With a flick of my worn down lighter I ignite my last Marlboro
The noises echoing from inside my house fell like a pulsing beat
I lay back, dried grass pillowing my head near a rabbit burrow
Pulling in a deep breath of smoke I hold in the menthol treat

My mother’s shrill laugh trills out and shakes me from my reverie
I really must rejoin people; leave my place in the clouds at night
But just for awhile I stay and let my bones soak in the lunar energy
Before I leave I memorize my connection to nature, my place in it’s light

Inside those walls my relaxation slides from my body, gently numbing me
Creating a world in which I’ll never feel panicked or elated
They live within my bubble of joy, I console them, and they are free
And never have to live with the knowledge that I’m sedated.

I will keep you; stuff you in a corner of my mind
Wrapped tightly like a Christmas present
Hidden as badly as my mother used to,
Like putting them on a top shelf will do.
The memories are dear to me and near to me,
But I refrain from examining them just yet.
I will leave them secluded and ostracized
Like the kids who play Dungeons and Dragons,
Like the girls who wear boy’s t-shirts,
From the clearance section in Wal-Mart.
Eventually I will be able to dust them off,
Take you out of your mental Auschwitz
Where I’ve thought, even if I tried not to
That maybe I was wrong about you and me.
Maybe my constant rambling, like the announcers,
The ones in Airports, repetitively shouting
Rules! Regulations! Announcements! Things!
Maybe that really got on your nerves.
Maybe things were always imbalanced and awkward.
I’ve built plenty of utopias in my mind,
Ignoring the reality of a situation until it ends.
But I’m not going to know for a while now
Whether or not I was right and you were wrong,
Or I was wrong and you were wrong.

The most comfortable and easiest relationship
I have ever had is with my own self-loathing.
It’s almost natural at this point to expect failures.
The whispered criticisms rise in my mind,
A crescendo of hatred and mutiny,
Quieted only by the sound of my door opening.
Soft footsteps shuffle across the carpet and ***** clothes
Stepping over unfinished homework
And an unraveling purple blanket made of yarn.
The din in my mind reminding me of faults,
Failures, stupid conversations I have had,
And every insecurity my subconscious can think of,
Stops completely as I feel the bed dip beneath your weight.
I wait, as still as I can be, for the feel of your hand on my hair,
Brushing it back, out of my eyes with a smile.

I could feel the gentle snag of my bathing suit bottoms on cement,
Enjoying the sliver of shade against the afternoon sun that’s offered.
All six of us had been running home ready to change and watch cartoons,
Until labored breathing slowed you down. I stayed to keep you company, and
I watched and waited while you fought your feet back into their bracers.
Pretty, purple, and pink; they fit perfectly into your shoes, swim or sneakers;
Without them your painfully high arches would end up broken or bruised.
I turned away to stare down at a pair of black men’s dress shoes with worn laces.

I stared down at those worn laces wondering why they were so old, and
In those impeccably new black patent dress shoes reflecting my face.
I let my eyes slowly drift up the length of this man, every inch a new perspective.
I couldn’t understand where he’d come from or what he was doing, and
What’s his shirt say? We won’t learn more cursive until next year at least.
I’m cold. My eyes are no longer straining against the sun. Goosebumps erupt.
I’m snapped from the retreat into my mind with a sound it couldn’t mask,
I looked to you, then up to his hands brandishing your bracer, I’d heard it crack.

I took stock of my surroundings to figure out why my mind had shut down,
I was fully awake and racing to catch up, to rescue us, to find a solution.
You can’t defend yourself with a broken bracer and your swimsuit on the ground.
I pulled my suit into place, armoring myself against him, and tried to think.
Before my mind was made up I felt my foot rising to kick, hoping to catch some *****
While you bit his arm with the same ferocity you generally reserved for your teachers.
You spat out his blood and what looked like some flesh with a maniacal laugh
While I grabbed your arm and dragged you away from him and back home.

I remember it distinctly
That feeling under my nails
The tearing of skin as I ripped away the tape
And shredded the sheet of waxy paper
That separated me from the seeing everything clearly
And living in the world fully with everyone else

I remember the demolition vividly
Where I screamed and kicked at my self-imposed cage
Desperate for an escape from therapeutic exile
“It’s for your own safety!” they cried dully from the other side
I remember purposefully ignoring them
And even making a ****** gesture

I left and I left with haste
I didn’t stop to admire the splendor
Or even discover color again
Walking out into the real world with no film
I took in a deep breath of reality
Alone and alive and free at last, once again

Now, though, as I remember the paper
That sheet that veiled me, or was it protecting me
I remember the outside
It was scratched and mottled and ****** up beyond all saving
And I think about my new face, my new expressions
And I see a reflection of others and choices I didn’t make

I’ve become things and done things
Things you couldn’t tell your mother
Lost my chance to run for cover
So come on down the liquid sings
My warmth is like no other

If the stars burning the brightest die out the fastest  
I think I’ll live forever on the edge, right at the precipice
Where the sense of success is too sharp to be sweet.
Moving my feet in place with no imagined progress
Picturing eternity here, with you and I entwined.

Forever at the brink of ******, still and staring in the street
While lives like asymptotes and moves like glaciers meet.
Denying myself the satisfaction, the decadence
Of falling. Falling and flying, crying to know I’m alive,
Realizing exactly how much there is to do before the end.  

Like stagnant waters running deep and hot
Slow down with me and feel this bright tension
Feel that intense stillness right before you get caught.
I’m melting your moves to molasses,
Become a statuesque beauty with me wrapped around you

Like ruins of old cities and the ragged edge of a canyon
We’ll be perfect and timeless in our immobile state
Never changing, perpetually frozen and preserved,
Never reaching the point where any motion brings the end.
We can stay at the top and never fall down if we don’t even breathe.

Irony of perception and existence
The supposed gift of humanity
Able to live with and without meaning
A drone with the capabilities of a king

Feels more and more like a curse
Like an ant who saw through God’s eyes
Viewing every beauty and terror and complexity
If only for a short moment

Then shrinking back down to carry sugar
But always remembering the sight
Moving saccharine treats wearily
With the heavy burden of knowledge

Which bred distaste for simplicity
Which bred scorn for complexity
Making life on either plane a cross
And one he must bear alone