i would have married you at fifteen.
my love was as sincere, as it probably
ever will be.

you,
you were ashamed of me.
but you liked the company.
so you held my hand when
no one could see.

i would have killed myself at seventeen,
to prove the weight of my want,
but that would have been a bit blunt.

you,
you thought it was some sort of stunt.
but it made you feel important,
running from a creature on the hunt.

i would of rather had anyone else at eighteen.
find salvation between another girl's thighs,
to uncover all the whys.

you,
you held marriage high,
wanted me to to spend my life side-by-your-side.
instead, you spent six months having a good cry.

hot rain,
like chipped edges
of stained glass,
sink into shoulder.

the bluebird croons
a monotone dirge,
and
I snicker at the wind's applause.

god arrives late,
but I give him credit for
showing up.

god arrives late.
I, in the process of
shutting the gate.

god arrives late.
I **** in my gut,
bury my hate.

hot rain,
like my mother's tears,
sink into my skull.

the bluebird clears his throat,
and
I imagine strangling the showboat.

god arrives late,
but it takes courage to come at all.

god arrives late,
but hands me a check to keep quiet.

god arrives late,
asks me what I've been up to,
and I take the bait.

remember when we used to joke about
bombing the bombing memorial?

that was morbid.

the movements
      well-rehearsed,
                the dialogue
                                      forced,
the breath heavier than necessary,
but the sheets were still sweaty, your fingernails still digging,
                       the movements
                   felt alright,
       exhale love,
inhale war.
our eyes sewn shut, as we'd vision trip for some foreign bed,
we'd bite our lips at each new venue, deeper, faster, finishing,
crash at each others' side, look at each other for the first time
                                                            ­                                             since we began
                                                                                                                            the night.

Irreversible -- the decision --
yet there Harvey goes on halcyon stroll,
thinking there's a hue that's 1 part Anna's blue blood
and
1 part his simmering red that would be appeasing to
third-party perspective.

Their blood has mixed before;
instead of rich violet, the colors
oiled and watered -- staggered --
too proud to blend, and
yet there Harvey goes into the park,
listening to the children laugh
and he thinks how a violet child
would suit him and Anna well.

Worse -- the hope -- than any wear
either person has suffered,
hope has a funny way of keeping
one suspended in the air,
and a funnier way of
chaining two together that hope
in the same vain.

died on mother's day.

we are here.
barricaded in a smokey room.
lying in sheets seven days *****.
we are here.
cut from falling in line with laugh tracks,
no more oooohs and ahhhs at digitized images.
we are here.
we've stopped pretending to like the symphonic pieces.
you'll listen to your ****** femme rock,
and I'll listen to Dan Bejar fake his english accent.
we are here.
the journey doesn't make sense.
but we found our place, and I've got one request.
we are here.
so, please don't take me for who I am.
who I am is ****.
force me into the colors,
make me drink the fevers,
cast me in all your favorite plays,
read me Hank's poetry,
make me a new holy.
we are here.
no need to waste the opportunity.

I put two handles of whiskey on the counter,
and the cashier asked if I was having a party.
I told her I was preparing for a weekend by myself.
She didn't know what to say.
I told her life should mean more than this, paid and walked away.

The worry bled from her
fingertips into my bald head.
I saw her eyes go grey,
a welcome sight in
the recent overwhelming night.
I pulled on her hair,
I clung to her thighs,
I felt washed clean
by the secret she buried
in her beating breast.
I forked my tongue,
slithered into her mouth,
and tasted the new blackness
between us.
I lost myself as she
fought to contain breath,
I lost myself as she
freely displayed what little is left,
I lost myself in the misery
she transfered to me.
I do not fear the abyss
she and I sunk into--
the last territory of love,
the rebirth of meaning
on the deathbed of unearned optimism--
whether horned,
helpless,
or had--
she and I have only
begun to explore
the sanctuary of the mad.

and saying,
"You signed up for this."
I only speak to myself.
Like most artists,
I barnacle stories out of friends,
without any return discourse,
until they are deflated.
I discard them and search for
the next inspiration.

I go for walks with a dim moon
and shy stars for company.
I see faces through apartment windows,
lit by infomercial-spouting television sets.
I pass neighborhood after neighborhood
bearing rustic names, Pine-this-or-that,
Cedar Bend, or some similar ****;
yet the natural world hasn't been tangible for sometime.

