April Madness 2019

#10 -

awake
can you remember this
the way his hand and your
limitless potential
inking listlessly into the fabric
of his old leather couch
and the way the cracks burn
just a little against the back
of your knees, pressing so hard
and empty against the broken skin
the way his hand and your
crinkled blue dress became complex
in geometric lace burgeoning
and unravelling or not so much
undone but rebraided and transformed
the way his hand and your
blonde streaks met before the moment
the springs began to give
and the blue dress split
and you stood up because
Well wasn't this fun
your hand on the door and his
Still waiting

how can they so willing hold secrets?

the vines that creep down through the file
cabinets, thorns ruffling through blank
headers and mystical number notations.

there is a method to the madness, so they
may be saying. written excuses in expense
reports to the right king in the making.

roots held firmly in basement cement. a
gun held to the temple of the file clerk with
no place to go when they're finished work.

"loose lips sink ships"
but this ship was never meant to exist.
wait until it is brought down by the fates.

crushing

my first crush
was my childhood
best friend.
we had known
each other since
our years in soccer—
i still remembered
our dirty uniforms
and gaping teeth.
we'd get ice cream
in the park after practice,
kicking our legs
back and forth
on the swing set as
we sang pop songs
in our off tune voices.

it wasn't until eighth grade
that i realized how much
i loved your golden curls
that cascaded down your back
and the way they framed
your face.
i told myself
that friends just feel that
way about each other,
ignoring how
happy i felt when i found
out you liked girls.

in sophomore year,
i finally understood
that i had fallen in love
with both guys and girls,
and that you were the first
of them all.
i let myself imagine
an alternate universe
where i was your girlfriend.
i always thought you and i
as the perfect juxtaposition.
our names, our appearances,
our personalities—
they all complimented each
other.

but i had to let go of
my fantasies
because we were already
worlds apart.
i never saw you in the halls
and the days
we got together
were distant memories.

but now i see you again.
we talk about our favorite
animes and how our lives
have changed since
we were kids—it's
the senior nostalgia.
your hair no longer cascades
down your back,
but i love how the blue
shines in that little
ponytail every time
i see you.

Reasons

if you asked me what
gets me out of bed in the morning,
i would tell you
about my Alarm Clock,
and the many sounds and volumes and buzzings my phone musters up
before the Alarm Clock even starts its keening. i
would tell you about the bus schedule and
my teachers' attendance policies and
the exact amount of time it takes to throw
on some clothes, a backpack, run some toothpaste
through my teeth on the way
out the door.

one day I would like
to have enough day ahead of me
so I could get out of bed
just to be for awhile
in the bright dullness of the morning,
just to live
and eat cereal

10
cleaning a life out of a house:
-dusty corners and unhung clothes
sitting in racks above the guest room closet
keeping company with ghosts
-books with cracked spines
just waiting to be broken
-the saucepan stained
from too many breakfasts:
friend matzo, heavy on the sugar
-the kibble that rolled under the oven
three dogs ago

XI. The Bathroom

It is two in the morning;
the day started with blood (and,
with my luck,
it will end with blood).

And I'm too asleep and too awake
to stop it from dripping down my chin
and onto my shirt, no matter how much
I cup my hands over my nose.

And my suitemate has to call the staff yet again;
this isn't even the first time he's seen me
lying on the floor (the carpet makes me a little less dizzy,
and sometimes I can pretend I'm sinking through it
to somewhere that doesn't smell like blood or vomit).

And the staff has to see me staring at the floor,
spraying clorox at the stains, wiping blood off my foot,
and tiredly answering the thousand tired questions
that she has to throw at me.

And I have to read the email at eight in the morning,
asking me if I'm doing well
after the incident that I'd almost let slip away
like the bad dream that came before it
(and this hasn't been the first message,
and I don't think it will be the last).

We both know why you're here.

Yes.

Would you describe to me how you feel?

It's... I can't.
(it's like an encyclopedia was just dropped on my chest and whooosh, all the air goes out of my lungs and my eyes open so wide that dust motes land in them while my heart stops beating. when it starts again, each jerky pulse pricks my nerves, and then the whispers start.)

What whispers?

Did I say that out loud?
(the whispers. the memories of everything i've ever done wrong or said incorrectly, every time i've misspent money or betrayed a trust or failed to complete a task or-- it's everything)

You’re a whisper, too.
(because i have no one left to confide in but myself. and it’s so... . . . . . . . lonely)

And you call this phenomenon “crushing guilt”?


Yes.

the masters weave words
out of flowers, snow, city streets,
--all the colors of life.

i can only watch, mouth agape
as i study yet again
my jumbled mess of knots
and threads that never seem to find
the right place.

when i take a step back,
i strain to find the bigger picture,
but that was lost a thousand errors ago.

there is no pot of gold at the end

waves thunder, crashing white onto
quiet rocks as the sea splinters
into spraying mist, catching
the light all green and silver and blue
sun-golden shining

we sit at the tidemark among softly damp logs
and whitecrusted seaweed and fish bones
and gull feathers, pinions tugging free
from the magnetblack sand
in the wind

you and i, we are driftwood,
shipwreck debris sent spinning
out into the waves, hung up on this beach to watch
rainbows together for a moment before the sea
steals us back

i sit at this station
on a bench with two other men
with phone in hand
and you in mind
thinking over and over again

i watched you get your bags out of a taxi
you waved your last goodbye
so as i sit here
on a train station bench
i wish i could just cry

i see your figure in a blinding light
hand stuck out and you grin
i wish i could take it
but on this train station bench
you disappeared

but then someone with long flowing hair
blasts through the front door
you dash towards me
on a train station bench
and you are mine forevermore.