Five Years Gone

Lyrical Terrorism

It is easy to be brave when you write for your notebook and your audience of ink, but the larger crowd asks for more.

Give them the star-glinting knife, a forgotten bayonet. Turn your head, stretch your neck so that you feel the tendons below the ear pull tight on the right side and present yourself with all the dignity you can muster.

Let them take your head if it pleases them so, the queens and mothers set upon you. If you are worth tearing limb from limb, your mouth will speak though your eyes are closed.

A young woman in England was convicted of "possessing records likely to be useful in terrorism," which seem to have consisted mostly of internet files on the same stuff Paladin Press used to cover except with a Jihadist slant. I came across this story, however, because most of the press seems to be going to the fact that she wrote poetry about her beliefs.

Among the evidence presented at her trial were some of the poems she wrote about jihad, including one called How to Behead. The Daily Mail has longer extracts of the poem. It's decent poetry with attention to detail, though it looks like her grammar could use some work.

I'm left wondering why the focus of this case is on her poetry, though. Surely the crime here is the possession of this "terrorism library," since that's what she was charged with. As far as I know (and correct me if I'm wrong), it's not illegal to write poetry about jihad or other unpleasant topics in the UK. Have we finally come back around as a society to a place where poetry can be scandalous again? If so, I find that an oddly exciting place to be. Growing up long after Ginsberg's obscenity was forgotten and in an age where I can't imagine police caring what's recited at a poetry reading, I've wondered what it was like to write poetry that can have so solid an impact that people seek to shut it up.

Maybe we're ready for poetry to be dangerous again.

Waiting for the Supreme Court to Ask Me Out On a Date

I can dye my hair and cover the scars but I always stare too long at the wanted poster in the post office, distracted as I ask for stamps, waiting for the clerk to notice.

I'm passing for a person, with rights and opportunities. I've seen what happens to the ones who get caught. Their pictures come down in the post office and they're never seen again, invisible on the streetcorners.

I'm waiting, pretending I'm not waiting. If I cut off the circulation to my head, I can pass out and wake up over the rainbow or at least after the waiting's over.

Mango

I climb the tree because I can. It splits near the base, spreads wide, a great climbing tree. I'm used to pine trees and apples, where I had to slither between branches to reach the prize above.

The mangoes are golden. I grab one and settle into the cradle of the branches, slice it open with my pocket-knife and suck on the fruit.

Everything is extra sweet in Negros, where sugar grows plentiful and cheap. The soda, the pastries. Even the fruit makes my teeth hurt.

I was a different person surrounded by sugar and sun and golden fruit and coconuts. I don't think it's an accident that I only see mangoes green and tinged with pink embarrassment on American shores.

Conquest

When you sit across from Moctezuma and smile into the narrowed eyes of his court and think of the rumors of dead, white gods, something jerks like a bad tooth, wriggles like a fat worm under the eye of a hungry bird or snake. You wonder in both senses of the word, at the idea that you are their god reincarnate. At night, in your private quarters, so far from Spain and even Cuba, maybe you let yourself believe it. You judge your followers unworthy of you, or you doubt your decisions. Finally you fall asleep and you dream of the sky and feathers, scales, freedom, and worship below.

Tagalo(n)g

Real shivers come only before dawn, discotheque Christmas left behind me in rave-colored shadows, and I'm only a little drunk, really.

The streetlights are voided out and the cabs asleep as I wander too far in the dark, mumbling to myself, seeing line breaks among the narration.

Now! I feel like a real writer here in my foreign country doing stupid things in the guise of adventures.

By the time I'm talking straight again the horizon's shaded in mango flowers, chill has become afterglow and the shouts of balut vendors.

The poem ceased to exist as I recited, this self is ceasing, built on the beach and high tide is my visa date.

I'm always lost, even when I know where I am, among sky blue markets, rainbow jitneys mirroring each other until my sense leads me

somewhere. And a where is not lost. Somewhere the bells are asking me to visit the dawn mass.

Here my visa lasts only an hour, an obvious tourist, as I sit back and watch glass-stained angels circle.

It only looks like Sunday. I know better. Sunday is when I leave. Until then it is always Saturday night.

The sun is fully blooming, I blink into the light and flag a jitney and ride this time, figuring out where I'm going.

