life imitates art

Walking down the cement steps,

I smell the smoke

before I ever see you.

Blonde vision summer.

You know how I daydream.

I can’t help but wonder

what it would’ve meant

to wander.

Down the cement steps,

onto the asphalt,

another ride

to a place so familiar

I no longer need the clock.

Day in and day out,

the hours have settled

somewhere beneath my skin.

You know the daydreams I have:

those lofting thoughts,

small scraps of light

in a terribly gray world.

Past dull windows,

their panes leaking light,

I catch versions of you

in the glass.

Who you were.

Who you became.

At the sterile sink,

I think of all the times

I let anger hold me

and wash away.

In a daydream,

you never bleed.

I watch the specks run down,

circling the drain

until they vanish.

Oh.

and to the boy whose vision blurred-

the man

who hurled fists and threw fits

when the heap became bones

fit only for scavengers.

Grass grew over him.

Flowers stretched upward, begging

for sunlight.

Bumblebees hovered over petals,

never quite landing.

And here, at the side of the road,

beside an orange grove,

his little roadkill lay.

Men like him are bold in their hatred.

Bold enough

we thought were better

than what they were.

Two Florida kids,

hair splashed with sun,

the hint of freckles

worn proud

like medals of honor.

And we watched

as the boys in the play yard

came to terrorize

the little bugs

we called friends.

They laughed

as we tried to protect them.

They stomped and screeched

with glee,

destroying everything

they glanced upon.

We took their little bodies

and buried them

in the summer mulch,

placed leaves over them,

and said a silent prayer:

we hoped their next life

would treat them

she is the green glitter

under your fingernails,

stuck,

never quite reaching.

She knows forevers aren’t real,

yet still turns toward promises

spoken like truth.

Her mind sends signs

instead of language.

The world keeps choosing

fire

over repair.

A writer by force-

hoping her words might articulate

what the mind cannot.

They find her later

in their hair,

evidence of something

I feel the comforter drawing near

With the want and need for

Something more

Than this cycle

I crave the tiles to

Lay out in front of me

And to curl when they hear me name

And for me to wash the blood

Of the grout and

For us to again share

This space

And I wish I hadn’t become

Complacent

So painful; the dullness;

How to breath with this

Chemical heat

And may I extend a

Hand to you

So you can laugh at the way

I plead

I am growing old:

And I gave myself to you so young

I am scared of the years which

Lay ahead;

And to hear

And to think

What awful things

And I could tear that part

Out of me;

I have believed this for many

Years

And as the stories that

Swarm with terror

Watching hapless sobs

In my little silver sedan

I can’t help but want to comfort

The crying child

I see myself in

And how hopeless it must

Feel to be so young

And so burdened

And all you can do is

I held men like children

because they acted like children.

loud and brute.

I could never quite articulate

the feeling

or know if it was returned.

the dissonance

I know too well.

speak slowly.

don’t upset.

I can’t believe

there are parts of me

that still think

a man could grow

from anything

ask you what I like

my mind never knows

what to choose anymore;

when I’m at crisis,

will the words I say finally

mean something?

when I’m gone, will you

take the time to read the letters I wrote,

the pages I spent so many hours filling,

the songs I curated just for you,

the postcards that always carried my mind

back to us?

when I’m only a quarter of who I was,

will you lament

how you miss the old me;

for my body is torn up.

you hold the parts

and the loose ends.

my mind carries a fullness

that I beg to slip through:

through my sockets

and out my mouth.

I want the weight of fullness

to drip through the second floor

and sink into the basement;

maybe then

and beg for your attention.

A fire that burns the edges slowly.

I run my fingers under cool water

for appraisal.

Am I good enough?

Am I good enough?

To be hindered by the

very thing that allows my

art.

I despise the fabric of being,

yet with open palms

I hope you see

the pleasing,

the scratching,

the quiet begging

I do

to find another

always stuck, never quite reaching.

I am the forgetting

that wishes to be the ending

And I know forevers aren’t real,

yet I still fall crying out to promises

that were spoken like truth,

riddled with lies

I am a little mixed up;

I admit

I’m a fighter who doesn’t believe in fighting.

The glitter you find in your hair

after a few nights out;

evidence of something beautiful,

That you can no longer place

I can’t explain the tenacity,

can’t explain the way my mind

sends smoke instead of language,

why the earth keeps choosing vitriol

over tenderness, fire over repair

So I write,

hoping my words might whisper

what my mind cannot;

tell me secrets I ache to know

With every passing beat,

I wrestle with wanting to be the change

while the world leans against it

And how I tire.

How easy it is to become a pessimist.

How easy it is to notice glitter in your hair

and never once wonder

that’s what they say

the slogan we are brought up on

the reality they slow drip to us

pride is a double edge sword

and it has welded a blow so great

and the foundation of this country

built on death and suffering

what does it mean to be prideful,

anyway?

is there pride knowing

who we’ve slaughtered?

the many lives taken; entrapped;

persecuted; the names lost to history,

the stories now being taken out

of history books

doomed to repeat

that’s what they say

we’ve forgotten

now we’re doomed to repeat

it’s too late, they say

this great nation they say

make America great again?

return to what-

the lynching the hatred

the suppression and violence

is that what you wish to return to?

tell me again, is that great?

raise the voices of white cishet men

the ones who claim every bit of

this nation; but never take accountability

for the genocide:

disregard the enslavement:

the many people who took their lives

because they were too scared to leave

their homes existing as they were

oh land of the free,

you never existed,

merely an ideal

a dream perpetuated,

laborious and slow

my body filled with petals

the flowers left too long to dry

and waiting in the precipice;

the dawn to meet the day,

and where there will be

monarchs overhead and

streaming lilies encouraging

the sun to shine

my body is withdrawing

my mind is twirling,

the same roots seeking for

the same soil

buried at the center

and my eyes become

vessels for the early spring

and may my body malformed;

turn Into something once more

to be reincarnated into oblivion,

to be the stars speckled among a

slipping sky

old lovers, old friends, ones

who lay among what was

once memories, fondness

overtaken by overgrowth

my overtaking ceased

keep calling

you see the dial

I know you wait for the last ring

with a sigh of relief

How can I be so haunted by what’s not gone

How do I see it coming

Do I wish the grief into fruition

like letting the phone die in my hand

I climb the crooked oak limb

and I can barely make out the grass below

all the same; a blur

and in the stillness I wish you here

I wish you would see the grass at this angle

how inconsequential the blades are

how softly everything bleeds back into earth

Did you remember me when the willow lost her leaves

when the snow weighed so heavy

you could hear the branches creak

I think you left long before the winter came

and when that snow fell, I resented it

what I would do now to feel that chill again

the sting in my nose, the numb in my cheeks

can’t you tell I’m no longer an idle boy

that I don’t recognize the voice I use to call you

that every ring ends