If you arrive here
You will show up laughing
like a sigh
Headshake and shiver

It tastes bitter on your tongue
The last poem you will ever speak
When catching your breath is like praying backwards
Pulling heaven back inside of yourself
A struggle for composure before you lose it all

There is a man or woman
That looks like you
With a chest like a tree trunk
So heavy
And a stomach that rumbles
A body so empty

It asks of you everything
So you place before it
All that you have
Which it devours
Bits of all you’ve ever had
Confetti burst from the corners of its mouth
And then it asks for more
Until there is only you and it

With nothing left
You place its fingers into its mouth
It eats its own arm
Then the other arm
Then both legs

You watch it eat
Sounding so satisfied
It hums and drools
And bleeds to death

You catch your breath
You are alone in this place
So you laugh
And the sound of it startles you
An echo inappropriate
When you find this funeral funny

You pick it up
And sling it over your shoulder
Limp like a flower sack
Like a bag of potatoes

You tell yourself you are just going to bury it
And at the same time wonder
Why you didn’t walk away

The dust settles on your bare back while you sleep. Sometimes tries to bond back to the skin, but in the morning you shake it again as you rise. It shimmers in the sunlight like smoke. Though patternless, it does not look lost.

It sits nearly weightless in your palm
Hold it like a bible
with the page already marked in your head that you want to share
Like that page contains the only truth that you know

The closest to a magic wand you will ever get to
The only spell your voice
Speak honest
While words are still meant for this
Your mouth a shotgun for my tracks

Now dance

Follow my lead
Pick up your phone
And call someone

Pick one

1
While you were still earth
And I was still earth
And the thought of us
Sounded like a 4 year old learning to whistle
We had no stake
Just a note in the background of breath and baby teeth
You make me so happy
Your parents ****** on the day they did
2
If you were to die in any way
I want you to know
I have already planned your eulogy
It is simple
My name is Jonathen Hal Tobias
And this empty case of skin and bone
Formerly housed
The best friend I have ever had in my life
3
Your belly is a blackened furnace
Full of soot and sawdust
It is love the way it keeps me warm
And I will leave my hands near it
The distance of a magic spell for fire
My skin
Until there is no more sawdust
Until there is no more love
Until I have to warm my hands with breath
And press them against your cold black
Do you feel that?

4
Whatever you say
Through satellite
Over airwaves

Know your voice passes through stars
And metal
And microchips
And speaker

There is tongue
And breath and lips
Your heart when you’re honest

When words were meant for this
And your mouth a shotgun for my tracks

On the end table by the bed
A tiny Styrofoam cup
Full of unwrapped candy

In child’s writing
All caps and struggle

HAPPY HALLOWEEN
I AM SORRY
MOM

It is hard to stay angry
When you have an imagination

I picture her at a round table
******* a hospital bracelet

There are other people with her
Some have construction paper
Some have glue
There is glitter
And painted fingertips

I still get homesick
For places I have never been to
Sometimes miss people
I never even knew

There is a city inside my chest
It bustles
Pre pollution
But ***** is still legal

I have made homes there
You have a home here
In a city with
No hospitals
No graveyards
Just a cul-de-sac that starts at my throat
And double loops along my lungs
So many streets
My chest x-rays look like upside-down trees without the leaves

And when you leave
There is a house
Inside the city inside my chest
That stays empty forever

So much left behind
There is no room for anger to stay long

It exits like forgiveness
When you’ve given up all hope
When you can only reimagine so much

Some of these homes are condemned

Though it is hard to stay angry

Every day as the sun rose
the sand sparkled like broken glass and salt

The ocean saw how the sand sparkled
and collapsed on top of it
A steady hush and hiss with every attempt
No one ever wondered why the ocean sounded like that
Like a fatigued Darth Vader

The ocean was sick
The ocean felt lonely
It is hard to have a body that big
to ever feel full

One day people came to swim
They did not swim like the animals did
The animals swam naturally
No one ever notices the way their own blood
pumps inside their veins
so much that they are happy being alive

The people splashed awkward
Stood sometimes letting their toes
graze the sea floor
This made the sea happy
But the people who were not of the sea
grew tired
and started for the sand

The sea became upset that they were leaving
and created a wave so big
it pulled the people back inside of it
A crash that sounded like lung cancer
A heave skipping the heart a beat
One that begs for any kind of breath

The ocean felt the people splashing hard
Fighting for land
It felt good

Eventually
They slowed
Gave up
And drowned

The ocean was lonely again

It calmly wheezed
at the shiny sand

Even in complete darkness
there is no chance

Beer and benedyrl
like a pink and white bumble bee sting
only adds to the heaviness

So I do what used to help
Think about what my arms are missing

back of neck
a stomach
and my fingertips in slow circles

The weight against me

Right now I feel that heavy

In times like this
the only way to fall asleep
is to give up entirely that you are going to sleep

Then morning comes
and so does rest

In the darkness of the living room
the street light breaks through the blinds

He sleeps on the couch
A flannel blanket so small
every night is a decision
Shoulders?
Or feet?

I give him a fresh diaper
and light him a smoke

Tonight
before bed
he tells me a story
the only one I have ever heard from him
about the war

His best friend was named Mike
Mike got sick
Fever and blood in every cough

"I kept telling him everything was going to be okay"
He said
"but he kept asking me to leave him
Said to just send his wife a letter.
I never found any letter.
I wrote one later as if were him"

"I found him one morning
Cut his own throat"

My father's gone through five cigarettes by now

He lays down
covers his feet tonight

"When you're a burden to the people you love
it is okay to give up
That is what I am trying to tell you boy"

Just like that
he gave up

I am not saying my father was a good man
But in the end
I forgive him
for everything