Seasonal

she laughs at me and says I'm not a local until I bitch about the cold.

it's cold enough for a jacket and rainy, and I can see my breath in the dead of night.

this is a desert winter, with green sprouts outgrowing carefully groomed hedges.

spring's wet smell, autumn's bite, an excuse to wear my favorite gloves.

every season but summer sneaks in at once while the heat naps.

tangerines hang heavy above my umbrella, lights between the fruit.

tinsel deer paw at stone lawns and plastic snowmen never melt.

on Christmas I'll sit outside and call my family and tell them how warm it is

without snow to shovel, without ice to tread on, and how the season sneaks

up on me while my brain tells me it's still October. the holiday

smacks me upside my head, leaves me dazed moves on toward summer

Dust on Dreams

the apartment is small and sparsely furnished with all the dreams a young woman's first set of keys can muster, plus a few chairs from a garage sale, a sidewalk coffee table, twenty five years of books and sketches, toys, plans. the painting on the easel is half-finished, and a thin layer of dust has gathered on the dry paint. the canvas is purple and blue, hope and the sky, slashed with red that is still wet.

she was waiting for the right time for her housewarming party, until she had seats, until she had decorations, until all her friends could make it, but her first guest was uninvited and the crowd here now is not enjoying themselves. there will still be lots of cleaning up to do later.

Wink

She wears cardboard wings, carefully shaped and kept dry. They are perfect for swooping over amber fields, golden flowers. The land is far more wild than she is, blades of grass cutting deep and drawing blood stark against the saffron earth. She only flies, watching with tawny eyes the travelers below and the art they make as they dye the color of the west.

And Next the Leather

I don't usually say this to a girl on a first date but would you please kick me in the face again?

That was hot.

A Fairy Story

once upon a time a prince fell in love with a stable-boy's keen smile

like the sun, it made him bloom and spring led to wanderlust

Another Poem About Moving

one last empty goodbye tear at the airport curb but I won't leave the car for you get out already and carry your own damn luggage.

New

too quiet and too drunk clear night, distant fireworks aw hell, is that dawn?

(I'm not lonely, just alone; cold, damp, stained but not lonely)

Stains

blossoming cherry- red in the water, spreading like thick summer heat

wine spilled on silk will never come out, like your words, your blade

Blackbeard's Closet

I woke up bloody, not bleeding, just guilty, polka-dotted with damn spots and stains on the bed. These bad break-ups are going to be the death of me. I stripped the bed and put her in the closet. It's getting crowded in there, too many skeletons; I'd better be careful, they might push me out. I considered a trip to Ikea after I cleaned up, to pick up some storage boxes I could use for photos and ashes, something to make the closet fit again, and fresh sheets to replace the stains I can't get out.

Buds

A forest of children little girls in dresses, boys in sailor suits Sunday best, hanging from above me. The trees are blurred, impressionist spots. Only the forest of pink and powder blue and lavender is clear.

"Well, come on," I say in my best kindergarten teacher voice, "everyone grab the rope and we'll get going." I turn away from them, grabbing the end of the rope, and looping the noose over my wrist.

Behind me I hear a rustle of leaves and ribbons, a giggle. Then the rope pulls taut and I start walking.

The Eventual Heat Death of the Universe

a big bang he didn't hear numbed reactions even before pain demanded his attention flesh gone supernova the milky way the blood pooled against denim, warming his skin fading to a chill stars flashed and went out as entropy took over

Crazy Quilt

Childhood's a patchwork of soft squares, patterns on my bed. I'm pulling them all out, one for each year until you couldn't keep the lines straight anymore. They're much too hot, even for December .

I'm staring at the tile floor, trying not to breathe too deeply, counting the squares in the cold patchwork that runs from the nurses' station to the back doors locked in case you try to leave. Even that simple pattern seems to confuse you now.

Maybe it's a blessing that it never gets old for you, always a new pattern laid while you sleep. You have so few left.

You call me after your children and then your siblings. You're suffering, but I'm selfish and I know the only pattern of yours I fit into is the one left on my bed.

Easter

Dad hustling us out the door on Easter morning, grumbling about our clothes or our attitudes or the fact that I was still eating chocolate eggs for breakfast and my sister hadn't been to bed. We all hated it, and even he had no illusions about why we went. I fidgeted and complained under my breath, the smell of incense making it hard to breathe.

Without him, I make elaborate plans to sleep in, crack vampire jokes, and end up awake at dawn anyway, getting dressed, and bitching the entire time.

