the albatross

That's the peculiar thing about a second go On paper, it looks like a first shot (or how the first shot should have gone) Using words like  "try"  Saying things like "We'll take it slow" and actually meaning it Foregoing cruise control altogether To take the path on foot Talking about Seeing this through As if we haven't already screamed down this tunnel From either side Referencing endings Like we don't know the sulfur taste of that abyss As intimately  As infinitely  As every hope we ever had leading up to it That's the peculiar thing about a second go This time, I don't want to outlive it.

delayed onset

How could I forget that the unfamiliar the distraction the desperate pace of survival performance work wallets calendars and moving moving moving moving moving are the best anesthesia and so I moved and moved and moved and moved until 1300 miles later I put a key into a red door and fell into a room with a thousand books and a wall of gold lamplight and spent dim mornings in the pale glow of my own room on my own bed and I started thinking about open endings and you

and when your songs came on, I politely skipped them, and I felt no pain

there was no burial

October brought the first bone-knocking chills Every shiver is an earthquake So when my ribs are swords clashing between the tremors, my left hand a stranger to the right, this is sparring on level ground. Well met, well matched, the contradiction. A stroke for blood kisses a perfect parry Sparks, sweating brow The shriek of iron and steel and bone and the agony of ambush Stalemate. A ballet, petrified. So tell them, when they ask, how I turned to salt when I looked back to my inferno city even as my feet flew me away

The oceans I would cross for you would cleave in two to surrender my passage The mountains would lift the train of their skirts to become tunnels And I would hold my breath running through them and knit every wish into dandelion fluff for you Birds would shed their feathers Tumbleweeds would thunder like chariots The woods would become wings And I would fight god and men and myself to reach you Bruises like badges in full decorum I would rip the canopy of night from the sky so all that remains is the glory and light of a billion naked stars, If you wanted. If you wanted, I’d be a sword I would cut down armies and overgrowth to make your path I could be a shield, and no bullet of hail or roaring vendetta would ever touch you I can be your fanfare, your runaway train, your tropical storm that levels skyscrapers. Your alchemist, your confidant, the one who tastes your food and sips your wine to test for poison, your compass, your bodyguard, your sinkless ship. But do not ask me to be your lover. I don’t know how to be soft.