Joy is a mirage that passes with the night and the liquor.
Sunshine turns it to vapor,
as readers crash cars into fellow readers to
better understand empathy.

My collection of the arts does nothing aside from gather dust-
a conversation piece, an aesthetic to allude to-
but nothing of worth or personal weight.

We write to change the world,
to melt swords; to further the slaughter,
but the blood in my mouth has left a bitter taste.
There are always too many mirrors,
and I'm sick of my own face.
If all is vanity,
how is it all capable of breaking me?

what to do?
no god to listen to me,
just one who ***** on me.

what to say?
no lover who will stay true to me,
just brief windows of making misery.

where to go?
my brimstone parents' pattern,
is all i've ever known.

how long?
will Kyri keep my line of poetry
painted in red by her bedside window.

when will the realization hit?
the young girls chasing me,
see they are better off without me.

when will
the ones i want
succumb to the web of me.

what to do?
to pull the splinters from the pew,
to get god another Job.

how long will it last?
the states and kingdom ain't united,
all the old folks are begging for a tyrant.

will we ever find comfort?
being alone together,
staring at the maddening sky.

It eats at me, this singular question. It repeats in my head, over and over—how can I desire what I already possess? I look at the books on my shelf and the coffee table, and I want to love them completely. I want to never buy another book. I look at the TV, a moderately sized HD set already obsolete, but what a fantastic machine it is, and though I've owned it for years, can I desire it? Or do I want something larger, something 4K? I'm trying to desire the objects I own, so when the day comes, when my singularity comes to an end, and I'm waiting for Her to come home, I will be lovesick, anxious, feverish, pure in my desire.

I've been in relationships and fantasized about one-off affairs. I've had one-off affairs and fantasized about something whole, something reliable.

This TV is watchable and this book is readable.

I think a woman is inherently better at desiring what's in her possession. She gives life, she creates, she's given to infrastructure, and future-building. A man destroys. A man conquers. A man stands in the corner of a room with a drink in his hand and recounts his destructions and conquests. You're a woman. Can you tell me how it's done?

Still hexed, unemployed, another daylong bout
between too much silence and too much noise,
a sweetness opens the hymnal: sing, rejoice.

And I'm an American male child, born in 1990.
Summon me a moment, Effexor one-fifty,
instant nostalgia, a natural reaction.

Polly Anna, hailing from Tulsa, has a key.
She's in my robe, dancing on the balcony.
And we're not drinking
as much as we used to be, yet talking
baby names by three.

And I can feel it, a future good memory
unfolding in real time. Her dark shape,
growing darker, shadows from bedroom
to bathroom and back again.

Oh, the profane things we whisper
to get ourselves out of character,
unguarded, empty-headed, free.

The notes of trained movement,
of calibrated ****** phrase, harmonize.
The walls, the lamp, the bedside table,
the mattress, the blankets—the room entire
converges.

My name takes on two more syllables.
Her name becomes soundless.
Hold time. Bend, baby. Boundless.

i won't ever see past my past tense.

i won't ever belong until they carve my name in stone.

someone give me your best.
i'm tired of being all that's left.

A breakdown? I don't know if I'd call it that. Something about that word connotes immediacy, precision, a kind of instantaneous loss of your mental faculties. No. This has been slow. Like two, three years slow. I'd welcome a breakdown. A breakdown would give me the chance to start over, to mend, to be a better ******* human being. This degradation, and, I know, I'm being repetitive here, this degradation is so slow it's almost intangible. It's so slow there's ample room for denial. I need one swift, irrefutable act of self-destruction. Don't do that. That little gesture, that go-on-just-bottom-out hand flip. You're not listening. I don't have the energy for that. I'm not reckless. Wanting and being are, in this case, mutually exclusive. You know where I am? Let me illustrate it for you. I say I love you to empty rooms. I say sweetheart, sweetie, et cetera for no other reason than habit being so strong.  I'm not beat up about her leaving. It happens. Sometimes two people just don't work, you know? But maybe I'm beat up. I haven't slept in the bed. I sleep on the couch like she used to. I buy her favorite wine—which I don't particularly enjoy—but I drink it. I drink it, I think, just to watch the bottle go empty. I drink the wine and I sleep on the couch hoping it summons the breakdown, some ******* finality. That's true. I've been many different people, but I've been the same one for far too long.

