Looking at you head-on,
looking at you sideways,
alleys and staircases and
awnings throwing their
shadows over you,

both obstructing and constructing.

You dream in color, so
you live in color, wish it were
that simple, wish I had a leg
to stand on, but I've just got
this oar.

Sliding all over the polished
dark, lost in the open field
when the sun eats everything.
You can go blind if you stare

too long, the fuzzy black spots
nibbling at vision, how it burns
even when you close your eyes.

Yes, I know, darling,
but try telling my dreams that.

Eclipse the meaning; it's better
to let others make the assumptions.

I'll stare as long as I like, thanks.

She's forgetting you know
her, know what this is about.

Easy feels cheap, deceptive.
Easy feels like denial, trying
to comfort against our will.

She's forgetting, but not
you, never you.

People love life or death,
all or nothing, love the way rope
burns against the wrist from
struggle because it feels like we're
doing something.

And we love to lose because
winning means making more
choices.

Some things are too important
to forget. She taught you that,

but principles were often buried
and you tried to forget anyway,
talked on the phone with her all night,

loved when she made it about her,
so you didn't have to think about
yourself.

Because you think too long and well,
suddenly it's November again, that
November, the one nobody knows about
because you threw away the evidence,

kept it hidden away with the other
sick black things inside you that will
never see the light of day.

This is not easy. It wasn't then either,

back when every wound was so
fresh skin had not yet seen scar,
feeling impossible and greedy and
too big for your body.

It wasn't easy. It could have killed
you. This isn't easy. It's just killing
you slower.

There are always choices, but no
guarantee of any good ones.

She's forgetting, but you're not. You've
seen heaven and hell. You've seen
wolves in sheep's clothing, never knowing
whose side you were supposed to take.

You've seen the truth. You've bled it:

The world is full of cruelty.
The world is full of beauty.
The world is so full and so
empty all at once.

Do you still love me?

Does it matter?

The bright light from the stone ceiling making a
spotlight for it.

Speaking in tongues, sea foam replacing teeth and
dribbling down your chin. What a picture you make,
all false-fire-alarm and unsaid *gonna make you beg.  

Writhing like dancing, tastes like strawberry jam,
smeared over the hot white column of your throat,
dipping into your belly, a bit resting on the shin,

Then a hasty escape, millions of shingles making
roads of roof for you to speed down.

Calm down. It's just a dream, darling.
You're more apple jelly than anything.

It's not a knife's edge. That's too clean. It's more like
poison, all: ***** your heart out, love. You'll feel better.

The core of this: I hate you for what you did.

I'm tired of pulling your teeth. You can lead a horse
to water, but you can't make it drink. You can lead a
horse to water and force it down the throat, hoping
too much won't spill from the mouth.

Tell me something. Did you expect this?
Tell me something, anything.

I counted the ceiling tiles in school.
I counted the seconds you'd hold my eye.
1

The core of this: *I miss you.

Here I am,

living in the space between
truth and reality, fleshing
out fact and fiction.

Honestly, honesty doesn't
always mean accuracy.

Symposium of grief and
all its little tear soldiers,
running down your face,
fleeing the battlefield before
the war's even begun.

I wish you would stop.
Bringing logic into this,
that's so like you, like
logic does any good when
I'm like this.

Why do you get like this?

I don't know. Ask God.
He has a very sick sense
of humor.

I'm getting ahead of myself.
I'm getting beyond myself.
I'm getting tired. I'm getting
so tired, darling.

Erasing myself from history,
not that hard. The only mark
I ever made was on myself,
young and stupid on the cold
bathroom floor, begging God
to throw me a crumb.

I don't remember everything
from those years. Now when
I think of blurriness, I think
red.

Jesus. It hurts to write this.

I tried explaining it to you
once. I tried to tell the truth,
but it wasn't the right one.

What is your truth?

Do you really want to know?

I could spend the rest of my
life writing about this. I hope
I don't.

It's something maple,
something thick when
you breathe, like dark
chocolate, like tinnitus,
like overandoverandover
again, hard to explain.

I have never met anyone
that could fade and still
burn like you do.

Smooth violence,
bottomless in all its
eternity, moving in water
so deep the ripples never
make it to the surface.

It's not weightless. It never
is, but it waits there, half-
suspended, fixed and
unfixed, solid but slippery
in your hands.

Hold your breath. She
knows you in a way the
angels don't. There's
something she coaxes out
of your chest, something
dark she rolls her tongue
around.

The act of inaction and the
odds, particularly of getting
by unscathed, may be slim
and far between, but the stares  
last longer, everything in  
h
  o
    u
       r
         s

I like my old house, with the big
backyard, on that lonely little
road: home, a touchstone.

Wrapped in my duvet of silence,
tracing the bumps of the popcorn
ceiling with glazed eyes while she
brushes hair behind my ear.

"You may be depressed, but you're
not crazy crazy."

Thanks Mama.

So I don't tell her about my road
trip with psychosis, or the pile of
suicide notes rotting in our county
landfill.

There are some things she doesn't
need to know.

Blue insides, I always thought I'd be
quick enough to catch the blood
before oxygen claimed it red.

Light bulbs flicker for days before
they go out, but knowing the warning
signs has never changed this relentless
ending.

This wallet is special, I remind myself.
It has my brother's preschool graduation
picture tucked inside,

his smile, all teeth, with gaps he pokes his
tongue through, and bright, clear blue eyes.
He has never seen a scar in his life.

When I start to wonder why I bother,
I make myself look at the photo.