I plead with a gray space
Pray to a slanted shadow, touch starved and pitying
Because there’s really no fooling
a self-delusion that shape shifts daily
It walks with me, a debonair escort that overtakes me by stride
Lines and angles made longer, magnified
Especially in the times I get turned around,
dizzy and disoriented with my back towards a setting sun
But here I find a circumstantial ally
A scorpion pacing figure eights on my back as I tread water
Saying “trust me for infinity, one way or the other”
How do you resist this temptation, the one of being known - of being leveled
It’s something like love if love were knowledge and prediction
And so when reason doesn’t work, reverence does
I gather the strength to acquiesce, already swept into a swirling current and soon spat out
At the feet of something larger and well fed
Prodigal I return, knees finding familiar furrows to sink into
Hands clasped firmly, aching and white
I praise “Thank You and Forgive Me and I Know” over and over
Calling out from within the stomach of a great dark fog

He peeled away time, like dead skin on fingertips
An irritant needing of disposal like all wasted things
Each layer increasingly painful to touch, but demanding an attention too strong to protest
Not knowing what exactly lies at the end, but tightly grasping the edges of his mind’s ferry as it lurched deeper in
Scraping into the recesses of inferno, past showy flames
Stopping only at the bottom, hitting solid ground, still and cold
A modest ghost land, non-boasting
Completely justified by its own barrenness
Indisputably, the first instance
There he laid himself to rest a while
Coddled in the dirt
A sense of security reminiscent of the womb where it started, back to the beginning
And while lying there, seeking comfort through this fever chill of a journey, looking up he saw it
What it must have been all along
A childhood memory, living only in the mind, but living all the same
A defining moment
Something simple, whose significance couldn’t be challenged, but whose existence was something uncertain
A mystery only partially figured out
But enough to know when to stop
Just a reverie, he reassured himself
And with that piled on each layer again and again until he reached the surface once more
Back to a familiar setting, cool and breathable
Maybe suggestive of a lower level
But probably not.

If love were flight then I’d stay perched
Perhaps for fear of falling but
To see it all, I’d watch atop
Up twenty stories, far enough

Observed, and learned, but never felt
That freedom comes with many doubts
And I, for one, will not go out  
Much further than my steady perch

In the end, it’s not the loss itself that unravels you
But the loss of self
Just a pile of thread pooled at your keeper’s feet
A gaping portal you wish they’d step into
So you could weave yourself back together
Molded around their form, taking their shape
A skein of two people as one
Where before you were wound tightly around some invisible core
Coiled and springy with anticipation
Dancing on nerves, LED and ringing
Now you’re tired and still, edges smoothed and smothered
Collapsed into some lower dimension
Flattened and undone in their eyes
A listless string, God only to ants

When I feel unable to take a deep breath,
And these shallow hallow skips hasten,
it doesn’t catch until I compress my ribcage flush against my spine and it feels like they’re knocking against one another in what I imagine is a bony xylophone playing a low note that reverberates at the base of my throat.
It feels good for a second but only just that.
And then I take another 10 to 15 cursory breaths that slip off of each other,
hoping this restriction, this deprivation, would make the next One Big Deep Breath so much more satisfying, so much sweeter.
When I’m in that moment I think

Is anything sacred?
I get scared that maybe we’re so empowered that we’ve moved past the need for sanctity.
And the fact that I worry about this, that I need this world to legitimize having something to cling to, maybe that means I’m not empowered.
And what does it mean today for me not to be empowered? That I’m not so brave? That I have so much privilege that lets me live in this space where I don’t have to be so brave?
I wonder why sacred things seem so exclusionary, why only certain lands, certain experiences, certain people hold this dominion. And if something was everywhere could it ever be sacred, like air or dirt, but also like pop music and printed t-shirts.
I get a bit lost in these thoughts for a while and then notice that I can in fact breathe normally again, which is good news, and a relief.
And yes, I think to myself, air is very sacred. But only when you need it, or more specifically only when you’re conscious of needing it.
And then my thoughts evolve into something kinder like,

Can anything be sacred?
Can I let things be sacred to me, even when I have them already, in abundance?
Can I let go of this puritanical idea that fear of loss is a prerequisite for value?
It also implies, Can I let myself hold on to moments that I want to hold on to and not question whether it makes me weak or dumb or immature? Or even, can I allow myself to question it, but know that the answer, no matter what it is, isn’t an insult or a deeply troublesome flaw? It’s just an observation at a point in time, and the ego doesn’t need to bare the brunt of a lashing because of it. Maybe this is a type of empowerment, which is a realization that makes me feel good, confident even.
Which leads to a bolder question,

Is everything sacred?
And can I conceptualize that everything can be sacred, without turning it into a paradox? In both absolute and relative terms, that by seeing everything in this world as sacred, it doesn’t negate the concept itself, and in turn doesn’t mean that nothing is. It just means that it can all be valuable. There is inherent wealth in it all. And wow, what a calming thought that is. Maybe because I am a part of ‘everything’, and so this blanket definition of value covers me too. I breathe easy to that idea, aware now of the steady inhale and the significance of it all. I can close my eyes and take comfort in the slowness, relax a clenched jaw and let my mind hypnotically revolve around a question that’s answer is yes.

She christened me a sailor.
I didn’t want to be one.
She christened me a sailor.
I didn’t want to be one.
She christened me a sailor.
I didn’t want to be one.
She christened me a sailor.
I didn’t want to be one.
She christened me a sailor.
I didn’t want to be one.
She christened me a sailor.
I did not want to be one.
She christened me a sailor.
I didn’t want to be one.
She christened me a sailor.
I realized how useful knots could be.

You write your
                                             Poetry
                With
                                Stray
Indentations (affectations for added effect (redundancy for rhythm (alliteration just because)))
I write mine lik an asignmet due in 10 m,inutes. (Spellcheck almost killed the metaphor)
Your Cae-sur-a (The deliberate yield for words)
versus
My The-saur-us (The potent yield of words).
Verse vs. verse
the poet tries
poetries contrived.

The sun set behind brazen city towers
The gradient color scheme reminiscent
of candy chromatography in the third grade
It's one of the heaviest yet fleeting forms of memory
The kind that simmers at the bottom of your chest for an hour
But a deep breath and a purpose pushes it out
Nostalgic about nostalgia
Wishful for some sentimentality
No matter how trite, you'll feel it - you'll revel in it
Conquered by the thought of a past worth reliving