what do you do, closest friends,
when everyone around you breaks?
when their cracks fissure out
and chunks and fragments spill
and spatter the unforgiving ground

what do you do, closest friends,
when you are the sounding board
for each and every cry
when you hold their head in your lap
and you call them the whole way home

what do you do, closest friends,
when there is so much breaking around you,
can to tend your own cracks
can you mend your own terra-cotta
with your own glue like you taught me to?

Let those who's heads and words you've held
relentlessly kindly and honestly,
guide the glue through your spreading cracks
and teach them to mend again

and lets repeat
until we are all beautiful mosaics of breaking
and mending

so i ran tonight
i ******* hate running
i thought about it for 56 minutes
because my stomach churned and shivered
and i couldn't settle it
something about feelings and circumstances colliding
an old familiar feeling i can never seem to shake

and so i tuck my lanyard key in my shirt
cool metal on sternum
key card tucked in front right pocket
of loose jeans
and i walk down the carpet hall and outside
the metal clicks of cool doors
i jog through the arched courtyard
crushed leaves packed down under bare toes
and when i make it to the field
i let loose
and run my breath out of my lungs
my feet forgetting the cold of the fall evening dew
then
relentlessly pattering pavement
as i loop around the square
and race my shifting shadow under street light
back and forth again
and pant

i run the breath out of my lungs a
second
and a

third
time

my pulsing veins overworked and swelling in rhythm
toes are red
ears feel red
blood is still red
as far as i know
and i walk back

i swear i've never felt so light

two sheets of paper--eighteen digits total

the first on blank printers paper
torn in a vaguely state like shape
kentucky maybe
pencil lines describing nine numbers
scrawled
that paper dropped in my lap
as i sat on the floor
crosslegged
drawing in hand
confusion in mind
a sly smile and shuffling feet under baggy jeans
carry the boy away

the second on lined paper
torn by shaking hands from philosophy notes
nine numbers copied with a borrowed pink pen
and a name below.
that paper placed on my desk
with a hasty whispered sentence
a kind of reverse suicide note
a hope at life he wanted to share with me
with someone he thought cared about his epiphany
his oversized sweatshirt and damp eyes
follow his flashing soul out of the classroom

a silver cigarette
half smoked
lying shimmering ghostlike
on the sandy concrete steps
in an otherwise dull world

a styrofoam cup
partially disfigured
tumbling noisily
over the abandoned bridge
in an otherwise silent world

a body of rushing liquid
entirely hidden
babbling of its depth
deep in the underground sewer system
in an otherwise shallow world


the things you walk past at 3:07 am
when the transit system is closed
and there is no parking on campus
so you walk
bare feet and mala beads
and you realize
you aren't cold or afraid
despite temperature or statistics:
******* numbers

it took me a long time
to realize
that when we locked eyes--
all those times when i looked at you
and i thought you saw my soul behind my glassy eyes,
you were looking at yourself in the reflection--
my eyes a mere looking glass for your ego

the blues and greens in my eyes reduced
to a mirror of pride

i know we are a species of validation
that we look for other's perceptions of ourselves
and we define our self concept accordingly

but you
i don't think you ever saw me in the process
i was only ever an instrument
for you to play your out-of-tune music on

theres a woman
at least i think a woman
who shuffles feet close to the floor
one boot crunched
her heel isn't where it should be in her shoe
but she doesn't seem to notice or care
horizontal striped shirt and loose blue jeans
spiked blond hair
her eyes sag opposite her hair
exaggerating the effect

theres a man in a wheelchair
i've never seen thinner shins under thick body
he looks smaller than he is
perhaps an optical illusion
he has glasses thin framed and his belly a perfect sphere
mounted on his lap.
he calls to the attendant
all he needs is to be pushed out to the parking lot
his ride is here but he can't move his own body

there's an old woman named patty
she leans on a pink and purple cane
the pattern rubbed down to the metal where
her hand always clutches the curve
she has high blood sugar
she didnt want to come
but the attendants at the nursing home made her
and she had just been bragging about how long it had been
since her last ER visit.
She had to call her son roland to drive her here

theres a son named roland
we made eye contact as soon as he came in and he is kind
he holds eye contact in that way that people do when
they feel responsible for a situation
and need to connect with another human.
he got his mother water with ice,
and she said she didnt need ice-
-like it was a luxury, not an inconvenience

There was a woman crying
i think her loved one was burned somehow
2nd degree, did i hear? on the face?
her family comes and she cries and hugs
and her father tries to tell her she should go home
she's not going home
theres no way that woman is going home
she calls people and coordinates with family and friends
and you can feel the panic radiating from her

there are two teen girls who sit in the low chairs
i've never seen two people look more tired or
drained
eyes red and heavy
sweat pants and socks in sandals
messy ponytail and bun
and they don't speak to each other
they just sit
and stare at the ground
seemingly endlessly.



i bet they are all still there except the man with the spherical belly and the thin shins.
i suppose none of us make it out of this life alive
its just that sometimes i forget
how many talk with death before they meet him
sometimes i forget how their families weep
for that conversation
i forget that emergency rooms even exist.

every once in a while
i ache

i ache to know

to know another feeling
that fills the same space

the same space this ache
currently fills so completely
so deeply it seeps into my crevices

my crevices left empty
from lack of experience

of experience so foreign

so foreign that i ache
just once in a while