#futurefuck

Dear old, Dear long hair grown coarse, Dear smile lines and warm hands, Dear body-tired and mind-alive, has the rot been smoked out of your bones? Are the cobwebs that velveted the inside of your skin scraped away and turned to grass? Dear old, what are you made of? What makes up the skin on your knuckles, the scars on your chest, the line of your jaw? Are you callused and spare, like the brother you’ve outlived? Are you round and laughing, like the figure of Mother in childish memory? Are you gnarled as a gree, grown in strong and twisting directions towards an ever shifting light? Dear old, what tics live in your muscles? What instincts have they learned? Do you tap your fingertips on your chin and is it bearded or bare? Do you jiggle your foot, knee crossed over knee? Spin a pen between restless knuckles? Do you dance with a wooden spoon or shovel? Do your hands close familiarly around grip-worn tools or weapons? Dear old, what are your hurts? Do you starve like your brother or hobble like your mother or hide like your father? Is your spine tall or bent? Are you afraid? Are you cold? Do your vertebrae tremble or fuse? How long since you last cried? Dear old, what can you do? Can you dance? Feed fifty? Throw a punch? Lead a prayer service? Gather children to a hearth? Shoot a rifle? Sing in Spanish? What have you learned and what will you learn? Dear old, what have you lost? What memories and knowledge have slept and tumbled away? What books have been loaned out and not returned? What loves have fractured and fallen as component pieces to the earth? What do you wake up missing? What names do you whisper before ritual, what names are meaningless noise to the children’s ears? Dear old, how is your dead child? Are there still places inside you where nothing will grow? Have you made peace with the numb patches on your skin? Dear old, what are your loves? Is your heart bursting, overflowing, luxuriating in connection? What do people come to you for? Dear old, I see you – I dreamed you – the children all know to run and get you when the cops come to the door. Your kitchen is warm and open and the print on all your labels is big enough to see. You write a schedule on a chalkboard in the mornings and make sure everyone has the bedding and tinctures they need before bed. Dear old, come into me. Let me feel the muscle memory of your care. Show me the path.