The lawnmower idled—a mechanical reprieve. The engine became a dull lull calling me in. My brother left it running while he went inside to ***. My childhood naïveté and this metal monstrosity. Palpable curiosity.

I made my fingers into blades of grass. ****** them into the plastic chute. The ting of metal slowed when striking bone.

****.

I’m bleeding and screaming now.
Running into the house.

A small scar is all that remains.
That and this lesson:
Always keep your distance,
lest you be destroyed.

I’m trapped, ok. Do you understand? Frozen on Delaware. Teetering on a low-head dam. Praying to be pulled into the drowning machine. Yet stuck like a glitch two seconds from death. I am the déjà vu black cat on loop. Subsisting in a broken economy where heartbeats are stutters of lace in a famished bed. Don’t you get it? I’m not even here. Or there. Call my name and listen to it echo down the halls of Lovers Lane. Ricocheted off the asphalt and taped into cardboard. Left behind in past-due storage units. A scuffed CD-R in a wi-fi world. Desiderium monolithed in bedrock. An analog fossil shipwrecked in minor key. Driftwood grief washed upon a February beach.

he called from the edge
of a cliff
             “look to the stars”

a peach pit
or plum stem
in orbit

adrift

he thinks
about
being forgotten

in the garden
overgrown
no chemical
in the memory

and the room
is more open now
halved
with nectar
dripping

the cosmos
exposed
and he
enters
through the
stone
of a
lychee

is this foundation
made of
salt or sand?
either one ground
between my teeth
hurts
& demands

either one
duned against
the curb
succumbs

everything in its path

no geometry
no math
can undo
the backlash

may the stars
grant us grace

may they forgive us
because we **** at

existing

the strangest
thing

Roots, buried deeper than anything, entwine and constrict until the sap of self-destruction begins to ooze from the seams. That sap spreads into the innermost reaches of the soul, coating everything with a shiny glaze that seems harmless at first... Yet over time, tendencies are created. Inclinations that become part of the trunk of this ever-growing tree of the self. Memories, people, moments... All of it becomes embedded in that sap over time, buried beneath gnarly bark and pain. Because that's all the sap is, really. Pain. Pain which manifests as the careful destruction of the self, even as the tree remains desperate to grow.


[The sap drips and laughs. Man, look at him seethe. We’ve mausoleumed him well. A belly full of poison and a head full of hell. Wait, wait…remind him of his failures and how he’ll never amount to ****. Just a fossil, long forgotten in the amber. Buried in a pit. Don’t let the waters reach his roots. Don’t let the sun kiss his leaves. Drip thick over his eyes and watch his hope disappear in the breeze.]

///

He hears that distant voice... Mocking. Taunting. Reminding him of all he fought to keep, and yet lost anyway. It's a familiar voice. Somehow comforting, despite its scathing words. Because after all, it's a justification for his vices. It gives him freedom, even as it chains. He remains kept from all light and water, and yet convinces himself it's precisely what he wants. He deserves the dark. He deserves to be parched. He deserves a death which refuses to come.


[Yes. Yes. Yes. Let’s put our hands around his throat. Bring him close. Make him play a game. A liver stress test. Edging death. Squeeze him tighter until he’s gasping for breath. His blossom is withering with all of our slithering. Oh look, now he’s crying. Drip, drip, drip…one more glass. Once a tree of life. Now riddled and rotted with endless strife.]

///

Everything spins and goes black once again, as he succumbs in full. No amount of pain, nor sickness, nor consequence can ever make him stop drinking from that chalice of self-hate. It refills again and again, and he guzzles it, only to find it tasting sweeter each time... Like the embrace of a toxic lover, he will return to it always, as his roots had planted themselves so long ago in tainted soil. They tangled themselves so tightly, and so impossibly deep... he could never hope to right them.


[Hurry, quick…grab the blade. He’s too faded to see we’ve fated him into a grave. His wrist is shiny and begging for a kiss. Two or three inches vertically, surely he won’t miss. His fingers wrap around the hilt as he lifts himself from the floor. His shoulders widen. There’s a fire in his core. The roots beneath him shift, as “time to end the pain” departs from his lips.

