Holding onto reality with both hands
His social life in a cup of coffee as he waits
Swamped sinking lifeboats
No longer accepting applications
For jobs that have sailed away

Buried alive, a napkin waiting its turn
To be plucked out and used
Then thrown out
Lucky if recycled and repurposed
To a younger man’s vision

Torn apart, his skills repackaged, Frankensteined for each resume
The boring job of cutting checks means he was
A bookkeeper, an accountant, detail oriented,
Friendly to external and internal users or customer service driven
Or any combination of above.

Leaving his car at home, he walks,
Afraid of running out of money for gas and repairs
Wondering what pieces he will put together today
Reducing his years of experience to a tweet
Comprehensible to the child in charge of his future.

Let a cascade
Feel a little more like dew bubbles
Burst to be with you
On a sunny, lawdy day.

Let the crushed eyes
Be squeezed hands
One in the other
Swinging on the bench.

Let the red face
Be the choke of laughter
At the joke we sewed together
Frankensteined away.

Let the bitter teeth
Bite my lip
And take the inked promises
Into something with a life to lose.

Let the hanging head
Fall asleep on my shoulder.

What is such a pain,
But an ivory sheet
Where we may not sleep,
But lose blood?

What is birthing the new day together,
But another way to say I feel it,
But another way to begin again?
The fall told us to begin again.

my bones that have now carried worlds
are frankensteined bits of shells and shrapnel glued
together with calcium paste
and slathered in blue dye
to make everything look new---

I was so whole.

I have now already fractured
in every predictable place,
re-engineered and retrofitted my consciousness with
seismic dampers
and levees

and I am so strong, now.

how does it feel to know that it was you who broke me?
there is no one---
not even you could do what you did to me
again

and it feels good to be a god but mostly infuriating
to think of the fragile thing I used to be
for you, when you knew me.

I haven't seen a waterfall in 4 years,
my re-grafted skin has lost all its electric-sensitivity
and my heart still pumps blood but I reforged my arteries into metal,
which keeps me alive better than before but I
don't remember the last time I
felt anything.