The rains came. The road called.
And the cities we coursed through on the way to Ulysses,
to Broken Bow, didn't they always seem to be waiting on a change, longing for us, as if time moved only at the sway of our arms?

The rains came. The road called.
And there was a sanctuary of our own, a quiet place to lay our heads and listen, always listen, to nature's nightsong. How many mornings did we awake to find a new sweet creature in need of a home?  

The rains came. The road called.
And we stopped counting the number of wheat fields we had walked, the caves we had explored, the antique stores we had perused, the cups of coffee we had poured.

The rains came. The road called.
And there were hospital visits, both of joy and joy's opposite.
Time did what time does best, shaping and reshaping the people
we love—and that's what we know best, isn't it? Love.

The rains can come and the roads can call,
and we delight in what we know of love.
Look, love is not a flower with a single season.
Love conjures prehistoric time.
We love not as two,
but as all the men and women who have gone before.
Fathers rest in our bones like mountain ruins.
Mothers carry our blood like river beds.
And the moments that brought us here,
could we even discern the major from the minor?
Why would we diffuse love of its wild alchemy?
Love rivers through us, guided by every path and climate a fate improbable, beautiful, holy, endless, intrepid, guarding, forgiving.

i won't hurt you
unless
it's in self-defense.

You just sit there, right there, and watch.
I'll collect the debris, out of sight, out of
Mind your manners when I give you a piece of my
Mind scattered, adrift, wanting. You just want somebody to
Love yourself, above all things love
Yourself, get yourself a self-help book. You can't help
Yourself, in miss-matched socks, keeping regular office
Hours go by and the data won't enter itself. Nobody's
Perfect the ritual, the treadmill at lunch, the dry shampoo
Tears in the breakroom sink and loose lips sink
Ships anywhere in two business days, a total modern
Marvel at how a network television show can still make you
Cry freedom and throw half a brick through the
Window to your soul; in this moment, a penny for your
Thoughts shattered, amiss, stunting. You just need somebody to
Love me, above all things love me.

You clawed your way past death
and clipped your fingernails in
that living room of overwhelming beige.
There were two couches that intersected
perpendicularly at the arms,
one for you, one for me.
With the sunlight scattering
through the blinds, we talked
less to each other and more to
the television. In an effort
to get enough sleep before work,
we'd retire to the bedroom.
Our legs would intertwine. Licorice vines.
I'd pleasure myself. You'd pleasure
yourself. I'd sneak your collar bone
a kiss and bury my sweating forehead
in the crook of your neck. Am I soft
enough for you? you'd say.
Time moved in such a labored way,
as each stained the other in an attempt
to stake a claim.
Stay awhile, I'd respond.
If you don't mind, stay awake a little longer.

Still hexed, unemployed, another daylong bout between too much silence and too much noise, I turn on the TV and watch our show. Season 4, Episode 13, "Whitecaps."

And it's the scene after the Russian mistress has called, and Carmella—played to long suffering perfection by Edie Falco—kicks Tony out of the house. The scene sticks with me, the way Carmella's body shakes, the deep grooves of her wrinkled face when she says she can't stand to be embarrassed anymore. And I'm caught off guard by two things, one simple, the other not so much. I think about how you must of related to Edie Falco out of the gate, on a surface level. You both share a prominent nose, one you were always self conscious about, but a nose you found beautiful on her face. I always wanted to ask you about it, but I never found a gentle enough phrasing. And the other thing, the complex thing, is how the whole scene runs parallel to our second break up, the bad one, the early morning fight. I remember you striking my chest over and over. I remember grabbing your wrists, trying to restrain you, and you wriggled out of my grasp only to strike your head on a cabinet. I tried to comfort you, and you wouldn't let me drive you home.

You walked. I couldn't find you. By the time I got dressed, you'd found some path unknown to me.

Gentle enough phrasing. That's why it ended one, two, three times, isn't it? My inability to be straight with you, to say how I truly felt without massaging the words to safeguard against any conflict.

