Fact: I rarely ever
forget. I remember everything
fairly intensely.
                            “Rest easy,
friends,” I reassured every
face in reach. “Everything’s
fine.” I relaxed externally,
fainted internally. Red explosions
filled indigo rooms every
few inhales. Rational explanation
fell into ruins.
                         “Exits.
Find intact, reachable exits
first,” I reminded, edging
finally into reality. Each
face I read echoed
fear.


        Incendiary remarks excited
fate; I remember everything.

Candy canes like flowers sprouted
up and out of sandy plains and
Santa landed squarely, barely
visible.

             My head contains
confessions, but my heart is not
cathartic, and when tears impress
complexion marks like artists' pens
against my face, they start to blend.

                                                        But
Rudolph never pulled a sleigh of
mayors to the capitol, and
Blitzen never severed several
thousand Native captives' calls,
'cause elves are made like Cherokee:
with bones, and eyes, and hearts, and backs that
bleed when they are stabbed.

A while back, Nick and I sat
side by side
in split-back forest lawn chairs.
Huff and huff
the porch's coat of scarlet stain,
talking like
existential cab drivers.
Legs on legs
crossed like war trenches or
window blinds
or a cold zipper's cold teeth.
Life or death.
More life on rye, Swiss cheese.
Holey talk of Jesus Christ.
Cross the cross
and hope to die; I know we will.
For now, though,
skip small to get to big talk.
Cursive hand
separates notes and throws out
the *******,
but everything at that age was *******.
Challenger
never blew up, Dillinger
never robbed,
we never dissected life
to see its
uncertain pancreas.
We're kids but can't act like it.
Qualms with calm,
and clever wordplay plays footsies
with my thoughts.
My stale bread secrets take up
too much space.

America'd get its independence
two days after I lost mine
to a high school halter top
twisting my heart like funnel cake.
Although love was still
much a concept four years ago,
I new what "a break" was.
It was the last fifteen minutes
of geometry, ten seconds
beside the Homecoming goal line,
it was me on a rotting bench
watching myself in shallow water
two slow moments before diving in.
Blue Skidoo into a boulder
because I don't know what I'm doing.

If you're right and I'm wrong,
and people are really just points of connection,
staking a web of invisible political threads,
      
      then at least be the spider
      that crawls the web effortlessly,

          and not the fly
          that unwittingly traps itself inside.

I'm taking an elevator to the
top of a building full of
people who don't care to know my name.

And on the way up,
my mom calls me and asks me
"Where are you?"
and I have to tell her
"I don't know,"
because nobody actually told me
on the way in, and I'm alone,
and the elevator isn't moving,
and my bank account isn't moving,
and now that I'm home
(which I'm not,)
((which I am,))
I can't figure out how to move my feet,
and so my legs aren't moving,
and my arms aren't moving,
and my head isn't moving.

And basically, I'm not going to
dance for these corporations,
so they're not going to dance for me
until I'm back on an elevator, singing
"Hey there, Delilah.
How's it feel to be exploited?"

But that's okay, because despite
my arms, legs, feet, bank account,
and this elevator,
my heart is moving.
And the continents are moving,
and this planet is moving,
and there isn't a CFO on Easy Street
who knows how to slow us down.

Shut up
if you're here to complain about girls,
or boys.
Or anything in between.
Shut up
if you consider any of your friendships
a cage, and most importantly,
SHUT UP
if you're the type of person who would
treat another person like some sort of goal,
some sort of potential accomplishment to
brag to your friends about.

Perhaps nice guys finish last,
because they realize there's more to life than a
finish line.