Dear Life
You no longer notice yourself
peripheral voice
communicating the narrow side
of inexperience
between 'before it all went
wrong
and after it all made sense
again'
you climb the slope nearest your
heart
carry down the water
they tried to evaporate in
you
and drink deep and heavy
until you are only two hands
holding onto yourself for dear
life.
Nothing More Than This
I would put you in the belly of my
heart
if I had a stock pile of nerve
somewhere
if I believed that I could save us both
with love
the vessel, she rocks and
splinters
and cries that I know very
little
about this thing called
living-
and she isn't wrong,
I hold out my hand to that-
loss of clarity called
acceptance
because to truly accept some
things
is also to cross yourself
out,
but this has been happening all
along
intervals of losing self, lapsing
pulses,
blinking maritime lights,
going out inside of the heart
like a letter home no one ever
receives.
I sleep all night without knowing that I
sleep
just as I live all day without knowing
that I am alive.
Are you as mixed up inside as I
am?
Have you ever taken the wrong turn all
your life?
Well, I have, and I am so lost now
that I do not even consider myself lost
anymore
paradox of a heart muscle, pulling in,
pushing out
but no cellular memory of the
event
to remind you of what
happened
who you are, isn't that a strange
question to ask yourself
in a time like this, falling apart and
not even feeling it
when the break occurs.
Motion moves in you but very
slowly
like an after effect of
something
you were never present for,
and accounted, who does that,
the tallying of numbers and
proportions
ill fit, loss sewn into the
losing,
a history on paper, bring it
forth,
while the light inside of you simmers
and you need more
but always end with less, take
this,
tear it loose, until the perimeters of
your soul
are overflowing,
in your hands a flood, a feeding
frenzy
ingesting the good stuff, the self
mothering tattoo
like a new skin you grow
into,
hone with compassion, caressing the knot
until the void voids less,
leaps for air, holds it deep in the
lungs
never forgets breathing, and wanting to
live
doing so faithfully,
inside faith living a life even after
the losses have been measured and put away.
Life Beyond This Moment
Wish I could remember what wishing used
to be like,
face down on the floor at 16
with Moby's 'When it's cold I'd like to
die'
on an endless loop,
this must be it, I'll never recover, you
thought,
yes you will, but you didn't know it
then.
What's wrong with you; everything, what
don't you get about that?
Wish I could remember remembering,
what nights were like when star
gazing
actually worked better than Tegretol and
anti-depressants,
when the answer was a loose end left
loose,
when you could feel the blood pounding
inside of your ears,
and it gave you courage,
when you loved too deeply, talked too
loudly,
and rode down into the
depths,
rose and sunk and rose and sunk a
million times over,
when you first found out that pen and
paper might save you,
until even the paper burned
and the pen looked for a way to puncture
a hole through you,
seeping light and bruises and
wonderment,
where does going go? Is there some of it
left,
a tiny filament that could reignite the
stars and settle the flame?
Keep it in a jar like
fireflies
until you realize that you are killing
them,
you've become a teenage
fascist,
you don't get to decide who lives or
dies
and maybe their light is connected to
yours,
dim theirs and you dim your
own.
The light is on and off,
seasonal, fluxing, sluicing,
impossibly alive somehow after all of
the damage you put on.
Pale in compare
That body
of yours
bowled over the earth
spot
how sun eats into gravity
toes touch yesterday
with hunger
political
dry bed
bone
the Africa you used to know
borrow me this
and hit the hate against
wet earth
I will
or you wont
there are two songs here
many native agonies
sent to be invisible
this is happening right now
you feel something seismic
crawl beneath you
but cancel it out in storm
cold shell quiver
how much happier we can be
in not knowing.