Long Distance Bills

I wake up with dry mouth, thick with worry and I'm not sure why until I notice the red x next to the date on the calendar.

I'm too far away to do anything but wait, count time zones, and try to pray.

Step On a Crack

Counting my steps as I walk home in the dark, spacing my feet just so and making the occasional desperate leap just to make sure.

Watch those cracks, Mom has enough to worry about without the ice that keeps me calm breaking up and melting to tears again.

Cracks in the cheap bathroom tile and blood on my knuckles, don't step on the shards, don't wonder if my body betrays me too.

Fooling

I don't know who you think you're fooling with a medicine cabinet full of serpents and your wife filling little orange bottles with their poison, like the doctor can write a prescription for forgiveness and I have to hand it over the counter like candy.

Since you insist, I'll concede that we are more alike than I ever wanted, in myself I see you scrubbing the kitchen until I can't stand the bleach fumes, raking the forest floor outside the house. I feel the panic that sears across my face and chest, that holds me prisoner against the rock as I thrash.

You kept me captive to your obsessive fears until I was old enough to develop my own, then wondered what fairies had stolen your child away. Don't wonder. You were the one who called the Goblin King, who yelled until I locked my door, who handed me off to doctors and grabbed me back when they asked questions.

My world is long-broken. I check and double check, the superglue that keeps me together. You keep your wife up, leaving her to stand with her cup, to catch your poison. I try to burn in silence, never willing to follow your example.

Just Visiting

A mother asks if you can go home again as she and her son pull out of the driveway, bound for the airport. She hates seeing him off, but loves seeing him. She thinks of his birth, surgery, the pain he's worth as she says goodbye again at the airport, following along the other side of the security barrier until she has to give him over to metal detectors. She's back in the parking lot, alone, pulling out into the still, chill summer morning before she realizes he never answered.

Wild Things

leaning a little too close a little too fast with the knife never quite sure how much is too much

do I believe Hollywood authorities with pills to wake you up, keep you skinny or sane do I trust myself

I walk under the bridge like water, forgiven not forgetting the rust-red overflowing storm drains

Scrapbooking

bare feet, cold rock straining eyes against construction paper shapes a sprinkle of glitter above strands of spider web catch me, glue me back as I try to capture a minute, any minute permanently

Cleaning

Today was autumn cleaning. I took the old ghosts out of my closet, shook out the moths and tried them on, black leather and dust, just to see if they still fit.

I remember what it was like to wear that, to be that person. The gloves and the coat and the persona are all too comfortable.

So I take them back off. I pack them carefully away, running my hands one more time over leather soft as moth wings, and hope that maybe next year they won't fit.

Echo

I'm looking at school photos, a smiling, side-by-side progression. Lockstep, good boy, ending abruptly with a milk carton.

I'm sorry, no, I haven't seen that child since nineteen ninety four. I don't miss him.

Origami

I am origami folded up tight, inside out pattern hidden inside just a pale side showing a crane within a butterfly within a paper box.

I was crumpled now I relax, shaking out the tiny folds in myself, smoothing, loosening and opening up into the larger self.

Out of the Loop

If I wanted to be in a Jane Austen novel or back in high school, cliquing my heels, I'd do that, and not settle for your half- rate drama games and girly gossip. You are too scared to play the game right & too petty not to play at all. You'd best take a risk or step down before I get too bored and decide to remind myself why I spent my high school years convincing my peers I was too scary to mess with.

High school violence is passé composé and I won't break the seal on the present I was given leaving eighteen behind. Leave me as you found me, closed up tight and shying away from every cop and every flashing light and flinching. J'ai fini in pretty script on teen years spent running away from my own misspending, broken and down to pennies in my wallet, no pictures.

I'm just a mask, hollow and bloodshot eyes, and not the god of dead things I once thought I was. I'm perfectly satisfied with mediocrity right now. My cubicle is safe and quiet and has three solid walls and a betta fish. The rush is just not worth the cost, my tongue's bitten through and the mask worn to polished shoes and a silk tie and maybe a raincoat.

Altered Ego

I think a lot about redemption and the light at the edge of the horizon, below the bloody haze of dawn. I've taken warning but I refuse to take cover. I will face the sun proudly and let it burn me if that's what it takes to recover my self from the shattered shell of my uniform.

