sixth year
interstate 70 for a full lunar cycle you feel like a well worn shirt i’m seeing in x-ray my bones are whittled we cross the country out of fear separate, together, distant i mark the places in my head our returns sullen and triumphant i catch a glimpse of you in the mirror buoyant behind me my vision blurs i call to you in your stead i call to you in your stead 1
hand over hand i knot myself into your ribcage dissolving in the fissures of skin cast through the window white hot on your breath i marvel at the fact that glass is sand i slip through your palms blank key in the fishbowl twirled on your index finger lost, copied, replaced, lost, copied replaced you are pink and blushing the cold dissolves to spring 2
parsing the expanses of nothingness we arrived in a vacuum gesticulating, churning, trichotillomaniacal facing the sun and crescent moon dry and wet simultaneously licked clean by the strays i cauterize their past wounds in my mind you walked and we ran i saw the phantom chains in your release i saw the color slip the room brown and slick, omnipotent there are many lights that go out bits of glass littering the ground like a spring snow 3
distancing myself from the image pressed into my thigh i watch candles burn to mountains melted blue wax the ocean as a volcano erupts beneath no land will be formed i’m obsessing over modern pills in a movie about the past it matches the vitamins i gobble fourteen at a time a deconstructing summer spent forgetting you underneath the guilt of new lovers i wrote their names next to numbers and soaked the pages smoked from blue to red i like to pull the gauze from the bottle two-to-three times nightly it’s the only softness i’ll allow myself 4
flecks of oil dividing the street rainbows into molecules little white mountains i did the pile we are plucking grass cowering at gunshots i keep the stains on my shoes 5
i left our love to play off on some thrown together stage a hackneyed audience of people climbing your leg we did what we could in the basement when it worked i talked too loud to fill the space i was always just a cheap imitation a distorted reflection in the blacks of a film we watched separately and reported back to it there was a silent past we let slip in a week’s time i’ll let you stay when the bad one returns i want to turn the flower on your arm soft in my fingers before the bond severs admiring your gate from afar teeming with promise, i wonder if you miss it you spent your time pulling strings i left the red one dangling 6
rose gold the air is thick and alchemized the parted ground becomes rose gold once again we catch our breath drop the stems i twirl the thorns in my hand i didn’t see you when you went in cold and callously you are received 7
cataloging you in repose we let the rain blowing through the window lap at our feet, kissing the lines of your chin letting the filament of our cigarettes fall to the alley below i find the fondness of your departure here a handprint left in the fog on the mirror turn the shower on high to heat the room i think of you often, knowing i was summarily dismissed from your story now a fondness that belies the truth slamming two puzzle pieces together placing my hand to your print in the mirror the sporadic fitting together of unlike shapes bears a certain fruit there’s a beauty in the things we construct and leave to fall to the earth ashes from a second floor bathroom 8
the couple across the bar try to stand a coin on its edge pondering “is love just filling the time until one half departs?” i light the wrong end of a cigarette i want to capture this moment and share it deify the simplicity of the sadness abound she was so proud of her necklace “i made it all myself” i want to be proud known only to set fire to the wrong end deify the ashes and disappear 9
cold sweat in a hot room blood on the bathroom floor i kept asking where they were you wouldn’t talk found in the middle of the woods we met briefly, freely, unabashed i woke to fear i saw a sign of respect a new love put its sight swimming above my head i want to be one month clean 10
doors down i catch you kneading at my flesh molding my lack of substance into substantive emptiness egg shells, cracked and splintered, find their way into our breakfast we are separate together and apart marionettes mining a shared familiarity for a piece of home you call me on your enter, i cower upon my exit we etch the maps into the floors waiting for the bathtub to fall through real love mythologized as the tiny white piles left behind 11
over and over i await your exit masked in the guilt i left hanging between us parked somewhere in our mold backlit on some unknown but familiar street i am the weight of my regret another subtle lilt another moment impressed in the snow there was never enough goodness to hold i hope you call when i come 12
“what am I going to do?” tears stain a well worn blanket your eyes haven’t been the same for a decade stagnant, but not the same they pulsate with the all-familiar feeling of loss you speak to ghosts when i’m not around it seems you share their side of the plane moreso than you do ours i’m happy to leave to you her and him “do you know when you’ll be back?” there’s a certainty in the question underlining the fact that when is an imagined reality you pair afternoons by the handful and let them slip with you only allowing the sun to shine on the back of your head i speak to your ghost more than i ever did you it’s not love or blood that leaves me clinging it’s your silence in the face of a roar static fading to a dull hum 13
split by the rock bare to the earth and you there’s a page missing i wonder if you remember i wonder if he knows split by your lips bare to myself and you there’s a page missing i know you don’t remember i know that i’m doomed 14
desperate in the mandala of youth i wait for you to turn the light on tried to fall asleep inside i remember the scars before your eyes tiny trophies clamoring to the floor little heads lost beneath the bed i never liked the bats at a right angle you were the first trophy i held to honor melted in the first week you left me for a season cancerous is the glow of your new love like the lion you returned home i loved you most in the distance i don’t believe the reference do you still love the part of me left carved in your arm i still carry the scar 15
a lover must die to a lover to find solace in a shared space a lover must die to a lover to find solace in a known transparency a lover must die to a lover to find solace in a dismantled personhood a lover must die to a lover to find solace in a body when lovers are dead love remains hanging like a bird on a wire stringing itself between windows damp from dingy clothing damp from melting snow damp from seasons’ ends and beginnings damp from tears from booze from binging from purging from bile love passes as it comes slowly, graciously, wickedly lovers must die to each other as love must die 16
you undress in private familiar sounds fill the room i occupy as a specter we hollow each other out our skin well-worn in the same places we repel the grains won’t match no longer counting age in the rings i’m not half the man you see 17
swimming in tequila stocky cliché on the balcony i want to be more sincere i think: “is sincerity really the answer right now? isn’t everyone trying to be more sincere? weren’t you best when you were deflecting? if you’re being sincere for an audience, isn’t it just another fucking lie?” do i need you? i don’t want to need you you told me the nice cup i had was broke i carved it in my thigh when i got the cash together i don’t want to need you i want to be me for me i am desperate and tired pierce and i screamed in the storm it felt good to share death, if only for a moment i hope you come back when i return if you don’t, i want to think it’s ok but i don’t think it can last 18
amidst the decommissioned army of styrofoam containers and aluminum cans i writhe beneath my seven years i haven’t seen straight since the fall another drunken turn signal slip i cascade into the waters wash myself of the spinning stake my mind in the centrifuge of my bed a small leap backward i sing your names to fill the room 19
in every conceivable fashion i am bare i, the fleeced sheep humble myself to you to your sheers i see the coldness of the winter the frost that fell the leaves tossed in our face the dampened blossom the loving, if ignored departures the silence of sleep the silence of assurance in every known way i am yours i am bare i, the sheer balance myself on your axis you, due north i, flown over you are the yolk once the map, i plot myself my departure, now yours capitulated, known to myself capitulated, known to you capitulated, unseen
20