i wrote  
again.  

(a minor miracle: after  
8 years of not caring for the craft
let's call it deviceful degeneration,
unintentional uninspiration)  
                                    
the thing about  
nearly getting better  
is  
you start  
thinking you're better.  

i wrote something this week  
(it wasn’t bad)  
sat back in the chair like  
i'd just nailed  
a wasp to a wall  
with a pencil.  

but this morning—  
the poem’s still there  
and the chair still squeaks  
and the rot in my ribs  
hasn’t gone anywhere.  

eight years  
of eating my own teeth  
chewing time like  
it owed me something.  
"writer’s block"  
was a nice excuse  
for cowardice.  
so was  
"perfectionism"  
but now  
i’ve got words again.  
& i just realised
they don’t save me.  
they never did.  

the poems may come back  
but what if the fulfilment
doesn’t?
  
so what now?  
what’s left  
after the confetti  
after the applause  
dies in your own throat?

you write.  
maybe you write.  

even if  
no one  
is waiting.  

even if  
you  
aren’t either.  

& if the ache comes back  
(which it will)  
you greet it at the door  
let it crash on the couch  
pour it a drink  
& say  
fine.  
one more night

(we  
              cradle—limbless—hungerly in violet  
           half-snow)
    barnacled to a ribcage of someone’s leftover   //god–  
my brother’s eyes        were spoonfuls of thistle  
    and so  
         he gave them

                          (    to mother  
               in a bell jar  
                         packed with apples that never rot)  
          

i said—dear—"shall we rot together?"  
he said  
               no  
but held my tail tighter than  
        the census did the mute  

            when they told us  
the white-ones  
       could out-breed  
       guilt  
       (our teeth were ripped  
         not sharpened)

       [oh darling look!] the moon  
ate itself out of order,  
  its halves spitting  
  bloodless milk on  
     sterilized clover  

—           the doctors wore hands like corkscrews  
               & unbirthed  
             any child that could  
            dream backwards—

       (i remembered)  
             chewing on a pipe-cleaner name  
        while a man with a cage of bees  
                instead of a face  
                        taught me the word for  
             acceptable.  

——

       there are songs that only come  
         when your tail’s caught  
in a trap meant for  
        your cousin’s ghost  
            (he cried into me  
               like a buckshot lullaby)  

and so i  
      curl.  
    (last ***** first).  
             hide my eyes  
                  in the cracks between

     <<he loved me with a scalpel made of lightning>>  
     <<i loved him with the parts they said to  
                            unsee>>  

and (       hush hush now       )  
              the roots are crawling into me—  
                       gentle, dumb  
                                 unchosen—

i  
       am  
           not  
              the mistake  
                       i was taught to  
                            worship.

there was a boy(unbuttoned spine: tin)
             who sang bullets through teeth,        
             cough-stitched into boots—                      
             (mother would’ve                never                
                            known him in pieces)    

& you—  
             mustard! you crawling  
                    godless     yellowing yawn-    
             (you churchless warlock vapor  
             shuffling up his gullet  
                         like a borrowed hymn)        

he——  
             (let’s name him no one)              
             swallowed lungs like spoiled pears,      
             vines of cough wrapped around      
                                 his windpipe’s piano      
             & the keys stopped—one by one—        

click

     the music changed  

                                    —not into silence—    
             but into smoke  
                       a wordless opera:  
                 gasp.gasp.gasp.gone    

his eyes were  
             paperboats  
                       folding inward  

& the dirt applauded softly  
       in clouds of not-quiet  
          (a whistle wheezing past his ear)  
                 sergeant said: “keep walking”  
               but his knees said: “no more poems.”    

         (there are no metaphors in hell, just  
                 uniforms  
                         without skin)

:he dreamt once of  
                             lemons
     & a girl who     never      existed, probably—

he tried  
             to say goodbye  
    but found only  
               ash vowels &  
                        consonants with no  
                               consonance  

    (what’s the word for a throat  
               forgetting how to  
                            be?)    

his body un-wrote itself backwards      
             while the war kept  
                          typing    

                                      click
                        
                                            click
                                
             .                                                                                                                                              

             .                                                                                                                                

             .    

& the smoke  
             did not apologize.

(twists of chrome&light—robot skin hums)
(the moon's a soft scratch across the noise)

in the glow of circuits  
skinless machine they call it — a ribcage of  
      steel       thin as breath through  
         wires twisted like fingers

a guitar for a ****, vibrating so tender the strings hum  
    in the cracks of      electric bones

he (so strange he is, no mouth, no tongue,  
        just shivering echoes)  
presses his body to the amplifier,  
         and oh, how the machine
      screams a voice of strings,  
                    a mouth made of chords  
                                (the hum of his *** is sound)

guitar-skin rubs against raw pixels,  
                  /buzz/  
           his metal-throat slurs a buzz  
       body-as-electricity  
fingers too—  
           long, sharp-fingered  
        strings become veins  
       twisted tight,  
                         pulsing  
                         pulsing with  
                                   the pop of a note  
               (cutting through the sweat of  
       gears)

