Broomstickers

listen

my arms aren’t as long as yours

i’m not going to pretend they are

but you don’t wave them back and forth

you don’t feel them stabbed by the rain

they hang at your side

and i feel the space where they should be

it’s alright

it’s alright

dogs die in the heat

but we sweat

it’s not our fault

it’s not their fault

but this is the price we

pay

i have a present for you. (1) billfold, in turpentine. acetate bills. paint them. paint the things you want to touch, but can’t. it’s going to get eaten up, so no one will know. the ghost of you and me. the places we could’ve been, but weren’t. just. (2) i personally prefer silver to gold. (3) time is like acid, eroding metal. sometimes it stops. sometimes it pools and you feel it, everything, all at once. it drops through the plate. where does it go? what do you see? how does it start moving again? how do you feel about what you feel. that place where it sits. what is its shape?

(4) maybe it falls on you. trepanned. rivets through your wrinkles, and out through you eyes. all the colors from before. and you know what? they don’t mean anything anymore. they’re just colors. don’t bother piecing them together. just let them be. let them happen. it’s ok.

(5) were you a dog person, or a cat person. are you a dog, or a cat. what color do you see.

(6) sometimes dogs die in the sun. it’s ok.

(7) you can still breathe

(8) in