19 is a strange number
fumbling somewhere between
adolescence and adulthood;

it is neither quiet nor loud,
a paradoxical misstep down
the path to Shiol

19 is a forgotten year,
buried under college-ruled
paper and lectures

it is the scent of petrichor,
a yearning for something
once seen but abandoned

19 is a dull ache at your breast,
one that even a photograph
cannot remedy– it is melancholy

i. smile, they’re watching
–lips part, pink toes curl
against flat carpet;
what a performance

ii. wipe the disgrace
from your brow,
flick it behind your
shoulder; let it follow
on the ground as a
groveling shadow

iii. you see your reflection;
just another ship in a bottle,
with brown eyes and a temper
to match the sea

iv. lights beat against
bruised eyelids,
no sleep, no sleep,
you hush to yourself,
fingers pressed against
the neck of a bottle

v. this is a nod to sycophants
stuck with broken ships,
who, at some point, unfurled
their sails and found no gale

it is often in the face
of adversity that people
flourish, pushing past
cement and brick to bloom

or so you are told–
the lion you find is not
filled with honey,
and only sand scrapes your tongue

its ribs do not yield at your touch,
they do not fall apart
in ivory waves as you
crawl into its thoracic cavity

no, it is but a decaying relic of god;
a carcass left in the dirt
and you can’t help but wonder
how such a thing ever roared

you are no samson, but you
let your hair grow out anyway
and hope to coax strength
from the maw of the forgotten beast

you’re the sort of person
who cuts their fingers against
spiral notebooks

too soft, too shallow–
a reflection found by
Narcissus after an autumn shower

where even he could not
drown himself in your embrace

but you’ve only ever known hollow
things:
the quill of a plucked feather,
the darkness behind your eye-sockets,
the smile concealed by your teeth

it feasts upon you, this emptiness
like a chilopod’s unrhythmic gait against
your brain–
scooping up the patterned sulci
with its hungry pincers
until paradoxically, nothing, nihil
remains;

so how could you ever know
enough affection to
perform an intimacy like
death?

dreams and ideations are
weaved into gold laurels,
tight circles of serpentine as they fall,

carelessly flung against railroad
tracks and burnt bridges
to be smothered by black smoke

you’ve got a habit of leaving
people behind– don’t you?
you laugh into the rings of ash

there’s a melecholy taste to
running away; it sticks against
the roof of your mouth,

past sharp teeth and soft flesh
and buries itself in your unyielding
throat like a parasite

you’ve become a host to these
horrors, shuffling day by day,
wondering, horribly, if this is all life is:

to be Atlas, and to hold the Heavens
prostrate against your back,
burdened by gods you do not believe in