My boot prints leave train tracks in the snow
Because I walk with a shuffle
My parts are incomplete; I find

walking uncomfortable

No one step feels the same
But right now it’s okay
Because between three feet of snow
A moon so perfectly halved
Under a sky naked of its stars
I feel
As if my shuffle
Is graceful
As if my walk;
Permanent
As if my steps
Are purposeful
Even if a little

Awkward

I am standing under a street light in three feet of snow
Not feeling cold
Or alone
Even though its cold
And I’m alone
My mind
It does not mumble
My speech
It does not stutter
My hands they do not shake here
I
Am permanent
I am whole here
My veins
They do not show here
They are not vulnerable in their color
Here
My heart
Doesn't skip a beat
My breath doesn't waver
here I do not hear
Ticking clocks in my head
I do not say clicking tots in my head
My speech is free of stutter
My mind as certain as these disappearing footprints
My walk, well
I still shuffle

They stuff cotton down your mouth
Because it’s the only thing that doesn't choke you
When they try to muffle your sounds out
But you scream with your eyes better than you
Ever did with words

It’s a sharp sound that hurts to look at
And you knew that contradictions were the best arguments
you said  “Arguments are the best way to show someone
How much you love them because
you are giving them your words
And that is the best thing to give.”  disagreement said “Or you could give em’
Some of your M&M;’s.”

They hung mosaics of your destruction on the walls and called it “Art”
So you punched a hole through your bathroom mirror and called it “Creation”
Spent the fourth day naming your shards “Zues” “Cordelia”. Saved the sharpest one
And called it “Helen”, said “Pain only ever hurts when its beautiful.” Disagreement said
“You’re a ****** up sadomasochistic *****”

On the fifth day you dreamt your father held you
Except it wasn't your father it was a ******* who found you
frozen to a street light
On the sixth day you called me and said: “I have a name for creation;
It’s destruction.”
On the seventh day they found you praying to the  images on a TV screen
Holding onto a mathematical calculation in your hand
Calling it the formula to happiness
The numbers spelled out




D   R  U  G  S

In the hanging kitchen, the smell-
cut cayenned sausage, ejective tomato slices
the whole thing in the back of the throat, inflamed.
Olive oil. Vinegar. Billie talks about her "girl
friend." She lives in Mayfair. (Almost pretty;
don't look too long.)

At times I feel sick.

American man he
strikes the figure of a half-God
broad-shouldered, burned
he does Not exist, John Henry
split his bust long ago and we
are huddled small boys imperfect
in the dust of his legacy.

Our fathers stood from dinner tables kissed
wives were kissed by children one last sip of old
wines and walked into the night looking
for burned-up lamps, the memories of mountains.
Ate stone. Drank mist.
(A thirst for adventure is close to your heart.)
Fell into the grit, the failure, fell
into everything.
(Little else has taste once the spice of life is on your tongue.)

I have nothing but my understanding.
I want to be swaddled, paralytically blind, shamelessly loved.
Or to go out in the wicker
world, there to find whatever our best
died looking for, tigers or ruins or
a life after adventure.