fractals

Snow moon in February.

you’re in a motel room with two versions of yourself,

one of them wants to be written holy again,

the other wants nothing to do with you.

you? you don’t know which broken wish bone of a boy you are anymore.

this isn’t a room the three of you want to be in.

one of you calls it a reason to stay,

one of you calls it a fractured place

and you say it feels almost empty.

dear forgiveness, one of the boys say, take these old wounds

and make something new. give them shape, a purpose.

you say heaven can’t hold us; that these amethyst hearts

are done charging in moonlight and asphalt.

outside, the motel is quiet in the day,

and usually in the night when your room isn’t occupied.

you know it’s June and the heat’s starting to blister,

the sky isn’t a sky until it bruises,

there’s screams coming from the swimming pool.

you lace both boots to the top,

whilst the other versions of you stay barefoot and martyr.

you told them, you did, where the darkness went,

that you write poems and give them names.

that you breathe life into every scar and suture,

celebrate how the skin grew to include

everything outside the room.

if the motel was on fire,

the only thing you’d save,

would be yourself.

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