Catharsis

 When the timer expired in June of 2009,

And I said goodbye, numb to all of the appropriate feelings,

The journey from Columbia to Summerville, South Carolina,

Was filled with 90 straight minutes of tears.

And then, raw, red, and exhausted,

with Felix Mendelssohn's words,

A small sliver of the world, for perhaps the only time,

Knew me.

The teachers in my throat

Vagus - 2/14/2013

A niche-famous radio host described
the testimony of his interviewee,
 the way that blood began to pool from the shark attack.
The Arrogant Bastard(TM), which had
passed you by an hour prior, 
was still a little there, perhaps.

"Recite prime numbers,"
somehow who loved me said.
I did, but it wasn't as comforting as
she thought it would be. I had
to
escape... leave, so that
no
one
would see 
me, as weak, as 
I truly 
was.

Then,

You insisted on 
vulnerability,
nothingness, darkness,
and peace when I could not.
And the blood, released by the red-toothed corner
of the wall
in Zellerbach Hall
began to pool.

Trachea - 11/11/2023

I read the air, 
heavy with mistaken rain,
and felt moss, like wet carpet
from when I always forgot to
return my towel to the rack
next to the shower

The soft ground was cold comfort
to repeatedly bending knees.
Time was slow (comparatively).

My face was the smoothest
it had been since puberty.
A kind man who might have
perceived my fear, but could not
parse my gratitude,
had been close to you.
I was shining, remembering 
lies that I believed in.

My breath was timed,
one for each two steps,
fast - the inner friction on you
liberating the taste of
iron in my mouth

that iron, realizing its own disorder
(and loving it) refined itself into a sheet,
an edge, a point.

I gripped a handle.
The truth imagined in my heart,
I thought were realized 
by a shivering hand.

But truly, months later,
I would realize the point was a foot higher,
The blade, a pinpoint that
liberated carbon dioxide.
And, when I needed it most,
my lungs were opened.

Esophagus - 12/25/2024

Delectable, I thought,
were the refined carbohydrates
that you embraced,
A true innovation 
from troubled lovers.

Was it those?
The unclean flesh that followed, 
or perhaps the acid beverage?
Was it the weight of a responsibility
I was never at peace with?
Or just the oldest and deepest
of my survival impulses?

Lo, how a rose e'er
blooming inside of you
from somewhere below
that I could not see.
The taste, undeniable,
palpable and wet,
signaled my first teacher,
and this time we held hands
and embraced her peace together.

The paramedics insisted that I choose.
"Decision time," they said.
It was Christmas Day, after all,
and there were many, for some reason.

Thyroid - 03/28/2024

You were silent
for so long.
In my case, they said
it was rare for you to speak,
I was young. I was male.
And that they were not worried.
I was worried, perhaps
uncontrollably.

You were awake,
speaking, and in need
of space.

I waited weeks, months to hear you,
some said half a year, even after I cried out.
To see you, I entered a tube, a ring,
lied down on many chairs.
Two times, we took some part of you
to see what you were saying.

In an image, you were 
teaching the other teachers,
forcing them into new shapes
like the crook of the question mark
rising into my head

beneath the diffracting stars

from the metal in my teeth.

Now, they say you must go,
or at least part of you.
You will have more space at least.

Despite the heat and severe lack thereof
I have felt for and from you,
You have taught me the most,
by so persistently insisting
on impermanence.

I only hope I have learned well.

Lament

 I am

what you should call degenerate,

two states between

which I can barely

tell the

difference

and when observed in them

can you?

お見舞い

時計針

静かな呼吸

一緒歩む

5:56

暗い朝

静止に静かに

時計が来る

Blue Key

I read the air, 

heavy with mistaken rain,

and felt moss, like wet carpet

from when I always forgot to

return my towel to the rack

next to the shower

The soft ground was cold comfort

to repeatedly bending knees.

Time was slow (comparatively).

