
With the house
And darkness falling onto my head

Two figures
One took my rock
Looking past my eyes
The other in straight jacket
Poured her gateway dyes

Silence
And I’m heaving, sick
With a racing relapse
On the halls
Plast back my past

We let no apprehension known, there watching as he fell
We met the days as fastly passing even as he dwell
We doubt in him an ability to count his own missteps
We let a ghost of ours go sink into the depths
The depths
The depths

Unfurled,
Cracked, and catatonic
I sat then lay
Into a new black sofa
Detached from reality

Memory
Everything, once, I held
It was all at some point burnt
In a way to not entirely destroy,
But to experiment with life

With hope,
Betterment I thought
By way of replacing
All my body with stone
Disquality laid to ash, and such

Forever,
With stillness, a layer of dust
I could not see
Though I heard no protest
Of two I’d come here to expect

He bould into the black, the depths, and from him rose a fire
We did not put it out, but simply removed all of our glass so
He would wake again, not to face, nor to regret, but
We who drive away into the depths
The depths
The depths

You, I imagine you, walking silently
Beside me, briefly, and so I ask you-

Wait
It’s 4:29, low sun, deep Spring
I’ve got this wire wrapped between
Eating scraps, absorbing the means
To which I maximize a gluttonous,
A dispassionate, down-to-the-bone
White shadow hugging my anonymous face

I would think to take you, shaking
With my arm that has you held into my rib curve
To calm you, or myself climbing this cloudy hill
I’d remind you it doesn’t matter that I’m falling
That you are also not in time to catch me
Though still am I screaming-

Again, wait
We’re on earth, apart, you’re asleep
I can’t just recite the words to my screen
I can’t just jump out of life by myself
Here, under a cloudy new day, and a dream
In which we allow our gray shadows to meet

I would dare to hold you, press you
Over emotions that don’t come so natural
By God: who let you down here in half form
But, I’d say that, and laugh, you would know it’s okay
That it’s human to be born as an imperfect creator
Of love- of love feelings, connections and wires

I think I can wait
It’s night, again, day or
Passing the foothill for the nth-ever moment
I’d remember it by the hue of the shadow
That wraps, and I drift off and wrap you myself
You, I imagine you walking, answering
Beside me, this time I’m quick to ask you
“Is this our love that moves where the clouds go?”

i. ever same

I was feeling ornately gay as
That night I am “Here, I’ll stay.”
As numb and wordless I massaged
Hoping, God, to only meet your eyes
Still, you hugged, and I said “Same.”

I said to my brain
And I said to that man
Whom I wished to be Him
But, I said it. Remiss, now
My heart won’t be known

In still I stood as you were rapping
The words I did not think would stop me
And arms, came two, and too, my shame
I’ve not been there- in here in love
I need to rest, but you said “Same.”

same same same
Do you understand?
That I want so much
But, you want “Same.”

Oh, me- My ecstatical, upon your bed
Wrapped, I admit in perverse growth
I could taste in the air a thing like an epiphany
Of how fast we could move,
And how slow you would say

To me “Same…”
Achingly, seeing myself agree
To your terms, that I absorb to be mine
Tieing, same, down till I’m “Perfectly fine.”

Right? I’m the human for you
I’m the empathetical un-real for you
Amusing, but so unmoving towards you
Mad, but somehow the same in my mood

We can walk, and we never can touch
At connection through the Garden
Copse, through our nature all stirred up
Ever same into disorder I need to call our love

all the same, i suppose, when you turn it away
when you turn back around, engulfing my eyes from

ii. screens

relapse to your haunt for me now
and tell me why im feeling this crash
and why am i telling you now?
ill never know to why you im attached

i am the one with all of the minds
and im ******* insane ******* bipolar, lay i
feeling so hard to connect, to speak, to be,
like now, as i fume youve nothing to say

cried, ******* ******* text
no emotion, no support
what if i snap, like i feel us needing sin?
everything is ******* text on a screen

no humans, none breathe in sight
is it not the funniest enabler
tonight as with same after same
i fail to articulate the absolute failing of my brain?

******* amazing. isnt it horrible?
like where did this toxicity emerge from, so suddenly?
i swear im not taking it out on who
my friend, after all, you’re used to some break-up

or two psychotics suffused to one life
both so worthless. dont even speak back
how could this be directed at you?
impossibly, do i mean what i say?

im such a nice person, they all agree!
such endlessly nice ******* text on a screen
nice little stupid little sham with my username
representing nothing that i am cause i am nothing

but just only nobody
who sits in a chair and cares
about every lovely word
fixed to my ****** despair

it not enough to stand up
never enough to accept hel-
******* spell checking
adding charade thats become my whole life

it’s* the artifice of appearing nice
in text, forever, without moving from
a single room when twenty springs
insist that maybe im slightly ******

the artifice of growing up
and taking responsibility
in a world that doesn’t even care
about any dumb ******* poetry ever

or any sort of love i put out there
as i am broken *******
crying out to nothing
just let ٭٭٭٭ tire out and

we can all go back to proverbial nutting
as of course you like your ****, friend
you head-case, edge about breaking
though can’t muster *** if its rubbing your emotions

******* *******, edgy teen just
going through a phase meant
as momentary sadness
despite as years pass, same

it all continues still, in prime
so not a phase, i need help now!
cant gather energy to be truly mad
cant ******* punch a hole in text on a screen

i wouldnt even if we were real
drained apathy having a tripping
psychotic ******* breakdown
and this is all the energy i bring?!

