Only when you're dead
You'll understand that you've been
Wounded all along

i can remember
listening quietly
to myself. a boy with eyes like fresh bruises and
long fingers. and a throat. lithely he wrapped
with them
spelling out silence, running his fingers over the ridges
counting out the seconds. letting the steam
drift up to his nostrils. patience and soulless verbiage. wasting hours on this. screaming at the walls. challenging nothing. the platform was empty.
he was vanishing already. fading. it was the warning before the
decline. decisive agitation.
and i remembered only
by the smallest margin
what used to be there.
and i can remember listening quietly
for the echos
of inapparent
and
disingenuous exchanges
where you could hear the smile
in the hello
where you could feel the rush
in the embrace.
and i wondered with my knees pulled up
under my chin
what currents
carried us so far from that place.