our minds’ shared
landscape
could be –

emotionally we
inhabit a hollow space and fill
it gradually with affection and

doubt.

i pull a cord of thought and it slides
against my tongue; i pull on the strings
making spider webs between his ribs.
our tethers grow but
the context dries and dulls.

our mouths are ******, so
we spill nervously
we cough red laughter.

nothing’s finite and reality is perfect,

but
the physically interactive
is tiny and
rigid
and cleansing itself of fantasy.
i imagine everything; he
accepts my ideas. ideas
that pile up at our
feet in spirals.
(there must be many realities where he
loves me with red-blooded
caution.)

each tiny choice, each delicate
gesture,
is a canal leading back to
here, transformed.
becoming more strange,
stimulating my dulled senses.

his chest heaves, we share
in an unraveling process.
the weight of significance is the
gravity keeping me
present
mentally.

between us, the
air is dusty. red coughs are dried
out and tortured.
my mouth is pulled
down naturally;
his rises. a change of heart,
the landscape blooms green and
my thoughts are happy snakes
in foliage.
my grin bleeds openly
as i laugh, out loud, with
him –
our universe is a soft space we
fill with
laughter.

the things we do - indirectly.
i’m drawn to this sort of thing,
torture. but,
i pull myself clear of it.

when she
shakes my hand, her body is elsewhere,
unbothered.
her vessel formed in ceramics and reinforced
tightly
every wish granted, “hey!” i’d say.
it isn’t fair! is it?

i understand these sorts of things
the way i tortured my thoughts into patterns
and my body is elsewhere,
unharmed, because
i pulled myself clear of it. such am i
“above it”: so
it turns out i’m envious
in effigy, “don’t worry,” i’d say.
it’s not real, because
i’m not real