My face, the smoothest

it had been since puberty

(from a kind man who might have

perceived my fear, but could not

parse my gratitude)

was shining, remembering 

the you that I believed in

My breath was timed,

one for each two steps,

fast - rubbing my trachea

liberating the taste of

iron in my mouth

that iron, realizing its own disorder

(and loving it) refined itself into a sheet,

an edge, a point.

I gripped a handle.

The truth imagined in my heart,

now realized by a shivering hand.

ジャズ

黒鍵と白鍵

銀色の楽器や

鳴き声で

ポケットの内容

スマホ財布

旅券車の鍵

硬貨の音

Husk

The last whiskers of a late winter ear of corn were withering into a dust when I heard the whistle of your sleeping sigh and thought you might not know me all that well.

But winter comes and winter goes, and corn goes away and grows and to the soil and trees and everything with eyes that can see years will say that brown and dull yellow can only lead to green. 

Image

 In a parked car, still,

staring at a redwood tree

Regretting the lack of courage

That starves the heart of me.

Memory

 The memory of a body

Infects my mind

A straight line up

Twenty-seven-odd rays of light

Must be from the window.

A field of brown or red,

Two black circles,

Centers, blue,

And I am slowly undone,

Speechless, disassembled

by the memory and you.

Open

 You are a field

With short grass

The wind blows over you

Unencumbered

You are an ocean

With strong waves

But a stronger, still,

Underwater

You are a mountain

With high peaks

Standing against the clouds

Unmovable

You are the sky

Infinite, illuminated.

Holding sunlight

Unending.

runaway

when can i touch

the whirlwind of fire

in your hair

when can I feel

the shock of your skin

when can i hold you

wrap you up in my arms

is it enough

to hold you in my heart

can't tell where

the tracks are going

or, before we get there,

whether it all will end

but if we crash

i'd like to crash together

if you'd like, stay close

and if you'll let me, reach, and

I will hold your hand.

Bodies

When we were liquid
and our bodies flowed,
we dribbled down into
all the crevices
we could find, 

seeing, feeding, dreaming
of every new dark to make light,
of all the new sunsets to make night.

When we were molten
and our shapes soft,
we rose from underground
to embrace the air,

sensing, needing, forcing
each molecule to flow,
each new memory to be known.

Our bodies,
former selves,
cooled and heavy, are now
hardened into shells.

goodbye mr. saturn

goodbye mr. saturn
because it's time for
you to recede into the
distance as my dawn,
more likely morning,
(or morbidly, twilight)
recedes into mid-day.

Elegy Seven

A fizzled memory of

the un-comfortable silence
on the phone,

I'd built a cage around
my denial of you
and put myself in it,

since it felt safer.

I avoided your eyes,
avoided you.

You probably deserved better from me.

If it's any consolation,
a ghost haunts my brain
with visions of how I might
have saved you, and wonders aloud
"good god I hope she wasn't alone,"
afraid that you could have been.

Found things

"I was being put under for a wisdom tooth extraction a few years back, and it was the first time i've ever had anesthesia. They used injection method rather than gas, so they told me to watch the fluids going in so i could gauge when i'd feel sleepy. I had this idea that i would say something like "oh no, doc, i've lost my eyesight" or something else preposterous. Before i could collect my thoughts i just immediately blurted "well shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit" (my voice progressively getting lower) and passed out."

When I heard you say
"you are a father the moment you enter me"

I thought I'd be clever:

"well
shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit"

a list of things hell is

les autres
loiterers
malingerers
meandering
philandering
windmills,
tilling at
teleology
toiletries
tinctures
necessity
necrosis
meiosis
money
women
men
me

Winter

I hurt too much like soil erodes
when rivers desperately run by

and should I sense a bitter wind
I'll bend beneath it's breath.

But if I find you lost, my friend,
and should your heart ache,

I will be relentless love
until my body breaks.

memorial in grey

who knows what you felt
as those stars came down

perhaps rage over the infectious fire
that consumed your home and people

breathe and hope, brother,
father, and my beautiful son,

the terrible gallantry that demanded nothing
less than your life shall not steal your soul