I
snowfalls
an epic battle
boom
crashsmack
the white blanket
here
never covers that city
we fled this place for
more mistakes than fingers
and toes
avalanche!
car wheels can
not
navigate
the areas the
4, 5, 6 barrels through
what a problem for
exposed skin
a nose red
ice in your hair
wet.
why didn’t you just
wait

II
for the express train
the local makes me
sick
you know closeness gives me
hives
even if
everyone is
the son
(or daughter)
of someone
each birth celebrated
if only for a moment
the white haired mowhawk man
bald girl
the dreadlocked boy
standing
so close
his exhale
is my next breath
in

III
to the same routine
of forgetfulness
even you
and me
deeming ourselves
the lost children
rust-belt transplants
we too had
futures planned for
but
not
this
living on nicotine
secondhand books
and
pin-up girls on the walls
there’s cat food
but nothing in the cupboard
except

IV
a wooden rosary
wrapped around
too-thin wrists
for a good luck charm
anti-drug shirts
for irony
and combat boots
so there is no mistake
you are not your father’s
child
sprung like Athena
from a thought
already formed
armed and ready

V
to rage against the idea
that we are the products of
an upbringing
less than ideal
and we oscillate
back
and
forth
between a sense
of pity and belonging
because long ago
we lost track of what
was the truth
and what were the
things we manufactured
to make life more
interesting
and
god I love you but
you trouble me
I texted while you

VI
can’t seem to hold
down
a job
coffee and camels
don’t pay for themselves
maybe this attention
deficit
is real
not just something
made to
keep
us
still
during classes I won’t
show up for
except when I want
attention and you’re already
spent
falling all over
yourself
and then me
because

VII
we stopped pretending
months ago
this was anything
other than a practice
in dating each other’s
mothers
but I can’t be the only one
who knows how to roll
our cigarettes
while you shower
with no curtain
and I lean back
letting steam mask
the smoke that’s not allowed
in an apartment with no heat
and no door ****
less fighting
more complaining since

VIII
the mattress is
on the floor
who can afford a bed frame
these days
but it’s probably for the best
the windows won’t close
all the way
anyway
it’s snowing inside again
and you note
men leading lives
of quiet desperation
it isn’t nearly as poetic
as it sounds
so your mother argues
but fights to say:
oh how I love you

IX
so
love,
find the bright
in the gray
dinginess
rings loud
you’ve been
hearing
colors
again
smelling sounds
olfactory hallucinations
brought on by a lack of
overhead lighting