i see you, limp
on the ground
in every room of this house
and sometimes on sidewalks
and in darkly lit places.i’ve been sleeping with the lights
on lately, but
they don’t protect me
from the darkness
that’s entered my mindthey leave,
constantly illuminated,
the inescapable end
i discovered in your eyes
as they rolled back
into your head
on the hardwood floors
where we used to build
empires.
could you feel it beginning
to fall apart
when you kissed her lips
under the floral arch?
it happened so soon,
he became the glue that bound
you together.
you’d count his fingers and
toes, so delicate and small.
you never would’ve guessed they’d
make those holes in the dry-wall.you never imagined you’d be here
again; broken glass on the kitchen
floor, a policeman
knocking at the door.there’s a silent melancholy
song that pours from
your lips,
like the whiskey you nurse
as they take him away with
his hands behind his back.
mother, don’t you know?
the boy with the golden
irises doesn’t smile anymore.
he’s packed, and there’s something
heavy in the bags he carries
underneath those eyes.
there’s no such thing as darkness
in the city of angels.
there’s no fear in death when
you welcome it.
perhaps the sun will thaw
him, perhaps the cold has
nothing to do with why he’s
so numb.
you say the whole
world looks a little
crooked.
my head is on
the wooden floor,
staring at the bowed leg of
a chair, and i guess
it is a little
twisted.i had a dream last night.
we were all vampires, living
in my apartment back at
school. when i woke up
everything was the same except
mom and dad didn’t want to
suck my blood.i guess the earth is a little
bit crooked, tilting
at twenty three point five
degrees on its axis.i’ve been dreaming about
death a lot recently. it’s funny
because when i’m asleep i am always
the one being killed, but
i know that what
we’re trying
to kill does not have its own heartbeat,
but rather has taken
over yours.sissy said something
the other day that made me want to cry:
that the life has drained from your
eyes. sometimes
it’s hard to look at the beautiful gold
they have become.
i hate that color.
i know what it means.i guess you’re
right.
the world is pretty warped.
i think you can see it better than i.
is it scary? is the world
a little straighter when
your eyes are golden
like that? does it look
a little brighter?
you’d heard the phrase “to love is to suffer” so you weren’t exactly surprised when the first time you saw his eyes you had stained the sheets red. but you had been so ready to cradle him in your arms and feel his beating heart that you ignored it.
twenty two years later you’re looking through his desk drawers while he’s out; not quite sure what you’re looking for, but knowing there must be a reason his eyes have looked so golden lately. there must be a reason he’s out so damn much.
when you hear the news, all you can think of is his heart, once so small and fragile. that heart that used to beat within your own body is now beating arrhythmically to the sound of train tracks on his arms. and you remember ‘to love is to suffer,’ yet you had never thought it would consume you so much.
you never knew that loving him would mean he would suffer, too. that often you’d hug him so hard, you’d leave a bruise. or that you’d love him so much, sometimes you’d try to save him from being himself.
we’re pressing pause
with ocean water on our faces.
you’re pressing play
with syrup in your veins.
this ship is going down;
one by one
we throw you our life
jackets so you may stay afloat–
we’re already sinking anyways.large waves are hitting us now,
water blanketing the floor.
you throw your head back and laugh
and jump overboard.
all lifejackets with us, even
yours.
nothing we had could
save you.
you’re close enough to me
that i can see your eyes,
but they are
somewhere far away
from here. and so we sit
on the couch in silence,
me reading my book, you
staring into space and repeating
the same five lines from a song
i don’t know.
i really do feel like you’re on some
other side, you know.
mom’s crying on the kitchen floor,
stabbing holes into
cellophane because
at least when grandma died,
her body didn’t haunt us anymore.
you have been used
by the world for too long.
your edges are
becoming soft. you are collapsing
under the
weight of this world
while giving him a piggyback.
you must let him hit
the ground before he can learn how
to pick himself back up.
you can’t chase him through the
playground anymore, he is lost
in mazes you would never be able
to escape from.
you cannot help him
find the way out when you are
just as lost yourself.run away
from the place he’s landed.
take time to develop the strength
to breathe
life back into his lungs
for when he finally decides
he wants to live again.
Silenticel 