You are hidden
in the back of my brain and repressed
in an attempt to be forgotten.
Only to be remembered
when triggered by a touch or voice.

You rise from the shadows,
making yourself known,
conquering all my other memories,
pushing everything aside.

You dominate my head,
I applaud you for your assertiveness,
always winning the battle,
King of my mind,
until you are lost
no more.

Sometimes I drink by myself
like too many do, maybe you, too
when the wind blows like it does
here on the coast when it’s clear
and the light of dead stars come
down to swim in your circle of blood
while thinking back about the sisters
of boys I used to run with, oh, you know
we’d give our trigger fingers just to
touch them again, but the war keeps
seeping back into us like the poison
that pours into our rivers and creeks
from long gone cotton fields now paved
where the clouds of those days
are all that gets weighed in at the gin
I swear, there’s a pattern to all of this
like the weave of a tight skirt on a girl
who I once fell in love with in school
I went all crazy from watching her twist.