please see me as pathetic
and we will never speak of this again
will we? we couldnt do that!
we cannot dare to message ٭٭٭٭ once in a week!

why am i surrounded by this meaningless text?
******* stupid poetic crap, ****!
i cant even escape it when im trying to rant
lifes supposed to be serious and im arranging slants

worthless
oh, but do not ever worry
٭٭٭٭ will stop soon
as always, so considerate

human hates this
and i like human dont i?
so what are we doing?
he should be my intimental

we can split like this
have a hit into
the artificial intercoursal
crying meltdown pixels

i can be cool
and i can scare him some more
every day upon the next future
date of empty words

iii. saying

Me, with my layers of systems. Systems of posture and memorized scripture. That, that amounts to a Bible on people. And, I was scanning you with evangelical yearning.

Passive aggression, I usually call it. Not to believe that you’d pick up on that. Or, God forbid you are entirely aware, but never meet my eyes in their hundred-desperate stares.

Nevermind. It’s me who won’t ask. Though it’s you which will simply not connect, or show care. To emotions, they come from a longing, I think, from the back- way, way back of my forested head.

You’re the reason (always, I am as well) that I describe feeling as constantly encompassed by dread. And loving, and all this wordy sort of poetics I’m leaking, and has actually consumed what I see on our paths end.

That path, what abreadth was I seeing complete? Perhaps the cusp of us as one? Perhaps the youth screens stole from us? I hoped a realness dusted our coats which would sit unused in eternal Spring.

Instead it’s me with my layers of clothing. It’s you with your insomnial silence, and turning away which sees me do the same. Saying so, so close to nothing with two thousand words which bridge near on lying.

Of, certainly, neglecting the actual, non-tragedy, underwhelming truth of us. Are we (am I) yet capable the post-developmental act of accepting some love?

And what even is love? Do I mistake it with thought? Do I return it to that childish, and inexorable cradle of systems I sought?

That inexperienced sort of biting my tongue. Like juvenile, short of saying a lot.

Only after nothing’s said, I say one last thing. Yes, I say it so much, too. An apology leaves, and dies along the path. It remains my laying bargain, everlasting through my quiet breath.

iv. ever sorry

Would you start a conversation
Built onwards? At basics, my hatred
A said, or so-what ignored
Aspect of passion I’ve blocked
With the falling apart of my every bone?

Of course, contorts my avoiding
Playing with words of emotional
Marriage; performing and demure
Because all that you’re unlikely to tread
To the past and dig up such pain I extole

So shall I blame your thinning skin?
Your ***-grown hair, and fearful brain?
One which hides, yet somehow gives
Support to me, that sort of man
In madness, I come, take, and abort

You, who I want to start talking
I’ve seen it that’s why I grabbed you out
A lean on which we could actually see down
We, which so faithfully still get along
So it brings me to tears as I escape into doubt

As my same, ever same screen is shattered
As I stand, but always sit when I greet you
As, behind a cursory limit, I think it all matters
That you and I ever thought fate saw to greet us
Or, only I thought I’d ever live with that promise

Streamed upon the open tracks
There was a being of short form
Gas, like, amalgamous
There was it still being one

It’s teeming about, in carriage, in seat
There, was its permeate; a thing of few need
Suggested in subtle, like-preenster supine
There, being now presently undone from time

Every eye meeting back and glancing fore
To this creatures past in another train car
Attempting, and so far failing to judge
The smoke and the rain of its body language

Exits, its— and so much more entering—
Shiftily greeting the sights it’s still mesmerizing
Locking our looks, but it floats there, and free
And, later down rail then, it stands in marquee

Existing, it is imminent in illusing that
It is mistily fixing whatever paradox pours out
There will be naught to worry which clouds are sat or stay
When they’re out in locomotion, out into our everyday

It’s relatively, extremely cold
In a manner like I’ve just been born

Your heart is quiet underground
When before it was frowning, perfectly sound
Maybe not perfect, but talking and-

Please, there is nowhere left for me to love
Supposed before like Spring turned from

It’s these months
Cold and envied
Of the last inbudding
Long ago seeds were doing

Those life-full alonging
Vibrant as you’re buried around them

As colored as, silently beating,
The pestilent grey of your heart

“God!” Fading apostoles of time
Sneaking such blood through your gut
Has me afraid to look down at the truth

You leave. Me, who has eighty more Springs
Me, who has failed to connect with your being

We’ve these hangups
Real or in mind
And, you’re crushed
And, I’m over here, hardly a child

So I’ll act-like, staging around
The loneliest art form, vague and deformed

Each a petal off my stagnating stem
Forever feels the same when I speak in mhm’s

Attested, and stress paced
The coffin needs cracking
Its structure will not meet
The breath of a human

As long, with the Spring dirt compression can last
Us, both keep our splintering souls to ourselves

Opposite the water
Meets the current
In his study

Motionless, Fabé
And his study
Into trapped
The brain above,

He shades the
Sieving tea the
Leaves seep and
Blowing and woven

Winds like
Throwing over
The new breeze
What, as always

Sways to be
So, and light
In-poured will
Touch sore Fabé

Or, the beam
Uponto leans
Wooden, atease
Supports still

Fabé who studies
Opposite the heavens
Writes of stars
Sat all above him