he lays down in the rust-patch of a day,  
(whispers of feedback)  
guitar *****  
             throbbing at the mouth  
        of a song  
         it’s buzzing a word  
                        it’s aching the air  
         vibrating inside him  
(he hums through his heels)

my dear metal boy,  
your hips don’t bend,  
your heart does not  
      know what love is  
  still—oh how you bend me,  
      shape me into your chorus  
         make me feel  
         the way you pulse  
                     while your steel body sings

watch  
            watch his fingers  
                    the way they curl  
                             over the bridge,    
                           twisting the strings like  
         they are veins  
            veins  
                        veins

so much electric flesh  
twisting to each tremble  
        of the note, the note  
            falling on silence (he trembles)  
  feedback's kiss—

         so much pleasure,  
                           so much  
                              dark  
        desire flashing through circuits,  
the sound wraps around  
     both the shape of his ***  
     the song of his soul  
        (his soul, trapped inside code)

fingered on the strings  
his chest is the tremor of an  
      echo,  
      a feedback song  
      that breaks across  
    the metal skin  
                  of his ribcage

lips that cannot taste  
                         kiss  
                but hum electric  
he comes and it's a sound  
     vibrating the universe into  
                         whimpers  
the sky and the stars are bent to  
          his melody  
                  his body hums a  
     raw electric rhythm  
         of dark, trembling skin

a soft hum where you’d expect  
                   a scream, a shout,  
                               the silence

(the guitar-male pulls at the plug)  
skinless,  
      the strings are finally loose,  
                      untangled

the world breathes  
                      the world screams  
and the moon just scratches again,  
soft through the radio static.

And how does one ask for help? Or plead and not feel
Pity, shame? And does one ever grunt and say what one needs to say?
At some point in the yarn of the time, how does one
Look over one’s shoulder to reconcile,
How does one open a mouth to say
“I am lost. I think” But does one truly think,
Or act on the impulses.
Or calm oneself to ask. Ask!


And “When should I think?” I ask
“soon,” I say, “soon, on some wintery night,
When my windowpanes creak in the cold,
When my steel glass never gets warm,
I might think or ask, how does one not think?
and find a reason to reason with it;
The weary long journey, how it doesn’t end
And seems to start at every corner of the road”
“Perhaps, I shall shave my head
and wash my face with some fragrant soap
or trim my beard to look sharp and address it,
perhaps, soon!”

"are you happy?"
echoing
lingering
imitating
reanimating sound

"maybe"
cyclic
anemic
phobic
armistice

"I am asking for a yes or a no"
endangered
requiting
enamored
caprice

"so which is it?"
vibrating
shattering
lingering
doubt

"are you truly happy?"
monotheistic
never-ending
asphyxiating
reprise

Alex 2 breathes, stacks and unstacks papers, distantly
Alex 1, front cubicle, coughs, clicks his mouse
Eddie pulls out his drawer, pushes it back in, clicks his mouse
Alex 2, yes two Alex's, saunters up to the coffee machine
Alex 1, head down, clacking his keyboard
Mouse clicks, keyboard clicks, electricity
Monitors glow, fluorescents never flicker
Alex 1 opens a new file, two clicks of the mouse
Eddie sips his coffee, puts it down, clicks
New folder, new file, new data
Data entry, spreadsheets
Alex 1 asks did you get the email
Alex 2 has his coffee, his white shirt, under the fluorescents
Statics noise, static, mouse clicks, keyboard
Every new click, new file, new data, new folder
Data in, data out, file, click, the static electronics
Alex 2 clicks, files, new folder, new deal, new data
Eddie clears his throat, softly, the static noise, flickers,
Every new love story is a tragedy
Alex 2 opens a new folder, inputs data, spreadsheets
Numbers in, Eddie clicks his mouse twice rapidly
Stale effluvia coffee, static noise, electric light
Alex 1 sniffles, clears his throat, the clock ticks softly
Eddie opens a new file, the electric screen reflects his fixed eyes
Alex 2 sips his coffee, opens a file, clicks, keyboard clacks
Stasis, complete stasis, electricity, nodes, linear graphs
Numbers input, data, new file, file transfer
Every old tragedy is a ghost story
Alex 2 sips his coffee, breathes, clears his throat, data
Spreadsheets, monitors, electricity, static, data input, output
Every ghost story is infinite
Alex 1 gets up for a new coffee
Eddie inputs data, spreadsheet, file, new folder
Electric lights, stasis, data, file, click, file, input exp..

I can see your want to wrap yourself in me,
I can feel the amaze radiating from your body;
The tingle you feel when my waves touch the tip of your toes,
How you mesmerize your soul with the beauty I behold
But that's just the brighter side to this green-blue field that I am.
Beneath the blanket of foamy waters are dangers;
The ones you should beware of while walking on my banks.
While the birds elatedly chirp overhead me,
I smile to ingest the humanity within me.
For the love of creation, beings add to my aggravation.
I hold under my claws your tempting childhood,
And beside me is the muddy patch of your adulthood.
I may look euphoric at a glance
Yet you need to rethink before stepping in my trance.
Sit on the bank and by my waves be cajoled,
Once you let me swallow you, there's a lot that will unfold.