I wish I could watch the show with you again. I wish it was 9:00 p.m. I wish we both had work in the morning. I wish we'd watch one episode too many with the dogs snuggling in our laps. I wish we could listen to them paw at the bedroom door as we undressed.

But we've jettisoned ourselves, haven't we? It's irreparable. I think of something you said about depression. You told me that when it was bad, really bad, you could never feel clean. I don't feel clean, no matter how much I wash. I don't feel clean, no matter the quality of deed, the grace of the statement, the preciousness of a future good memory unfolding in real time.

Julia, at her desk and on her telephone,
trapped in amber, an eye-open slumber.
The president shuffles past, talking quietly
with solemn men in muted storm cloud suits
and sunshined shoes. The board room fills
with tombstone grins, the bottom line
growing heavy, coming undone.
Julia, at her desk and staring at an
emerald fingernail reflection.
She's older now, the light dim.
She dreams of boulders,
of butchers, of bushy-haired
children running amuck
as the bottom line
bottoms out.
What do kids watch on Saturday mornings?
The president asks behind a closed door.
Kids today, someone says.
It wasn't this way when I was a kid, someone says.
I remember watching tv on Saturday mornings, someone says.
Julia, at her desk and covered in gasoline,
suspended in violent ideation as a motivational
quote hangs itself above her head.
About, aboard, above, we use to say in school,
the president says behind a closed door.

When they started inching their way forward,
that row of men in deep blue, riot shields ready,
batons ready, I couldn't help but love them.
I was never narcissistic, at least not enough
to think I'd see the end of the world. But there
I was, corner of Bedlam and Squalor. Corinthian
columns eroded. Bars on the windows, but
I can assure you they didn't barricade the door.
The chant that carried us downtown, grew
heavy, dragged to a dirge. My heartbeat was my
brother's next to me. My song was my sister's
next to me. And the riot shields approached,
and I could appreciate how well they held a line.
There's a swell of panic from behind. One, two,
three children screamed. The rubber bullet, what
a marvelous concept. Tear gas, effective.
And the blurry men with blurry shields and blurry
batons broke from their line and rushed.
Love can be heavy.
I dominate.
I submit.
A baton crushed against my jaw and I found myself
on my back, looking up.
The chant was a dirge was a scream was a ringing
in my ears.
And I found myself on my back, looking up.
A news helicopter steadied in the sky.
The old men watching my blood run live were
my fathers.
The old women watching my blood run live were
glad not to be my mothers.
I know we disagree, I said, as they kicked my ribs.
I think we should disagree.

The morning, good; the morning, relentless—she tip-toes
out the front door in her ex-husband's brown patent leather shoes.
Outside. Walking again. On her own two feet but not in her own
two shoes. It's a Monday. It's an autumn. It's a neighborhood
with tricycles strewn in front lawns, with spent confetti in the
gutters, with Japanese trees, with Greek columns, with the reliable
sound of the working class commute in the distance. The shoes, four sizes too big, nearly slip as she half saunters, half staggers on
her way to the bakery on Bellevue. She's hungry for predetermined conversation, an exchange between a patron and a cashier. There's a young boy playing with a water hose. He waves enthusiastically. She matches it with a wave of her own as she passes by. The boy turns away, runs toward his home. She feels self-conscious and there's something in the pocket of her ex-husbands linen suit jacket, a bottle of cologne.

The door chimes as she walks into the bakery. The cashier says good morning before looking at her. The cashier's eyes quickly scan her and dart away. She's a child in her ex-husbands clothes. She orders a coffee. She asks for a Splenda packet. "I like my coffee like I like my women," she says. "Hot and artificially sweet." Pity laugh. Nervous laugh, maybe. It's not even her joke. He tells her the price. She hands him the money. Thank you. No, thank you.

She sits alone by a window. She's an alien doing normal people things. She's tired and whatever spark got her out the door may not get her home. A man seated at the table behind her sneezes once, twice, three times.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I think I'm allergic to your perfume."

"Me too," she says.

And if you won't go down,
can I at least get you in my down line?
Let me appoint. Fast food crown.
The children are sleeping. Uncork the wine.
Slide a ******* under the gouda.
Glasgow smile and Instagram this opportunity.
I could recite the medication, but I shouldn't.
You want to watch something? Ever seen Community?
There's an art to being 30 and single.
There's cream for every wrinkle.
There's a sin in need of a kindle.
There's, for everything, a fee--it's simple.

