Awakening
Cascading time
Crashing over the edge of oblivion

I swear
Two weeks ago
I was just turning eighteen

Last night
I was almost
Twenty five

This morning
Is edging close
To thirty years old

Awakening
Not to a new day
But to a decade long gone

for her.

<>

“you will laugh with surprise, as the anointing oil of relief
crowns your head, slicking down to caving cavities,
river running in crevices, that feed the buried places, replenishing the almost forgotten secret of letting go”^

                                                         ~

the mind caches certain skills, once learned, never to return,
but tucked away, just in case, maybe, in the nightstand junk drawer of: “don’t need it now but, ****, you never know”

kept around in the lost and hopefully, not to be searched for & found,
a skill set painfully gained, a muscle memory, flabby from no use
but quick taut tightly, snapping back when ****, here we go again

I loved you in ways theoretical impossible till you enabled the possible

lost you for no good reason, in an act history labels beyond belief,
refuses to record, lest by memorializing it became/becomes re-realized,
this intolerable, would be past the ****** eroding barrier reef

the difference between junk and treasures is in which drawer placed,
the steps to letting go once learned, cannot be forgot, the cost,
way way too high, kept around, in a damnable place beyond grief

not to close, handy, findable but easily, avoided, but strange, when
living in the epicenter of the virus, you do some cataloguing, ridiculous,
this touchy-feely escapade, nothing ****-it to be gained, all-too-brief

head shake, took a pandemic to make you go back, rustling among
the ancient, old hand-writ poems, another keepsake kept for reasons
known and unknown, to be **** sure you once owned it, survival skills

In the Pandemic Days of Almost,
somethings will die, some go forgotten,
but the almost-forgetting-skill will survive,
a necessity of the how-to’s:

how to grieve,
how to believe,
how to leave
but live on,
hoarding
all the **** necessaries
ready to be retrieved


<>
Tuesday Mars 24 Twenty Twenty noon

In the Epicenter, New York City

passion ripples through her veins
but shes constantly running from its pain
perhaps that's why April brings the rain

i'm tired of being boiled down
to my barest, simplest parts,
and compromised beyond my core.

my facets ignored as if repugnant
or strange--
as if all i can ever be is what portait
painted itself.

to yell into an unyielding void
and be met with a stiff and resounding silence.
to be so resounding unheard despite
sheer and shrieking volume.

to exist in a space where metaphor scarcely follows for fear that truth will dilute it.

what importance did it ever hold?

it was all a cry.

and no one heard.

I wish to hear your voice divine
and feel your blazing skin
and maybe steal a kiss or two
before I weep for sin.

the distance has my heart aloof
I know not what to do
so I'll wrap myself tight in this bed
and dream of missing you.

The taste of slow tequila, sharp and sour
That vinegar-acidic, honey-bitter
Brush of fingers, always marking our
Time together. Now, you say you fit her
Much better than a blanket, warm and lilac,
You call and say, “I think you have my blender
Still at your place.” I never said goodbye back
When you first left. Sometimes I just pretend her
Bed is empty. There’s nights I’ll cry, then bury
My head inside your pillow and your vinyl.
Don’t worry, I’m still laughing at When Harry
Met Sally and at kittens and that final
     Time I saw you dance to Beatles’ Getting Better
     While I was making breakfast in your sweater.

you speak like glasswork--
hot, measured, and fragile.
empty promises and murky
depths, opacity that chills
and stuns.

you speak of love
as if you know it,
but you've never let it greet you
at your door.
it knocks and you freeze,
pretend it's a stranger,
though you knew its name before it did.

you've stolen more
than you can ever repay,
and brevity in stillness still stings.

you will do well
without your opaque glass
and brittle words,
but I can't promise the same.