The razor, it moves swiftly. A shrilling scream echoes, as from the edge…sap drips. It gathers at his feet in a pool. He takes one more sip and laughs: “I may be wretched, yes. But they mistook me for a fool”.]

Soil alchemy under the lilac tree. The smell of a dozen dead tadpoles stuck in the aquarium filter. Porcelain figures—staring at me. Sunshine on Leith. Newspaper film wet with chemicals. Attic bedroom touching. Return of the Mack. Leaf River Napstering. Two scoops of blue moon in a waffle cone. The dial-up tone before 2am A/S/L-ing in a gay chat room. Vinegar dripping from faucets dipped in 24k gold. All of that blood and screaming our silver CR-V to the vet. The midwife and a placenta in the freezer to forget. Cloth diaper pails and thermoforming meltdowns. The domino effect of coming out. All alone in the Jefferson house. A Modern *****. A small fist. A dance floor. The sound of his voice. How all of these things are darlings on a cliff top. Waiting their turn to be ****** off.

But a dream-prayer clawing its way into corporeality

A curse cast to plunge the heads of every deathmaker onto the spikes as a reminder

A rebuke of the money-monger celebrities
who remain silently complicit as thousands of mothers let out

A guttural scream for the severed limbs & excavated hymns of the blessed children

A plea for justice
A song for peace
Sprouting from seed

“Bury Zionism under the rubble of my grief”
she says, as…

[the invocation eclipses into a tangible thing]

“The Nakba is over…”

Palestine is free

[the soft sun rises over Rafah]

‎ٱلْحَمْدُ لِلّٰهِ

“…alhamdulillah…”

From the river to the sea

Grandmother clock longing to tock. Her second hand pleading to sweep the face. Graze the six or touch the twelve. It had been a long stretch of silence since the lithium drained.

Grandfather bottle is empty too. He hit that babysitter like the side of a parked car. The chrome finish—split. It had been a long stretch of time since he avoided a headline.

Son long gun hanging on the wall. Displayed like the prey he sprayed with powder. A face unrecognizably rouged with bits slipping down the drain. It had been a long stretch of night since he loved his own blood.

Father three candles on a window sill. A distance spread like an animal hide. Brittle to the touch—no formaldehyde. He reaches into the moonlight, but it had been a long stretch of days since the flames touched his meager face.

Mother/daughter save us with your grace. A gentle tick of forgiveness like the unnumbered  hours in this temporal place. We do what we can & then try again in this vacuum of humanness & deep void of space.

Some tethers cannot be severed. I remind myself of this amidst the distance. A ******* doctor and his husband stitch. Sometimes a father impedes the celestial bond of a boy and his mama. And that’s a *****. That’s a trauma. But the stars can heal us. Mothers. Sons. Papa’s too. I want to shatter every tradition. Let the blooded cords renew. I’m here. I never left. My honesty is not a theft. I just want your love…not a miracle. And there is nothing more biblical than that which is umbilical.

The bewildering crispening of a cold shoulder. A subtle shift of your weight. Like a gearbox and an acceleration. Away from me. This is a freeway. All chaos. With no way back to…us.

The world softens as the jackals tear into gray matter. A pound of flesh? Take twenty. Saran wrapped and gasped with elastic tongues releasing. Maybe I shouldn’t eat? Crawl across the floor. Starving. The repulsion neatly packed into too many to-go containers. Buy one, get one free. Clamshells waiting silently for a low tide feast.

You wince. Wave your tears like a flag. Weeping for the hellfire perceived to lick me up. But let me tell you daddy-o…I’m a snack. Your nightmare of a son. A ****-*******, pearl-clutching heart attack.

The shape of me is still here.

The one you taught to bait a hook & reel in a catch. There are two worlds whose shoulders brush. A bobber in a still pond & a broken back. Frog legs in a bag, battered & fried. The other fathers cried. A ****** mess.

The shape of me is still here.

Mutilated, yes. Kissing the flame & wiping the wet from your eyes. Can you comprehend? Have you even tried?