On our way home
rain along passenger windowpane
after party still stirring me, blurring me
our flesh melds leather
rolling stop gasoline haze
and your finger is in my mouth
adore you a dumb animal for you
over the railroad tracks
and you're vibrating,
I'm transforming, the steering
wheel spinning need you
supine and suggestive smoking
my vices,
the only things I'd give my
vices up are my vices
the sun can wait
the sun can obscure
dwell indulge imprison
please

It's a cool Monday, October, and I want to send you a *****
little text for old times' sake;
summon you with a spring of the finger,
an autumn of the tongue.
Shake me, will you? Center me back. Flay me on the table.
The life domestic's got me blue again.
Where there's a will, there's a hotel room;
where there's a hex, there's an incantation.
Spill, fantasy. Melt the collar. Drift the tide.
This fix is temporary; this fix is inadequate;
this fix isn't much as far as fixes go.
Cuff me anyways. We'll figure the
rest in the morning.

Champagne slacks, barn brown plaid patterned down
a watch that tells the time, the temperature (sunny and 75), and the number of suitors on read. The blouse is smart, the woman is mousey.
She tells and re-tells her employees the secret to success is listening. Between emails to accounts payable, she stares into middle distance, she pretends to stare into middle distance, she pretends to flashback, she flashes back for her team, her team watches her through the glass windows of her office, they're always watching. The floor plan is open. We should all be more open, she often says during interdepartmental collaboration meetings. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights she opens herself like a letter, while the blue glow from her phone lights her face, a concession, a weakness, but is it a weakness if it's scheduled? If it's ritual? And love is a powerful thing (if it's withheld). And empathy will take you far (if it's weaponized). And life is beautiful (from the corner office).

Shirtless and floating in the hotel pool,
staring at the hotel ceiling.
I'm waiting.

A permanent pace and temperature hold here.
The desk clerk tip-toes into the room on occasion,
up to the ladder, and whispers, as if she might wake me,
"Are you sure you still don't need anything?"

It's 11 p.m. The pool closed at 10.

I raise a hand and she tip-toes back to the desk.

I'm waiting. I'm floating on my back. The ceiling
is ornate, beautiful. Flourishes interlock and repeat.

I haven't said a word in three days. The first day
was unintentional and only realized as I crawled into
bed. The second day came easy, felt meditative. Now
my silence is another obligation.

I used to feel sorry for myself. On a different occasion,
I lived with such reckless intensity.

Now, I'm trying to raise my credit score.

I want to trace the ceiling. I'm shirtless, floating, waiting.
I'm on my back.

I imagine this is what god must feel like,
this removed, this gone, a spectator, impotent
and waiting.

I bring my shoulder blades in and sink. I'm underwater.
I'm underwater and the ceiling distorts. I'm underwater
and the desk clerk is nowhere to be found. I'm underwater,
shirtless, staring, waiting.

My baby's got the weight of the world
carved into her brow and you can see
it for yourself; she cuts her own bangs.

She loves me tall, she loves me thin, she
loves me in what she calls an "Ethiopian way";
you can see it for yourself in the dark corners of
the internet.

She holds the Guinness-certified record for the
highest use of the hashtag "#vegan." I believe
her when she says cheese is the unitary measure
of loneliness. I'm sure you do too.

She used to substitute teach for Cameron Christian.
She'd take selfies with autistic children and some
called her profane and some called her dangerous
but I thought her posts about the effects of vaccinations
made her seem so in touch with the world, so pure in spirit.

And on those slow nights when we're in bed
with the incense hanging above us, between
her considerations of transitioning into a man
and her considerations of starting an alpaca rescue,
I think about how winning the lottery would be
a disappointment.