Slide Show

the world shaded in grey, black, white, my own memories washed clean of the blood, puddles of turpentine drawing blanks in my head.

what's left plays like a slide show single frames without context, blurring together and hard to determine. is that me throwing the boy down on the pavement? am I the one being thrown?

the ravenous packs of pre-teens roaming through small town wilds, pecking their order out on the keyboards of the administration

I'm trying to put together the descriptions of acts forgotten, misremembered, mistaken but still permanently recorded. paperwork never lies, never forgets, can only be misfiled and forgotten. let me forget.

there's nothing to remember, nothing to watch and film burns so well, red and gold instead memories taking color at last.

Tarot

Don't ask questions you won't hear the answers to. Am I who I think I am? The Devil, reversed. But a card can't tell you what to do about it. Toss them behind you one at a time, walking, and they will tell you where you are going.

Ace

Around the world Where the king sits low If the cards run to favor Fickle Jack, You lie so low Even your Suicide King Climbs over your body In hope of getting somewhere Will you define What you divine In the lays of the queens And their masters?

Became

Crimson scales and bloody claws digging into his head. The world is your film set and the customers, your players and Francis, poor Francis is your understudy and your manager, your metaphoric prima-donna. Bathe in red spotlight, rip down the scenery. Nothing is enough. Is it the boy's Becoming you worry about or your own, lowering you to a humanity you despise?

Defibrillation

your skin sharp sparking blue and green lightning in your eyes, hands skies a glance minor strike my limbs not working clear a heartbeat restored, magnetic pressing against you electricity renewed contact with you phones, wires fingertips all conducting that symphonic, subatomic the charge fading touch me again wind me up before you send me on my way

Fur

my bones are broken dozens of times, healed at inhuman angles I put my fur coat away for the summer, for your sun fighting against star-spangled snow and frozen moonlight unmoving, unhealing an adolescent totem carved in wood kept among the marble without knowing why and burning still

Five Years Ago

All the old things burn. They whisper curses and wiring, children with matches, isn't it a shame it's reduced to ash-scarred

bricks. From the latest scene smoke still rises, a canary sings behind scorched windows. Across the street I watch them whisper

it's the times, the terrorists, the communists. I smile very thin and I strike my match.

Lucia

you wore red and I knew you hated me even as I saw you a curve of hips, flash of pale skin beneath the corset's straps

you walked to your own funeral laughed like ice and held your knife like you'd held me

you wore white and the stains are all my fault smoke and copper ozone and regret your legs bare and still pale eyes so open and I could only love you more

A time to every purpose

like puppies, all hands and big eyes or kittens, eager to be bagged and drowned this bitter, surrounded vulture, wondering how that got so far away and time such a slippery thing, turning doves into pigeons and pigeons into rats, high schoolers into revolutionaries and accountants into snowy owls all pressing on through the white out blizzard into welcome darkness, a blindness for sore eyes

Anniversary

Insomnia smells like midnight winds and Mexican food and salt. I can't breathe, I'm too disappointed in myself. The whole year feels like waiting for the date to come around, face pressed against cold stone or warm bodies, just fighting off the chill.

Insomnium

Counting stars like sheep, dreams like an open-eyed brick road to know where when I can't tell if I'm asleep or underground, hill and dale, stale air and protective goggles in goblin tunnels, this can't be real. So it isn't, just the dark ceiling, impassive as I beg my way to sleep.

This isn't a vacation, it's a business trip, so I wake up bruised, dried red under my fingernails and dirt in my mouth. I wake up needing a nap. I wake up without wanting to, without wanting to stay or go, only for everything to freeze, dropping suddenly through the earth, hearing only the breathing of the tree roots and suffocating.

It's four am. Do you know where your self is? I don't.

early flight

I'm not used to seeing this side of dawn the good boy side six a.m. freshly rested as the chill shoots through my nice button-down shirt and pressed slacks.

I only shiver because I'm cold, I promise.

Holiday Travel

The memories aren't mine. I bought them secondhand. It's cheaper than getting new ones and they're already broken in, comfortable and distant.

The soundtrack on a goodbye is quiet, full of pops and hisses on what should be a silent December morning. Even Phoenix is cold in December, at Christmas, at dawn, in a short security line.

The colors are faded. I'm not sure if the airline seats are blue or grey beyond the fuzziness of tears. The heat is on. It's still comforting to wrap the jacket around me.

The stewardess asks if I'd like my coat hung up. I don't look away from the window as I say no, it's too cold.

