and everyone here wants to be a victim, wants to ****** themselves,
glorify their struggles- feel a hero in their own stories.
                                          but we are better off than that.
we give, take, ****, breathe life back into little girls drowned in the undertow of public pool drains.
we install washing machines into the room
with hoses 12" too short for a rational person to justify.
it is the art of necessity
not pride. or glimpses at judgement or relief
for which we do heroic things.

and so as the girl grows (to 16 or so), she murders her family on any tuesday night.
as the spin-cycle comes on,
as it rinses out the best artifacts of last sunday's diner from your best shirt.

i want fingers that trap you inside minuscule breaths.
the
shorter the better-

dragging down the seconds like shoes on in the lake water.
these
that threaten to tear off with each pump of the legs.
as the arms stay thrashing unawares, as they reach for a hand-hold that isn't.
as the ring around your mouth spits across the magazines on the coffee-
table, leaving marks.
as the pillows on the couch come misshapen to the point just outside of comfortable.
as the moisture gathers in the armpits.

dawn breaks.

heat rises from the roofs of automobiles.
eyes readjust to light that puts gunk back into them.
the city is like orange glass.
your hair
is hair.
i let drool slip across your ****.

[spf30] sludge sweats off down into crevasses i want to touch.
gods break apart
in the clammy skin under the folds in your side as
you
twisted back to me  .

you handed off a trinket.
i took it.


gold was the metal cast in stamen-shape to crown the tight halo around your breath.
monday's laundry becomes today's.

back into the tree-shade, where the pollen works its way down your throat-
you are wearing pink eyeliner (one way or another.)
as we take out our phones,
the green-
yellow film on everything shines against the backlit
paralyzer-
they are making artifacts:

like the inexpensive
pen> leaching into jeans pockets, down to the zipper.
somewhere they are creaking open, lunging at us with next decisions.
small,
between arm hairs pushed the wrong way-
hydrogen-peroxide teeth
take shallow indentations in an interrupted ring.


catching sight of this, someone relegates you to weird.

off-guard, you smiled-
thunder rang 3 towns over.
you fingered your palm where the pencil lead came through the translucent.

the soft of your father's breath decaying inside you has suffered through us
staying up at night-
trying to

long enough.

yet somewhere
in
the meat between your marrows and tomorrow: we were not good enough to
get it.
and all the vulgarity of every single tear shed in your name
failed to be censored.

you cared more for the ****** little
soccermoms
murmuring in the background to cement the violence of
their mediocrity. i stopped it there-
no one left to call me out, they found me.
but
i have eyelashes that walk across the sides of your face, better than anyone.
and
we held if off for just
one more
but- there will be other times
and they are waiting for you to drop your guard
and sail into them
with lids closed and
fluttering.

the shame sits on the belly like the opposite of adequacy. in the yard, shirt open and tanning,  the last few years have done poorly in this respect. down- hill since the incident with the knee
and the subsequent dormancy of the legs that used to go
everywhere.
i think
burning here feels right.

when you do it:
i will make a decision     between the button sleeves
and the shirt that needs cufflinks.
i will pick the the buttons
because i will be able to roll up the arms
if i want to.
i will pick the shoes                                      that shine.
i won't be guilted into praying at funerals anymore.

honeyfly.

you're my body
sticky with
tar like black rust-oleum
that won't dry in the cold sea air-
the pitch that the gulls drown in,
the way you part your hair.