sometimes i trick my body into becoming something else    something unrecognizable
i tell it to sleep peacefully or   to remember the embrace of a friend long gone

often the body becomes a symbol of what was lost
a friend a childhood a reason   i tell myself the bruises are just autographs or love notes   they never stay but i convince my body to feel them   still  
is this desperation or just another species of grief?

i have discovered so many that i’ve run out of names
“crying on the side of the highway overpass”
or “a sound i did not recognize as my own until months later”
or “a dream i had once but wish for still every night”
or “picturing his broken hands folded over a lifeless belly covered by a worn football sweatshirt”

sometimes i believe in ghosts   i was taught to fear the sacrilegious  but i lost faith since    

january has been ten months long    the chill follows me no matter how far i run

sometimes i trick my body into becoming something else    but mostly i trick it into becoming an unremarkable hollow thing