it was a day in spring
and my vision was red–a
monochrome of the senses
i look at my knees and they
are scrapped

i look at my eyes and they are red
i look on my bed and i see red,
the bud of the bud is still there
but i do not remember the day

i cannot leave the house;
i’m safer in my thoughts.
i understand why there were
Woolfs and Fitzgeralds before me

i will crystallize those weeks in my
words; we were too happy in
photographs; i go back to the places
we smiled and cannot breathe:
i look at myself and i cannot breathe.