Terminal

The line seems to snake on forever, and the mountain of baggage left behind at the security checkpoint only grows. How much can any one person have abandoned?

The carpet is thin and scratchy, the line slow-moving, the florescent lights flickering overhead. I can feel a migraine starting, clawing its way up the back of my neck.

A woman at the conveyor belt is trying to bribe the attendant with brightly colored bills. I go to slip off my shoes; I'm not wearing any. Suddenly I'm cold.

Another, and Another

Another Sunday spent in the library hunched over the copy machine, wincing as the spines crack on irreplaceable books but trying not to care, pressing one poem and the next into the cold arms of the copier.

I step away eventually with a thick stack of pages, warm to the touch, almost beating, fluttering.

Something about these poems… I read over them, at night, when no one bothers to think me weak or think anything about me. Trite? Sure. But poetry should make you feel that way.

I feel the warmth of expired and lost and out-of-print words in my hands, I hold it too tight and dent the pages. If I get it close enough maybe the ink and the passion will rub off on me.

Evacuation

The books are piled in the hall, shaking skyscrapers fallen victim to the natural disaster dripping through the drywall ceiling. Paint bubbled and popped, pus and rain running down the wall and I am embarassed for my home's acne, this awkward adolescence where every appliance seems outgrown and every afternoon squall brings a new disaster.

Nomenclature

Last relics of a forgotten civilization, timeworn Lemurian seed crystals etched with the lost knowledge of the ancients, painstakingly reclaimed from the bitter seas and offered up for those who would learn antediluvian lessons.

– It's just quartz! yells the vendor across the aisle.

Too Early

dream logic is persistent crowding my mind as I brush my teeth and dress with hazy cobwebs only half forgotten places I should be and important quests that have slipped away

all day I worry that I've set aside something important I check my pockets my to-do list, my satchel for clues but whatever it is was lost

Yeast

my mother said to use bread to gather up the smallest pieces of a broken glass, the ones too small for the broom, just large enough to climb up into my feet at night

I grew up a man of no worlds wandering from place to place begging for bread in my bowl not because I'm hungry but to make sure I catch all the broken shards

The Fairy Godmother's Curse

can never get too comfortable with a mouth full of snakes and toads spit at the wrong moment. I never meant to offend whatever fairy cursed me so young to speak awkward, unpleasant things. I've learned to bite them back over the years – most of the time but they still slip out, leaving me embarassed with a slick film in my mouth.

I've tried so hard, learned sometimes to turn cockroaches into cabochons but it almost seems worse because if I lose my concentration the frogs escape without my knowing. Others turn away in disgust but I've been spitting bugs so long that I can't always tell the tastes apart on my tongue, pearls or chitonous exoskeletons. They all crunch alike to me.

Weird

the strands of fate are hung so tight that even the lightest touch calls forth notes, plucking chances out of randomness and knowing when to hold the note, when to release it into the larger symphony

Pation

just a little knot in my stomach, just a bit short of breath right now

just little cat feet on me before I know it pinning me down now

nothing to do but be done no way to win but to run

The Volva Sends Her Regards

No one asks anymore but I will tell you nonetheless to pass along.

I see a proud eagle circle high, watching below and unwilling to notice the ravens yet above him, readying their talons.

I see a swan with a broken wing, lashing with one good, strong wing at all who would help it, screaming to the sky and to those who do not answer.

I see a crane surrounded by fire, a great river run dry with frogs left frozen in the hard mud. The bears sleep, all out of season. The rams pace, all out of proportion.

The ones below come above the ground, the ones above will step down or fall. The empty queen has already lost her decision, and no one notices.

Be very careful where you stand before you seek to bring balance. The pendulum is nearer to your side than you think, the clock about to strike. Desperation is already in the air.

I see wolves loping leaderless through the heat of the long summer. Wolves cannot be tamed; those are called dogs. There is a dog among them, but they cannot smell the hunter on him yet.

I see a choice made in the heat of midsummer. What seems selfless is not, and when you thirst, it is easy to drink without due consideration. Pass by the fine mead; choose water.

I see two dragons beneath the land, then above, setting fires in the heat. There are jewels set in their eyes and fine metals inlaid in their skin.

In the end the fire will burn itself out, and the land will renew as it always has, as it always will.