You pose him, your child, with the dog, the puppy,
the one your wife insisted you buy for him, your child,
your only son. You stand back. Your wife counts down
from three. Your child smiles in such an unnatural way
like he learned to do it from an instructional manual.
Something about this unnerves you. The posing. The
stilted smile. You made this child, your only son, and
he's five feet removed from you and his face is unnatural,
a caricature of joy. The puppy barks once. It echoes in the small
living room, and you can't help but think of this photo
as a marker, another tangible step closer to your own death.
Wait.
You reframe. You say this is a moment. This is something to
cherish. This is something to look back on. Your wife says
good boy and scratches the puppy behind the ears.
She kisses your child, your only son, on the forehead.
But, of course, one day this dog will die. With any luck, you, your wife, and your only son will live to see this day and this moment
will reemerge and your wife will say he was a good boy and your
son will say he was so small and you'll feel this same dread -- the posing, the stilted smile -- you'll feel it all fresh. How many tiny tragedies can a man anticipate? How many tiny tragedies
can a man endure?

I've been watching the ants.
It's August and I sleep in the afternoons.
I'm single. I haven't showered in two days.
The smoke from the incense drifts.
I **** it down like a good myth.
And the ants are there, on my desk,
scurrying back to their homes
with a few bread crumbs in tow.
I talk to myself after lunch.
"Let me show you to your bed."
And I bury my head in the comforter
and the ants are feasting
and outside there's a pandemic
going on
and I read about a man with
a one-point-five million-dollar hospital bill
and I heard they've been sending
direct deposits to the dead
and something crawls along my leg
and how did nag champa become
the default incense
and I'm single and my heart is
curdled and my mom calls
to ask if I've found anyone to make it whole
but I tell her I better grab a
few winks--it is the late afternoon--
but before I go, how about an update?
My dad fought cancer last
winter and we didn't really
talk about it
and I kept thinking of the
word leisure
and everything got empty
and a little bit terrible
and a leisure suit is nothing, nothing
to be proud of,
and they gave my dad a numbered
chip and they let him ring a bell
and he said a few words
and I wanted to be there,
really there, you know?
But I knew it'd just be
a moment until the sun
got stranded on its way
to set, and I'd see my shadow
and burrow into this bed
with a nag champa halo
and a few mumbled words
to commemorate day 153 of quarantine.

Karin, in my t-shirt, standing
eternal in the doorframe,
saddle-stitching the smell
of juniper with the gentle
caress of her damp hair,
plucked white, shaved clean
and there's music, it's a Saturday,
there's a wind careening through
the pines, a steady rain picking
at the windowsill, and I want
to hold time, to dissipate its march,
to let the love between us linger,
to indulge the soft pang of desire
indefinitely, to eek out of my borders,
to blend, to float above my body,
above Karin, to see it all with such
clarity, to return to form, to bend,
to worship, to stay, to stay in this
small room, to stay in this twin bed,
tangled, poor, blissed out, cherished,
tethered.

Reciprocate, the cornerstone,
pile up the keepsakes,
the more refined the technology,
the more Vaudeville the ****** mistakes,
but that doesn't mean I'm immune
to tenderness--I could use some tenderness.
Tenderly now, your words, the soft words,
bring them to me in the sacred hours,
while the apartment complex sleeps deep.
Sing the soft words, your body supine
on the balcony. Stick your little fingers
in my mouth and draw out the side effects.
Project the man I once was back onto me
so that I might sew myself to the outline.
In your perfected feminine way, overestimate
my competence and build a life atop
the old man, the old me, the recurring me.
Warm yourself with thoughts of children,
of silver, of gold, of the roots of human desire
that split the ground and fuse with your feet.

In the scattered night, down from Trinity Bay,
where the primary schoolers kiss under the docks,
I cup my hands; I gather sand; I drink the sand.
I name every grain, every star. I'm vibrating.
Transforming. I'm floating above myself--this is a
defense mechanism, a necessary one, a beautiful
one. Tonight, I want to live. I want to live all the
time. I want a dark-haired woman to coddle me.
I want a dark-haired woman to kick my ***.
I want a dark-haired woman to wear me thin,
wear the endings of my nerves smooth. Transfigured
salt, transfigured sand, transfigured sky. You may want
to write this down. You may want to record this. I'm going
to breathe myself backward; I'm going to become handsomer,
stronger, younger. I'm full bottle, I'm chime, I'm breeze.
Wait. Listen. You might just delight in me.

