There are holes in my brain          and I shovel words to bury
                                       that emptiness

I look for laughter                                          that's not my own

I search my hometown graveyard
                     the spaces of your affection

I'm flipping through the oldest books
                     ******* in the autumn air;

I cannot find the thing                                                  I lost

There are holes in my brain but I kept you,
                                       Heart,

                    perhaps a different way of craving
                                     wholeness

I chore by woozy by smoking everything in sight
I chore by medicating and letting the sides affect me
crying at roadkill by owning taking up space not taking care

I burden by poetry by reading you poetry
talking too fast remembering too little
by walking alone     unsafe

I chore by panicking at white trucks and appetite suppressants I didn’t ask for
crying (always) at eight years at five years at 24 months
at the always that keeps shrinking away from me

Now I chore astoundingly
by decluttering by choring myself cleaning and painting and feeling alive alive alive!

Though touching is not a burden to you. Groping is not a burden.
No-chore kissing and hands on my ***
whenever and too much to be frank
give me my boundaries my no's

But you should know
I am not a burden a task to complete dead weight snag hitch knot Loving
me is not a chore.

I wrote in a poem once that you didn't understand about a no one that you saw as yourself.
I felt your beating heart then and knew you now it's true
I can't touch you but it's no matter.