a belly-up beetle resists my flicking finger
finds your leg, my book, anywhere on the slippery picnic blanket
determined to stay
as the girl with a shaved head stands
on roller skates, akimbo atop the park bench
at the center of our horizon
she raises two
middle fingers at the sirens as they swim by
and we smile at the masked dog walkers, the Frisbee bandits,
remembering how broken everything is and
feeling in love with it all anyway
3
I skitter between this jellyfish trickster and an awareness of her soft, slow sea
I am three:
brain
body
beatific I
some metric of disorganized thirds, disconnected
and dissimilar and the same
steady as a three-legged stool
staring listless down a three-pronged path
no choosing, all wrong
I can not at once think and be nor is this body present
when its seconds come for her thirds
looking inward I disappear from myself
thoughts perceptible on the periphery glow opaque
this engine only churns when the door is closed
cactus petals
alone alone alone alone alive I’ll live adrift and
categorically nameless, abysmal as I
sink sink sink sink and sail as one sweet swirl
unmoored, and yet, memory persists
we see that we built as we sailed as we sank and we
wield our might and fury like cactus petals all bundled in bouquet
late winter blooms, those impossible pollinators
feed the panic that powers us
shoves us headlong to the cusps of broken bridges and we
cobble safe passage from flimsy flotsam
the carrion of sunken ships shattered on a shore
in sands of an impenetrable future, an invisible impossibility
and yet, hands held and heads hollowed by exhaustion
we step step step step and sink together
cells that cannot touch, magnetized by fear
dissolve a space we couldn’t anyway know
peace is joy propelled forever somewhere and together somehow
untitled
burning wings inflamed by whits of growth’s friction
or sparked in fated fall
flutter from scapula to dirt
as habit makes her scratchy nest in my clavicle
(a friend who keeps my back bent)
and i am reminded the mechanics of how
i’ll never take flight Continue reading “untitled”
Rage woke me
Rage woke me, her busy brain sad and
shaken by the imperfect shapes of the day
and we wept at what she saw lost between the exchange of promise and possibility.
She wouldn’t rest and asked for stories
so I mucked up memories until she purred
and our morning sorrows slowed.
I am so easily seen by her Continue reading “Rage woke me”
Adulthood is Terriffying 