I’m salivating for vermouth like sand in my throat. There’s an app for that. Add to cart. Juniper berries and high tea. Click. Scroll. Oil of the rind. Transaction cleared, but I’m dying on the vine. I need dissociation. Scroll. Scroll. Too many apps to tap. Into a black hole. Stirred into the perfect dilution. Update my software. I need a golden ratio. Cross my heart and pay the fines. I am a fermented thing. Twisted onto the rim of the goblet of time.

I breeze into the bar alone
Order a drink then
Waltz on my own

Four fated eyes
Fog machine
Collide

Seven blocks
Until home
Debauchery
On the dome

The ******* twist of
Pinkened papilla
Candled glow
Sandalwood
Vanilla

Your tongue the till
To my loam
I shrill

You blissed me
So sweet
Sugar stains
On my sheet

Your departure
While slippery
Is no less
A victory

Something went awry with the experiment because his skin became translucent for a few seconds when time bent. Now in some ancient city and the people in the street are coughing. Stumbling into a building, he slumps to the floor next to three dead bodies. He knows he can’t go back. He knows the sickness is coming. The sun sets an amber glow across his cheek as a small bird sings. “It’s the future I miss the most”, he thinks. A flash of his daughter's smile…as he falls asleep.

Every cell a living thing. Boundless ripples of autonomy. My cell is venom. Birthed to sting. No form of evolution will twist me into something good. Fang me up and set me free. I poison everything. If the universe could shift and reverse. Maybe then I’d find my home. Slurped back into the infinite. A place before the bang of time. Where absolute chaos was not my design.

The ship left the bay 10 years ago, bro. So why does this carve my arteries like a heartless severing? I dunno. I guess I’m broke in. Like a ******* hauling too many groceries. All the while this is what you’ve shown me: how shadow can be soft.

I’m sat by the river when the sunlight crests & the scalpel sneaks in.

Like an end-of-times film where the people we love simply disappear. Why am I so surprised? I don’t know. I guess I’ve spent another token. A naive kid in an arcade fantasy. But the neon gas burned out from the inside. Every vessel & every vein are collapsing, my guy.

& these poor lonely bones are forgotten—
just like the rain.

I see a lone moose bellowing at the end of the world. From a neighboring ice cap, I kneel until my bones scream. & in a sweater poorly knit, I sing one last song to the three souls split from my own.

I know you hate me. Foals ripped from a home. A kitchen beam to hang all things lovely. But Rochelle rusted clean & chariots dragged us into new things unfolding on a serpent’s tongue. I see a hollow carcass in the shed drained of plasma.

What remains is spirit. A whisper of hope. Can you hear it? From the lips of an antique angel on a tree. You & you & you & me. Grey spaces in between. & when the loaf is cut in half will there be room for forgiving?

Collar my throat and pull until it chokes. Rip me into a smile & hairspray the grin. An aluminum can to lacquer the split ends. “Everything’s fine”, he says. For the love of god, call the guards when I’m carving the walls with my claws. Zip-tie my zealous thoughts and draw my blood. Tap the microphone and read the results. The infection sings like a loon bellowing. Soon I’ll be gone. & with your leash tightening, I scream: “Be wary, my children of the master. His ways are tricky and his fingers are alabaster.”

G.I. Joes exploding
With a pillow gripped
M80 in my hand
Becoming

A Cobra Commander
Villain in the making

Hiding behind office walls
And bathroom stalls
A bomb maker
Tripped breaker

Flip me back
& forth
But I’m 15 amps
When I should be 20

Empty

So toss me out
With frozen fingers
Forget me
In the warmth of
A kerosene heater

I’m back in summer
Like bitter tea
As you disappear
Into the grass
Screaming
Like a banshee

You’ll never be
Proud, it seems

Alone
In this city
Still
Soldering wires
& exploding
S a d l y

seasons greetings
and estranged feelings

no hearth
to light the dark

not on the back porch
or through a window, peering

your chair is in the lake now
drowned
blacked out

happy new year
my dear

you’ve been erased
sheared from the frame
a blank space