One bright red
peony
inappropriately tucked in
your lapel

pierces the greys
of your suit and the sky.

Stiff-legged people in
soggy black shoes stand an
impromptu shoulder-width-apart-

Sharp and flat
piano keys against the concrete.
You stand with your arms around me
like you think I'll fall.
But I think probably I won't.

Somewhere behind the rain
guns are firing ceremoniously
and trembling hands rest delicately
on his folded flag.

(But I -
am peeking past
a sterile wooden door
afraid to see his sunken chest.

How small,
how
very
small he seems.

And he lifts his hand
and waves to me
and I'll never know
if he's saying)

Goodbye.

A liar.  
I am and evil person who is trying to be good.  I am an good person who is afraid she is evil.
I am crippled by self-loathing.  I am the most tender person I know.   I am a
raging lunatic.  I am translucent.  I am deeply in love.

I can't see fast enough to catch the light.
Over and over, the blur escapes focus.
The air is viscous, visceral.  Heavy water presses on me,
weighs on my lungs.
If only I could figure out which wall is the ceiling, I think I'd be OK,
but I can't move my head.
It's tethered.  To a bench,
or a table, or the floor -
the straps at my forehead and chin ratcheted,
ratcheted down leaving me no choice.

No choice.

I have to open my eyes and face what's in front of me,
or close them and face what's inside my head.

If only words were kind,
refined and demure and lacking
in that painful, lonely way.

Glorious loneliness.
Tears of truth: taciturn and tactile.
Wallowing in life

following what's just out of
reach.  Some pious profundity.
Some absolution, validation, vindication, even.

Stupid words.
So full of possibility
and void of promise.