Holy Week

white on white spring petals against the pale grey backdrop, sidewalk, and everything again in puddles below

I'm still waiting for the lamb, settling instead for roars and peeps and the sense that something is creeping up when I'm not looking

every moment is precious, allegedly, and will not come again and I should care. I should watch and count and I'm afraid I will always miss what's important.

Drinking Game

swallow the acid back down, bite your tongue, smile, nod, give up quietly

do not give them hope hoping won't help anything do not tell them true

every time you wake up sharp, hearing her voice, take a shot

James Dean Reincarnate

rebel in a clip-on tie crooked, wrinkled not quite tucked in on the floor on the phones asking everyone if they want to refinance their mortgages but what he's asking for is an excuse to give up to drive into the desert and be legend again

Evokation

pine needles, fresh soil: summer at scout camp, wet weeks when nothing wanted to dry, spiders and squirrels, and the desire to sneak somewhere, anywhere like in books about camp though I knew there was nothing at all on the other side of the lake, so we make up the ghost stories invoking the deaths of imaginary campers, we murder ourselves silly in the dark and wish it lasted longer

Come Visit, Stay for Dinner

The door in the back of my head doesn't lock. It just sticks. Kick it real hard when you come in with the beer and it should open. If not, yell til I get a headache and I'll let you in. But don't tell anyone. I'd hate to have my brain robbed in the middle of the night. You know how they steal dreams.

Whitewater Rafting in Egypt

bite down. harder. leave red crescent moons in your palms. play nice. smile. wince. squint real hard until you see it the way you're supposed to. go along. just go along.

Mislaid

Even the ugly can get laid, but I lie here beneath my lover – eight feet and a flight of stairs beneath my lover – while the night refuses to be silent. I don't know the language of each individual creak, but I can guess the meaning, a rough translation. Sex is pidgin for love and I'll settle for dirty looks from the crickets and my own hand on my cock while I pretend your groans are not so far or echoed.

Puzzling it Out

jumbles and crossed words to puzzle out, he drives too fast, corners too hard, chasing dragons and personal demons through red lights. the numbers don't add up and he's buckling down, got the book of the secrets of the universe and this time he swears he's going to study.

Side Dish

cutting through the cold and the silken lifeline at least the soup is warm steam rising from the bowl even as my muscles are cooling we'll just come around again and again and again you spinning your web catching me you're hanging me to keep me from falling

Evokation II

Musty wood paneling, pine sol, Wheel of Fortune, weekends at my grandmother's house (always hers in my mind, not my grandfather's) staying up too, too late in my uncle's old bedroom, listening to late night radio requests, pleas, and circling the room on nervous feet, avoiding the creaks (and there were a lot of creaks, it was an old house) it was not indulgence so much as exhaustion on my grandmother's part, her sixth parental sense seemed faded; as long as I stayed quiet I found myself in that early morning twilight now that I can see it whenever I like, accepting exhaustion the next day, it still reminds me of chenille bedspreads and scratchy carpets

Footlights

rose colored footlights and a happy ending, a finale that's just overture in reprise; nothing new, nothing good, nothing nice, just right, just over. as if I can hold up the curtain begging the audience to stay for more.

you'll stay, won't you?

Comfortable

King size pillow on a twin bed with sheets too big, wrinkled and tucked on all sides. He wants to be tucked in, away- he's already away- exiled to this childhood bed.

He hoped it would be too small to be lonely. His teddy bear's long gone but he'll settle for the pillow, his head on its shoulder, arms tight around its middle. He's too old for teddy bears but not for twin beds or leaving the door open a crack for the hall light.

Coming home is supposed to be comforting, but this is no reset button. If he tried, he might forget and unlive it all.

Venus

languorous, long trunks reaching up to soft green branches the rainforest is damp, dripping, waiting for the clouds to part one blast of the sun burning all the rain away into the atmosphere hold your water close or evaporate into nothing

Earth

lay me down sweetly push you into the black dirt sweeping architecture, graceful grind it in drops from the grey-brown sky stains you don't want to wash white spots, mushrooms bleach, burning away lye about your identity and I'll believe you as I curl beside you

Jupiter

we walked the rocky path together, somehow didn't notice the branches and now we are apart. orbiting other stars, we turn our faces away and I wonder that I don't see you. shock me, run to me, be the one who reaches out, holds the radio high, makes the grand gestures when I am afraid. don't let me get away.

Pluto

my fingers stick slightly to the ice, the pain shivers up to the elbow I drop everything close my eyes feel the space around me at least now it's quiet