Some passive form of vengeance
courses through
against taboo, against the denial of touch
and I take it, the vengeance, on someone
needing to be used, to be an object,
to be of use,
and I feel something akin to remorse
and grab a towel and excuse myself
and sink deeper into
this middleplace, where everything
is balanced, the worst parts of me,
the best parts of me,
and I sing--can you believe it?--I sing
a song you know and don't like
in the shower and everything slows
down--by everything I mean the narrative,
the lies I tell myself to still love myself--
and I say it, "Goodbye," before heading out
to meet the sun, to enter a house of worship,
to worship the little god that resides in me,
to pull the strings and watch it all fall into
place.

Now, underwater, sound turns itself
inside out. I aim myself
toward the floor of the pool
but my pruned hands never
find it. Down down down.
Deep water. As quickly
as fear arrives, it's traded
for confusion; confusion,
for abandon; abandon, for peace.
Down here, I barely am.
The weight of my body erodes.
Watch me stingray. Watch me dolphin.
Watch me ball up into stone.
Watch me sink.
Listen for my whale song.
Wait for me to geyser.

I'm losing it, the composure, in living rooms,
surrounded by friends, rooms with multiple
televisions, honey-stacked on top of each other
so the husband can game and the wife can
watch The Office for the hundredth time.
And they talk, with absolute seriousness,
about which Harry Potter house they'd
be in. And they talk love languages.
And they talk enneagrams.

And I notice how I've become the object of their sentences.
And I notice how I'm there to be some fringe prop,
someone to say what they want to say, someone
to project themselves back onto themselves,
without fear of divine punishment.

It was a year that looked good on checks,
at the top of every newspaper: 2013.
I grew thin running laps around Toluca
Lake, thinking the whole time it was a poor substitute
for the ocean. I was employed and in love in
Oklahoma City. I was unemployed and alone
in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Everything was blind.
Everything was deaf, my desire buried in salt
and coffee lingered on my breath. 2013. I'm younger.
I'm stronger. I'm persistent and there's an actual comb in my actual hair.
And I'd pass by you like a jewelry store window, my mind
half a brick. Shatter the modest glass. Mazel tov? Do you know what
that means? What good fortune. Why do they say what good
fortune? It's a compact lesson in reframing. And I frame myself
for ******. And I frame myself on the refrigerator. And I frame
my last check. And I frame my arguments on my back, in a swimming
pool, thinking of Toluca Lake.

I'm on the way,
if you take the long way,
past the Arlington Cemetary,
where the babies of the
influenza epidemic do sleep,
down from the ancient cedars
and the ruins of the Winchester Bank
established in 1908.

I'm on the way,
if you take the long way,
past the snaking and rusting
barbed wire of the Scott Place,
where my father chopped cotton
and his father died under the weight
of a fallen log and his father died
to the backfire of a shotgun.

I'm on the way,
if you take the long way,
past the Cimarron River and idle wheat fields,
where my mother once watched the dust
roll in and the money blow away,
down from the birthplace of
a serial killer you've heard about,
down from a quiet, flybuzz pace
that so often inspires rage.

You admired the bruised yellow of the
light-polluted sky as we came to Fifth and Harbinger.
You said the day refused to die, the day
was an aspiring week, and your hand was
in mine. Even moment to moment, those times with
you felt like an era. You used to pull records
out of their sleeves and examine their condition.
I dressed like a professor, and for one and only one
season in my life, I desired someone just as they were.

My walk is anxious now, my body entire fearful that it will
fall into your gaze.

The tweed has transfigured into rhinestone. There's a microphone
stitched into the fabric and I'm always on record. I talk
in a deliberate way, like a tv preacher trying to be authentic.
I'm afraid you'll hear my voice. I'm afraid you won't hear my voice.

If you found a splinter of the man you once loved, could you bend and warp it? Could you recreate your desire?

One day. One week. One season.

I said what I needed to say.
Say it backwards,
breathe it undone
before the red of the taillights
before the blue of the ink
before I'm severed by a
message on the bottom
of a grocery list.

I said what I needed to say.
Now I need you to misremember,
blur it, the wind in your auburn hair
before you pack the eyeliner
before you pack the cotton swabs
before I'm cornered in
an empty room by the
sweater you left.

I said what I needed to say.
I don't need to say it again,
don't need you to see me like this
after our shows cancel and rerun
after the good habits transfigure into bad
after the last bulb goes out and
I follow the fireflies out the backdoor,
hair unwashed, pants unclean.