we are carbon,
ashes,
craters,
two towers,
after.

rubble,
mist and manholes.
your eyes on a
cloudy day.
the aftermath of destruction.

we are leftover scratches
on gas chamber walls,
corpses,
cremations, and gravestones.

vision without glasses,
abandoned buildings,
the residual newspaper ink on
your palms.

we are static, crumbling nihilism,
aged hair, and dust sifting through
frost bitten fingers.

cavities, apathies,
blank television screens,
sketches, ghosts, absence,
dust, collapse,
driftwood.

we are driftwood, not enough
for a life-raft,
sometimes, where there is smoke,
there is no fire.

i guess it’s where we were always heading,
dulling, deconstructing, disintegrating.
after all, every thing
reduces to this.

You cannot just give up religion for lent,
and expect no consequences.
I am in every moment you discard.

You run on insistent consistency,
analytical calculations,
scraps of math equations
pieced together to
form your
functioning

But, you cannot rationalize away my
emotions.
My heart and my affection.
You cannot compartmentalize me,
shave off my soft curved edges
with a butter knife to fit the
labeled angular box you have created for yourself.
I still count even if you’re
making things even.

But I understand,
sometimes my hugs last 3
seconds too long.

--

Luke,
There is no picture
on a box to tell you what you’re
supposed to look like
when all this is over.

You might have built yourself,
but I was born.
I am more than a body.
I am your past,
your perspective
your platelets
your pacemaker
I will never truly
leave.

I built a room out of keys and locked doors
for a steeple boy.
Still, he shuts out the eyes of the people.

He buried his twin sister
a generation ago.
No one knew he killed
“her”
He wrecked her being with the weight of his tears
He tore apart her womb and *******
with the inconsistencies in his mind.

She went willingly,
quietly.
She never existed for him.

Yet, he keeps her
in the hazy recesses of his thoughts.
Reluctantly, necessarily.
A tethered reminder.

His mind is just as broken
just as fickle
just as full as hers.
His/(her)
clenched fists
sentimental soul
conflicted body
bittersweet existence

Maybe today will be the day he is
born
without the mask of his sister.
A coward
(not a fraud)
no longer.

May he speak unwaveringly
even as his spirit wavers.
May his chest be flat and strong
May he sit wider than his mother permits
May his wrists stay unmarred
May his body
be painted blue
and his eyes
(pink).

Though his flesh may be
Change(able),
remember it contains
his heart
his soul
his mind,
that knows and is unsure
…
his throat, that speaks, even as it betrays his deepness
his breath, that fills his well-worn lungs
his spine, that remains s despite crushing ribs
                                                t
                                                r
                                                a
                                                i
                                                g
                                                h
                                                t
his blood, that flows cleanly through veins
his organs, that run amid the ruin of his subsistence.

Now,
his hands open with the creak
of strained muscles.
No longer fading, he fills this space.
Showered, his arms extend into sleeves of a suit.
His fingers pull pants in place
His fingers secure buttons
His fingers knot his tie
His fingers fasten his laces
and,
he remembers his sister.
He chips at her mortar around his heart
His eyes, once covered in cypress flowers,
change to lilies.
He fists the correct key, using his voice,
          “This ain’t no sham.
            I am what I am”

Steeple boy,
choose life.
Change life.
You’ll be alright.

Relearned human being,
believe.

First things first,
you’ll have to remove your hat and
the plank strapped to your limbs.
Your body will be used to thumb-wrestle with
gravity.

Please remove the staples from your chest.
Find your new set of lungs.
There is space to breathe here.
Take this new heart.
You’ll beat slower, suspended.
Circadian rhythms will not help you.

Your body will become a willow in a storm,
never breaking.
There are no mistakes here.

You’ll learn to drink silence for sustenance,
washed down with madness and tepid water.
You’ll learn to compensate for lacking conversation, hold secret meetings
in the basement of your mind.
You’ll learn how to disappear in a room.

No matter how hard you pound against walls
they remain padded,
concealed behind billowing drapery.
No one will hear you.

But, you’ll fit in fine.
You’ll stretch your skin as a tattooed leotard.
You won’t grow up,
You’ll grow inward
fortifying your lungs with weeds.
L’appel du vide, your distinctive urge to jump down from
high places will be quelled
by the grace in lifting.

Take respite,
There is nothing left to destroy here.
There are no checkpoints to neglect.
There is no need to be a hero.

Still,
you’re not convinced this is so much better.

The answer is nothing uplifting.

                                                           I’ve lived
better and absolute moments. Promised, with a demeanor of stagnation.
Better or polite moments within the stained glass, all for
that best end order.

                                                           I’ve attended.
Listened to the kind of Man who throws rocks with gossamer thread
and religious meaning.
                                                           I was here, Mom.
                                                                                            See?

Then summer brought something of meaning to movement. Attendance?
He sent un-movement to all of us. He can’t bear movement at all.


God, Your gurney has this man scarred. Mine was all for bits of someone else?
Or trading not-a-little darkening for something constant?

Before, soaked in ‘nice’, I blocked it. Fill us of this cup.
Blood yellow hold. Epic. Lyric.
It soaked in perfect, the clots forming.
Father, that best rest is never.
Father, but here You guard us?
                                                         Father, in your confession, fault.

                         In the end I chose opposition,
more like exsanguination.

Gone are the means to emulate. On a vetted day,
the err of all my sins shot me this red herring body.
So, let me go to assimilate never.

I was shut, locked in. But as the sore closet gains some more light,
now, with skinned knees
a brisk passing. Something for the retreat:
“Forgivers” or crosswalks?
Yes! – of course I choose crosswalks.