On Youth by Samuel Griffith

On Youth: When I Was a Boy … 2 Coessential … 3 Happiness … 4 Bulb and Crack … 5 Outside of the Bar … 6 The Runner as Poet … 7 My Throat … 8 ContraFlow … 10 To Know About Roots … 12 Mollify … 13

When I Was A Boy I learned how to swim in Suzies Pool, the same pool where my mother saw my last bubble gutted out from the base of my belly into the confluence of water and air popping in between the fig tree that only blooms in july and her mouth - exposing the insides a confluence of shades of red. I’m born to yell when submerged and to sink in between trees but mostly to notice color as I drown.

Coessential It was inconsequential the way gripped fingers of my sweat dripped clenched hands on hard rubber grips my bike my eyes darted into eyes of each one of them and then my bike and then their gun. Boys like me. Our splintered personalities of 6 pistols staring are mirrors. Shattered. Co-existence in our home. Later, my fingers are sweat stained with nacho cheese doritos as a officer Squeaks a plastic lawn chair closer to me to ask if I ever felt like I was going to get killed. It was inconsequential. To me. The bike and the gun felt coessential. The officer writes a note and thinks of dinner.

Happiness your hair is my happiness she might tell me - the same gold conquistadores searched for now finding shelter stitching into the crest of my skull. small complexities woven in, shackled into your fingertips and breaking through weaves - Please unpack your eyes. your hair is my happiness she might tell me but I don’t believe her because in those gold seeking eyes she tells me she is still searching.

Bulb and Crack Smoke separates us the same way the top of your head blocks the sun's rays on your nose. I consider how if you’d wonder about me as your hand scoops the last serving of coffee into your mug. Consider the sun and open your blinders - oh get over yourself. Linoleum only does so much. I don’t sleep anymore. Don’t worry, I know you don’t too. Remember that time zones don’t mean a jump in time. It only means we scoop coffee differently. A hand pours the coffee and slips out the door.

Outside of the Bar Me, (a) being contingent to the sweat on my palms. congregation of water and salt convene between my palms make it painful to shake hello. I’m (my phone) a mess. We’ve moved on. Internally - that is to say you still leave my hands salted, dripping torso seamed burst stained love.

The Runner as Poet drowned out crabgrass blooming in and again heels wailing / winced huffs of breath cried under heels and huffs. I might have called out to you to let you know I cannot keep up but my heels talked for me yelling to you to keep going and huffs powered me home.

My Throat She sets me down and I shake off, finger by finger & down to my tiny toes. She pretends to turn and walk away, slowly unhitching the latch to the trunk of the taxi, pretending to force grief stricken tears down her face. Your Monster Voice - I want to hear it. Just once. I am red. Blushing beyond comfort. When I leave, it’ll be the last time you see me. For a while. C’mon. Give me a growl. Lemme see it. At her funeral, my father and all my aunts and uncles talk about Pete - always smiling. She is remembered and her monster is not.

I growl for her. Letting my comfort disintegrate into each grumble and growl and jowl. I feel like me. I’m hot, sweaty, christened through the sun as I sit and watch the yellow taxi drive away. My aunt leaves to see her monster. Wow! A monster indeed! I hope I never see one of you in my home one day.

Contraflow: 08/27/05 If there was anything to notice about the weather to me it was the stagnant heat. Eye stale, mouth dusty, moth decaying heat. My father sits in a casing of his own salt, his breath focused on keeping his moisture in. I think I can see the decaying moths escaping his lips. Sapped fingers dropping lower on the steering wheel he still says that there is no use to use a/c Because, in time, we’ll sweat through it so my Brother and I sweat through it because he is right and there is no use. I learn, a couple hours later, inching along to Houston, how to make my tongue into a clover leaf. How I must push in the sides of my plump, pink tongue and push out the top all while keeping my spit saturate cheeks seemingly calm.

When contraflow starts, We roll down the windows and hoot and holler beginning to feel safe. Our fingers soaked and our cheeks a bright red. Plump and pickled and breathing in cool air from the freshly formed A/C. My window is rolled down and I let the wind hit my face. I press out my tongue and relish in my new creation. I wonder if there are other boys like me, pressing out their tongues. Other boys like me, with A/C. Other boy like me, on contraflow. If only one thing to remember, It’s the feeling of being the only one on contraflow.

To Know About Roots My grandfather spits over crystal glasses of red wine a joke. Something about a man in a train wanting to sit. Something about a woman who wouldn’t move her seat and something about a bitch being a bitch. It’s quiet. We’ve stopped running our gravy licked fingers over those crystal glass melodies we tried to make. Now whisked into silence of of our creaking chairs and my grandfather's grit sticking to his teeth. Our eyes scan across the room we wish was bigger. His eyes - lit, like fire. Squirming in our confined chairs we are rooted in our seats and he is rooted in his. I can feel the chairs to inside out. The legs of the chairs rotting back out to the original vines they were. My grandfather's roots sliding up up the seat and wrapping their bark around my wrist. Sliding their roots above my hands to interlock. I stab it with a fork and feel it’s hiss. On a flight 3 weeks before my grandfather's joke, I sit next to a baby girl. She has eyes like her lap keeper who cries as we take off and cries as we land because for a brief moment it might have felt like she wouldn’t become rooted in what is now growing below. It’s quiet. Last night the rot of below became unbreakable to forks and knives and screams and shout and now they stay. With roots working into their mouths as they try to object. I wonder what it would be like to sit in that plane 15 months later. To see that mother, and that baby girl to know that she is rooted in something else.

Mollify I stopped thinking when they scratched their heads at Pisa; when Mona Lisa Smile was just invisible action. I forgot what it was like to eat a Payday and not think of it just peanuts & caramel. We sat like campers and complained while: approaching storms. Suns set when laughter piped. Mollify me. Make me sit, like those in ships like Theseus. Walls - change around me, let me notice one thing: peanuts & caramel.

On Youth Samuel Griffith