With special thanks to George Ella Lyon*

I am from crumbling brick
(red, dusty, smelling of musk).
I am from aluminum siding
and triple-deckers,
tall, strong, unmovable.

Hailing from the city on about seventy hills.
From Grandfathers and photo albums,
cigar ash salad and pinecone wars.
From "use your imagination" and "go play in the street".

I am from a whirlwind of faith,
belief from non-believers.

From schoolyards, playgrounds, and crawlspaces
come these faces, and these memories
are worth more to me, than anything.

The children of this town speak of vacation and travel.
Worrying about the summer before it's even Spring.
I tell them, "why, why, why are you
LEAVING here before you've fulfilled your night-
time fantasy?"
They board a train or ship uncoothed and begging for more time.
I tell them "the ones you want are here already, in your being. They are
present and ready to be called out of the closets and crawlspaces of your dwellings,
looking for the belongings
you forwarded them in the shape of skin and grain and blood."
I tell them "Alone you leave this city and your self returns with you,
empty, even emptier than at birth. This city is your womb,
you can't escape the placental waters of your home,
the umbilical rail, the breathing air."
But when it is summer, they go. To be gone, to starve
the children in the closets clawing at
the fastened latch and watching time escape their follicles.
While they are sitting in darkness, we tell them we left to get away, to catch a sky
that crashes into distant lands or hold up
stars with out bare hands.
We say "bless this city and the state of our birth."
We stand, alive, unconquered and surprised that closet children are dead when we get back
it's just us in this city
                                      With all stars surrounding
                                      Unseen with the same lights
                                      We saw out there which blot them out
                                      The sky has fallen and our hands are cleaned
                                      By the starving blood of closet children
                                      Whom we refused to feed
                                      Dried up under the moon.

To adolescent girls
We know infatuation as love.
A cute boy, paying attention and being kind
Unlike our mothers and fathers.
Or a handsome young man
Showing just enough distance, and disinterest,
That it is familiar, but we do not yet know why…
So the starving soul craves more, more, more.
So our stupid hearts say love, love, love.
I do not know about you,
But in retrospect I do not think that I loved these boys.

I would sit up late, plagued with an insomniac’s depression.
Thinking of these boys that had left me in the dust,
Commercials playing loudly over an old box television.
My impressionable brain unaware of the absorption of utter *******.
But the logical fallacies of consumerism and capital leaked into my psyche,
As I begged to be noticed.
Rebranding myself every so often
Once even under a different name.  Always new labels;
A cheerleader, an emo, a stoner, a scholar
Trying to find some sense of self,
Trying to sell my soul (subconsciously) for acceptance.

No one ever understood me like you,
And I dare to say, perhaps out of ego, that no one has ever understood you like me.
You've had friends for longer than me now,
You are happy, without me, clinging to your side.
Maybe you are understood once again
Maybe you are the chameleon that I once was.
Either way, I want you to be happy, do as you do.
Although I can no longer be the chameleon,
I cannot change my colors as life goes on around me, fitting in whatever life throws at me.
I feel old, I am deeply tired.  
I know that I am young, but I have seen too much.
I threw my life away for a self-titled happiness extract,
Isolation and degradation became all I knew.
Cynicism rose up inside of me, and when I heard the commercials I once fell asleep to
I decided that not only the advertisements,
But the world was *******.

I remember young adolescence,
I recall kisses and uncomfortable fondling in basement bathrooms and crawlspaces with these boys in which I thought that I loved,
That never cared for me like I cared for them,
Even so it was infatuation and not love.
I remember a kiss in your bed.
I remember the absolute terror when it occurred to me, years later.
I never loved anyone softly,
I loved viciously, desperately, and even loved just to cling on for life.
I loved you softly, I loved you dearly, I loved you deeply.
I always told myself it was platonic, but it was neither platonic or romantic.
I just loved you, like I had never loved anyone else.  Without fear, without sacrifice, without dereliction.
I did not realize this
Until a state-assigned therapist pointed out in the basement of the facility I resided
“When you speak of her, I see love in your eyes that I don't ever see.”
I hated her for that,
“Dumb *****, I love writing, I love music, I loved Xander, I love my family!”
“But Caidyn,” she said
“I have not ever seen this kind of love in your eyes.”
It occurred to me then, and not until then
That when I held you, as you slept
In a hotel room after a concert
As infomercials bellowed violently into my soul
That I will never feel that sense of warmth, happiness and belonging ever again.
Not to say I won't find love,
But the innocence and naïveté
The faith I had, that we would escape side by side
And always remain side by side.
I know now,
That your first love
Never works out like that.

I dream of days where ridiculous advertisements filled my sleepy brain without judgement,
Because for any glimpse of hope I get
I am devoured by longing.
I remember how “everything is *******”.
And feel guilty for my bitterness.
I realize I am no longer young in spirit
I am not the demographic for any meaningless advert.
I am a forgotten human, not an outcast, but a memory to those I cared for.
I can no longer avoid it.
I think of when I held you,
and didn't even think anything of it.

**** the mailman
the bad news bringer
make it look
like they crashed their car
before dropping off the letter
do it to the next one to
and the next
till they stop bringing bad news
and just send you an email
then smash the computer
and build a nest in the crawlspaces
hide till the end
eventually
THEY'LL
get the message
probably.